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He cocks his head to the side and looks at me with some annoyance. “Are you saying fine because you agree, or because you want me to shut up and go away?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does if you want to avoid pain,” he says. “I am going to punish you tonight. You are going to be spanked for hunting today.”
I give him a little shrug.
“Fine.”
His brows lower in displeasure. He has already removed his jacket, but now he starts to roll his sleeves up over his forearms, revealing what looks to be muscular human arms rippling with his movements. I know better. What’s really roiling beneath that skin is alien indignation and determination.
“I think you have forgotten what I am capable of, young lady. I think all the blood rituals and the hunting and the babies have led you to misremember how things are with me.”
I didn’t forget. I’ve never forgotten the first time Atlas tried to put me in a little contained world and treated me like a cherished human who just needed to be looked after. He was the only one of my alien mates who did not try to fuck or breed me immediately. He addressed my needs and my behavior. He cared, and I will never forget that.
“Gloves on, or off?” I hold my hands up.
“Off,” he says.
I peel my gloves off and remove my kitten heels. He didn’t say to take those off, but I don’t think I’ll be needing them. I lose half an inch in height by doing that, which puts me at a further disadvantage to my tall, pretending-to-be-human husband.
He sits on the bed and pats his thigh. “Come here,” he says. He is being very stern, but very mild.
I do as I am told, trying not to giggle. After all I have been through, this feels so very domestic, and so very innocent. It’s nice to experience a little sweetness from time to time amid the revenge and the bloodlust - and that’s just Sally teething. My murderousness is a whole other level of things.
He takes me by the wrist and tips me over his knees. I go from feeling like an absolute monster to being nothing more than a naughty wife being taken over her stern husband’s lap. I settle in across his legs, my head and feet on the coverlet, supported by the bed. I am actually rather comfortable.
“I love you,” he says. “And I love our family. I love Sally and Rhys. I am looking forward to taking her to become princess of Kronos’ tribe one day. And I am looking forward to whatever travesties Rhys commits when he is grown. But none of that will happen if you get yourself and them killed in this vendetta against all things numahn.”
“I would never let them be hurt. Ever.”
“You will not see it coming. One day there will be a trap. They are noticing, my bride. They know there is something hunting their kind. You have to stop, or we will have to move. The entire point of creating a small simulation for you was to give you somewhere you would be safe.”
I thought he was going to spank me, and I wish he would, because this lecturing is the worst. I don’t know why the biggest, meanest, spikiest of my alien husbands with the most capacity for destruction and death is the one taking me in hand and gently explaining I really must stop the murdering.
“I don’t think you can keep me safe,” I say.
That does it.
He starts to spank me, the flat of his palm meeting my ass through the fabric of my dress. It is only a thin chiffon and it does very little to protect me. He could make it hurt more, but he is content to make it sting.
“This will help the programming stick,” he says. “We are going to do this every night until you start behaving the way I expect you to.”
Am I supposed to complain? Beg for mercy? Hardly. This is a little patty cake treatment.
His palm lands firmly again, slapping both my cheeks in a sharp blow that makes them sting. “I hope you understand,” he says, as the spanking starts in proper earnest. “Because I have no intention of letting you get out of hand.”
I don’t reply to that statement, because from there on out my ass is being peppered with stinging slaps that take my breath away each and every time they land. Atlas spanks me hard and fast, throwing up my skirt and covering every bit of skin. He is firm and he is relentless, and he is letting the sensation build in a way that means although no single slap is too much to bear, their combined effect makes me writhe over his thighs.
“You are going to leave the numahns alone,” he says. “Or you will answer to me. You are going to perform your duties as wife and mother safely in the confines of this home. You are grounded until further notice. I am not pleased with you, because I know you know better. This reckless, vengeful behavior might be in your blood now, but I will not allow it.”
“It’s not because of Emrys!” I yelp the words.
“What is it because of?”
He pauses, sensing I have something to say. He is not wrong. I have not merely been hunting for pleasure, or to relieve boredom. I have been hunting for revenge.
“I want to kill them all,” I admit, a small sob of rage escaping me. “I want to kill every one of them, every one that reminds me of him. You got to kill him. I didn’t. But every time I kill one of them, it feels like, for just a moment, I’m getting my own back.”
