Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
“Tarni,” I growl softly. “I came to stop them from hurting you. I had every intention of taking you back to the forest and making you mine forever. My love for you is greater than my hatred for your kind. You have shown me your devotion, and your strength. And even if none of that were true, we are on the run, my little animal. And self-pity will get us both killed.”
She lifts her head and looks at me with an expression that melts between multiple feelings all at once. “You’re right,” she says. “I need to get a grip.”
“And I love you.”
“And you love me… but, why?” She looks very much puzzled.
“We forged a bond in the wild. That was not a lie or a deception. You saved my life. That was not a matter of pretend. That cat was real, and it was not on your payroll. Your suffering before, that was not a lie. You were able to lure me into carrying out my own plan because you were all the things I thought you were. You were weak, you were sick, you were hurt. You were abandoned to the wild.”
“I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for what I did to you, and what my people did to yours.” Her eyes well with regret and shame. “It should not have taken a hundred days in the wild to teach me that your species has just as much value as mine. I should have known that as a simple and obvious truth.”
I have an idea. It was an idea I intended to execute regardless, because she is not completely wrong. She has done wrong, and she does need to pay for that wrongdoing. Not for me, but for herself.
“I can take some of your guilt away.”
“How?”
“Let me punish you. Let me bring you pain, and after the pain, let yourself experience forgiveness.”
She swallows. “Pain?”
“Yes. It’s what you need. You are harder on yourself than even I am. You need no judge to sentence you. You have already sentenced yourself. If they had opened your cell, and not I, you probably would have taken yourself to their gallows and strung yourself up in your eagerness to repent. You are infected by guilt, Tarni, and I will not allow it.”
Tarni
I argued my way into this position, and now I regret it. I know when Kail says there will be pain, it will truly hurt. And with the depth of the guilt I feel, it will have to hurt for quite a long time.
I swallow. “Uhm. I don’t know…”
“You don’t need to know, because I do,” he says with that calm, savage confidence. “I know what you need, Tarni, and I am going to look after you now, just as I looked after you before.”
He extends a hand to me, and I know that taking it means submitting to the pain he is talking about. I hesitate, and then I reach back. He guides me up from the pilot’s chair, and leads me back to one of the cabins, choosing the larger one, because he will need room to punish me.
I trail behind him, almost wanting to dig my feet in and make him pull me. I want to act as though this is against my will, and that I do not consent. But I asked for this. I practically begged for it. I am finally going to get what I have coming, and I know all too well what that is.
“Take that thing off,” he says, gesturing to the prison garb I still wear. “I do not like it on you. It does not suit you one bit.”
I am hesitant to make myself naked in front of him, which seems ridiculous given that I have been naked before him so many times.
I had not thought about how this attire feels on me. On consideration, it feels right, because it is the garb of a criminal and a traitor, and I am both those things.
“Off, Tarni.”
Hearing my name in his mouth in a stern tone jolts me into action. I obey his order, drawing down the zipper on the overalls and letting them peel off me like a second skin. His golden eyes fall on me.
“You have always been beautiful,” he says. “It is a great pity to have to mark you in punishment. Lie down on this bed and present yourself.”
Again, I obey. I asked for this, so disobeying now would be nothing more than another sign of deception and untrustworthiness. I lie down on the bed, closing my eyes as I do, which changes nothing because I couldn’t see him anyway. All I can see is the cool linen of the bed, starched with military precision. It’s comfortable, and I feel bad about that because it feels as though it shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve any comfort. I….