Kings and Sinners

by Alta Hensley

  “Oh.” Stryder chuckled, having the grace to look at least a bit chagrined. “Sorry. I know the stalactites and stalagmites are pretty amazing, but I guess I’m just used to seeing them daily.”

  “I don’t think I’d ever become accustomed to them,” Zoya said, looking up again. “But, I know we’re here to work, not sight see.”

  With a gentle guide of his palm against her lower back, he led her to a round conference table. Slipping into the chair he pulled away, she saw that the purchases they’d made at Wal-Mart the day before awaited her. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the drawing pad and the charcoal pencil. Flipping the cover of the pad, she closed her eyes a moment at the sight of the first blank sheet of parchment.

  “Hey, just relax.” Stryder’s voice had her eyes opening to find he’d squatted down by her chair. “Just take your time and do the best you can. No pressure.”

  “I’m fine,” she said softly. “Just picturing the… the subject.”

  He nodded, reaching to pat her hand before rising. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

  “I will.” She watched as he walked the short distance to drop into a chair in front of a bank of computer monitors where Anson was already seated. They began to talk softly as she turned her attention back to the pad. With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes for a few more moments, steeling herself for the feelings that she knew would threaten to consume her. Don’t. They can only frighten you if you let them. You are safe. Prove you aren’t that coward. It’s time to turn the tables and get the sons of bitches before they could terrorize another woman. Opening her eyes, she began to draw, the amazing room, the brothers’ soft voices, the hum of the machines disappearing as she poured every ounce of her concentration into creating the portraits that would help begin to bring down Poplov’s empire.

  With every stroke of her charcoal pencil, a face began to emerge. Curves became eyes, arcs formed eyebrows and lines formed a jaw. Without conscious thought, she opened the tin of colored pencils, using a combination, she added color to the skin, the hair that was slightly too long. It was as if she were back in that club… too far gone with the drugs slipped into her drink to fully understand that life as she’d known it was over. But the moment she picked up the dark blue pencil, applying the color and using another of lighter blue, blending the two hues together, the shudder of fear that ran down her spine told her that she’d gotten this one exactly right. Not only could she do this… she had to do this. Flipping the page, she began the next drawing, ignoring Katarina who had stood between the two men… for the moment at least. Time disappeared, the point of her pencil growing a bit dull, the charcoal transferring from her fingertips to her cheek, her throat, her forehead as she unconsciously lifted a finger to rub at her temple or massage her neck. The two men from the club completed, she put the finishing touches on the portrait of the woman she’d been foolish enough to consider a friend. Needing to get that face out of her head, she flipped a page and began to draw again. This was the one that broke her. It wasn’t Poplov or any of his employees, or even one of the monsters who had stood in that room, willing to part with obscene amounts of money in order to own, to use, to abuse another human being. When she saw the depth of the pain she’d drawn into the eyes of the woman, she stood, pushed the pad aside, threw the pencil to the floor and tore from the room.

  “Zoya!”

  Ignoring Stryder’s call, she raced back the way she’d come, bursting over the threshold into the office, continuing through the house. Her heart was racing, her feet pounding over the floors, her vision blurry with tears. The voice in her head screaming at her to get out, to run, drowned out the sound of Stryder calling to her. She gave a strangled cry when she had to slow in order to open the front door, but once through, she flew down the steps, her tennis shoes pounding the dirt as she ran… ran as if the very hounds of hell were on her heels.

  They’d driven over a rise to reach the house, but as she was going the opposite direction, the slope had her practically flying. Any thought that attempted to grab her attention was shoved away. She didn’t want to think—to feel—all she wanted was to run and so she did. It wasn’t until a sound she’d never link with that of anything from that nightmare reached her that she even turned her head. What she saw had her stumble and almost fall, her arms windmilling until she regained her balance. When the sound repeated, she was shocked to realize she felt no fear. She continued to place one foot in front of the other, eating up yard after yard but no longer running alone. A colt, solid black except for white “socks” on each of his legs, ran beside her on the opposite side of the fence. He would toss his head and give a repeat of the whinny that had first pulled her attention away from the memory that she had fled from… the eyes she’d drawn, eyes that belonged to a woman who hadn’t been as lucky as she. As she began to slow, the colt keeping pace right beside her, she began to sob.

  “I’m sorry, Natalia… God, I’m so sorry.”

  The next time she stumbled, she fell to her hands and knees, her head hanging as she struggled to breathe through the sobs that were tearing through her chest. The colt pulled up, his head hanging over the fence, dark soulful eyes on her as he gave another soft whinny.

  Chapter 11

  Fucking hell! Stryder didn’t have time to be playing childish games with the woman. Yes, she was scared. He knew that, and it ripped up his insides knowing Zoya might never truly feel safe again, but she was the one who had said she could do this. They were running out of time. Every day, every minute, every second, an innocent woman suffered at the hands of one of those monsters, and they needed Zoya’s help to bring them all to safety. As much as he wanted to be patient with Zoya, now was the time to work and focus. They didn’t have the luxury of taking their time and easing into it to spare her emotions. The mission must go on, eliminating all obstacles. Was his way of thinking heartless? Cold? Uncaring?

  Yes. But he couldn’t allow himself to give a fuck.

  Lives were at stake, and evil was winning every second they waited. So chasing down Zoya and dealing with her hysterics was not helping one bit. She needed to develop a tough skin, and running out of the operations room like a frightened little girl was not going to help anyone.

  “Zoya! Get back here now!” He hoped his booming voice would be enough for her to take pause.

  It wasn’t.

  If he were being honest with himself, he would admit that this was a fucking blow to his ego as well. Zoya was his save. This meant that along with her care and safety, what she did and her behavior were his responsibility as well. Stryder knew his brothers were finding this all really amusing. He saw their smirks when he called for Zoya to stop and she didn’t. It wasn’t their duty, but his, to chase after her and deal with it.

  He had never had one of his saves out and out defy him before. If he had called out any other of his saves’ names in the past, they would have stopped immediately—frozen by their fear of him. His warning voice would have been enough. Maddox had once accused him of being too tough, and Anson had called him an asshole on more than one occasion. His father had constantly lectured him about how it wasn’t good to have the save fear you. That Stryder needed to be more sensitive and soft. To try to understand how vulnerable they felt. Over and over, he got the talk from his family and the looks. He wasn’t good at all that mushy stuff, but he was trying his hardest with Zoya. Or at least, he had been. But look what happened when he played nice? The save just picks up and flees like a jackrabbit. If he had been a heartless prick, she would have at least feared his ass and not been bolting out of the house.

  “Zoya!”

  She ran at full speed, out the door and down a dirt path along the fence. Her limber body cut through the air, and her sprint seemed almost effortless on her part. Her tiny feet moved so fast that all you could see was a blur of motion. It was truly a magnificent sight, only intensified when a young horse trotted up to the fencing and ran alongside her. His breath caught at the sight of her stumb
ling, her arms flailing until she regained her balance. The colt tossed his head and gave a whinny as if in approval as the two ran in perfect stride with each other, connecting as one as the wind danced within the hair of their manes.

  Cursing himself for being distracted by her beauty again, he called out. “You get back here now! Don’t make me chase you, or you will be sorry when I finally catch you!” Sprinting toward her definitely was not as easy for him as she made it look. It had been a while since he had had to do any type of running, especially at this speed.

  Leaping down the stairs of the porch and lengthening his stride so he could catch up with his vixen already had his lungs working in overdrive. He actually wondered if he would be able to catch up to her rapid pace when suddenly Zoya stumbled again, this time falling to the ground and landing on her hands and knees. His heart skipped, worried she had injured herself, which made his sprint toward her only grow in intensity.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, winded when he approached.

  Zoya was already brushing off the dirt and small pebbles from the palms of her hands. Tears coursed down her face, though she didn’t seem to be acting as if she were in any pain.

  He knelt down beside her and took hold of her upturned hands to examine them for himself. “Are you hurt?” He quickly scanned the rest of her body. He didn’t see any blood on her hands, and her knees were only dusty, with not even a hole in the denim of her jeans.

  She shook her head but continued to cry. “No. I’m not hurt.” Yet the tears still streamed down her delicate face.

  Releasing the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, the fear left his body only to be replaced with anger. “What the hell are you doing?” He took hold of both of her upper arms and squeezed. Maybe a little too hard, but he didn’t care. She had scared the shit out of him when he saw her tumble and he wasn’t there to catch her. “Look at me!”

  Zoya tried to pull free from his grip. “Let go of me. I don’t want to be here anymore!” The sadness that was on her face changed to an expression of fury and rage.

  His grip tightened. “Well, darlin’, you don’t get that luxury to just pick up and leave because you want to. We have a mission—”

  “It’s your mission! Not mine,” she interrupted. “I never asked for this. I didn’t ask to come to this ranch.”

  “No, but you did agree to help. And I expect to hold you to your word.”

  “I didn’t realize—”

  “That it would be hard? Well, it will be, and we are just getting started. You may hear things that make you want to puke. You may see things that you can never unsee again.” Stryder kept hold of the tops of her arms and stood her up, staring directly into her glistening eyes. “And no, you didn’t ask for any of it. It’s fucked up, and I feel sorry for you, but you are the safe one right now. You get to be free and not fucked against your will and abused by some stranger in some unknown country. You are the lucky one, so stop your goddamn pity party and worry about the women who actually have something to cry about right now.”

  He knew he was being harsh. But they were at war with Poplov, and there was no time for despair and weakness on the battleground.

  Zoya’s mouth opened wide in shock but her tears did seem to cease. “Fuck you! I’m not having a pity party!”

  Stryder smirked. “Looks like it to me. What would you call it?” He let go of her and smugly crossed his arms against his chest.

  “I am upset! I have that right.”

  “No, you don’t. If you were one of those sex slaves, then you would have the right to be upset. How I see it right now, you look mighty damn selfish.”

  “I was drawing Natalia and…” She looked up into his eyes with pure venom. “You have no idea how I feel. The guilt I have because I am here and she is not. I feel awful!”

  “You should! You should feel awful because right now, Natalia needs you. She needs you in that room, focusing on the job at hand, but you have decided to go for a run instead, crying like a little girl. And Natalia needs me, but instead of being able to help my brothers inside, I’m having to deal with this childish temper tantrum.”

  With that, Stryder grabbed Zoya’s arm, spinning her around and marching her to the white fence separating them from the colt that grazed on the green grass, oblivious to the drama around. Before Zoya could even utter a response, he reached around her front and unbuttoned her jeans, unzipping them effortlessly. Zoya slapped at his hands and squealed, but it was too late. Her pants were lowered, revealing pink lace panties against creamy-white flesh.

  “What are you doing? Stop!” she screamed, trying to pull up her jeans to no avail. Stryder actually smiled at the fact that this woman thought she could compete with his strength.

  He took hold of her hands and placed them behind her back, not allowing her to conceal her lacy behind. “I’m going to give you two options,” he growled into her ear. “You can take this spanking like a good girl, and it will be far less painful, or you can resist the entire time, but then you won’t be sitting comfortably for a week.”

  “Spanking? You can’t be serious!”

  “Oh, I am. I warned you about how I spank a bare behind.”

  “You are insane! Let me go so I can pull up my pants. People will see!”

  “Then let them see. Let them all see how I deal with a brat. You act like a naughty girl, then you get spanked like one. I warned you last night, did I not?”

  “Stryder no! I thought we were… I thought you were—”

  “Kidding? Playing around?”

  “I thought you were—I don’t know—just spouting alpha talk.”

  Stryder chuckled. “Well, I guess you are about to learn how an alpha really talks.” He pressed her forward to where she was just inches from the fence. “Bend over and hold onto the rail. If you hold your position and don’t make me work for it, I will go easier on you.”

  Zoya looked over her shoulder, her eyes revealing that she wasn’t angry anymore but rather curious, and as if she were really pondering her choices. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I will hold your position for you, but use my belt while I do.”

  Her eyes darted around. “You can’t be serious. You want to spank me, out in the open? What if someone sees me? I’m in just my panties.”

  Stryder patted the pink lace beautifully molded to her ass and said, “Yes, I plan to spank you. And don’t worry about anyone seeing your panties. I spank on bare behinds.”

  He wasn’t one for public humiliation. He knew the ranch hands were occupied with daily chores at the stables, and everyone else was inside the operations room, or inside the house. But he wasn’t going to reassure Zoya on that. A little shame and embarrassment would only add to the punishment and make her think twice before testing him.

  “Stryder! You wouldn’t!”

  “I would. You had no concern about how you looked with your hysterics tearing out of the operations center, or how you looked running down the road like a mad woman. So why should you care what people think of you now?” He pointed to the fence. “Over, now. If I have to ask again, my belt will be doing the talking from that point forward.”

  “Moudak!” she spat, but did as he asked. She bent over, and the firmness of her perfectly shaped ass tightened even more as she pushed out her rounded globes to receive his punishment.

  He chuckled. “I was wondering how long it was gonna take you to start that again. You can call me names and hate me all you want. But I am a man of my word.” He reached for her panties and pulled them down to find their new home on her upper thighs. She gasped, but still remained in place. “Do you remember what you made me promise you?”

  He landed the palm of his hand onto the smooth skin of her butt. The loud crack mastered the quiet air around them. She gasped loudly but didn’t say or do anything else. As a perfect imprint of his hand bloomed on her left buttock, he was happy to see that she did remain in position, even after she felt the sting of the first swat. A matching handp
rint appeared on her right cheek as he spanked the other side of her bottom a little harder this time, giving her a few seconds to come to terms with the sting. His cock hardened and pressed against the denim of his pants, but he pushed the sexual thoughts out of his mind. This wasn’t about sex. This was about correction and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a man of his word. He had never actually spanked a woman before as a punishment or real discipline. Every time before was for naughty behavior, or mischievous play, and had always been erotic. This time was different. He was following through with what she had asked him to do.

  He spanked a few times in rapid swats, watching her flesh begin to turn a soft shade of pink. “Answer me, Zoya. What did you ask me to promise?” He applied a hard spank and then another to accentuate his question.

  She stubbornly remained silent.

  Swat

  Swat

  Swat

  “Ouch! To… to promise me you wouldn’t let me falter and run,” she squeaked out as she wiggled her bottom to try to avoid the continued spanking. “Ow!”

  “And what did you just do?” He spanked even harder, concentrating on her sit-spots, knowing they stung like the dickens.

  “Ow!” she cried. “This hurts! I get your point! Ow!”

  “Yes, that is the intended effect.”

  She started to stand up and was rewarded with a hand to her lower back, guiding her back into position.

  “Stryder! You have spanked me enough. I have learned your stupid lesson!”

  “Clearly not.” He walloped on her protruding behind some more, feeling the heat from her flesh radiate against his palm. “Now answer my question. What did you just do?”

  “I ran,” she answered, crying out with each connection of hand to butt. “Stryder, I don’t like this. My ass feels like it’s on fire. I’ve had enough!”

  When she began to bend her knees, lowering her backside, he simply slid his arm around her waist, easily lifting her back into the proper position, his hand never once missing a beat as he continued to prove to her that she could always depend on him to keep his word. “Good, you’re not supposed to like it. This is a punishment spanking, and I will decide when you have had enough.” He continued, making sure she would feel some discomfort for at least long enough to finish her work for the day. By the time he was done here, he was pretty certain she would think twice before bolting out of the operation room again. “Trust me, I can make you love the touch of my hand spanking your creamy-white ass. I can make you beg for more. But today is not about that. I want you to remember what happens when you put yourself first, in front of women who really need you right now.”