She pursed her lips angrily for a long moment.
“Just tell me,” he sighed, exhausted.
“Ellie,” she huffed. “Ellie Jonas. Well, technically my name’s Eleanor, but everyone calls me Ellie. Satisfied? Enough name for ya?”
He was smirking now. He had never heard a similar name in all his life. Eleanor. He thought it was beautiful, and strong—a big name for a little body. It suited her. “Eleanor Jonas. Eleanor Jonas Mahstersyn,” he said aloud, testing it out on his own tongue.
“Masterson?” she repeated, pressing syllables together that normally had breaks. She wrinkled her nose. “Hey! What are you doing?” she demanded, suddenly turning to glare at Thorton, who was crouching in front of the control panel. Graham had been paying so much attention to her, he hadn’t even seen Thorton get to work.
“Hey, little lady,” Thorton greeted with a cheerful wave of a screwdriver. “Don’t pay me any mind. Didn’t mean to interrupt. I know what I’m doing—I was just going to make some adjustments while you both hammered this out.”
“No way!” she hissed. “If these doors don’t work right, they’ll never let me finish.”
“Oh, they’ll work,” he assured her. “I’m gonna borrow your pliers, here,” he said, plucking the tool from her hand.
She frowned at him, but then threw up her arms and sighed. She thought distantly about the guards outside, but she could hear that they were having a good laugh with each other even from here. As usual, there was no way they were paying any attention whatsoever. “Fine, whatever. Want my gloves?” she offered, peeling them off of her hands.
“Nah. Those will be too small for me. I don’t like wearing them, anyway,” he replied offhandedly. He brushed his fingers back and forth. “Carry on,” he allowed aloofly.
“Well?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Gonna say something to him about the gloves?” she asked, waving at Thorton with her whole arm. Thorton chuckled in response, obviously listening in.
Graham grunted and took her by the hand into the farthest, darkest corner in the room, hoping for at least an illusion of privacy, replying, “Thorton’s a grown man. He can do what he wants. He’s not my mate.”
“Neither am I!” she cried. When they stopped, she leaned up against the wall. “What can I do to get you to understand that?” she asked wearily.
“What can I do to get you to understand that you are?” he asked, echoing her frustration.
She suddenly shoved his torso with her hands, trying to push him back as she made an angry ‘raah’ sound. He tilted his head, looking at her. “You’re actually pretty adorable when you’re angry,” he mentioned aloud, raking his eyes over her pouty, kittenish expression.
“My adorability must be just unbearable right now,” she seethed. “Look, I admit, I feel weird and I can’t seem to really think straight. Perhaps I’ve been under too much stress lately, I don’t know. But what I do know is that when I decide on a guy, it’s not going to be anyone like you. You’re just a pedantic, overly tall, pushy, domineering—” she ranted, spitting every word at him.
It was then that both of their bodies took over. They were pulled together like two magnets, and Graham was unsure of who made the first move to lock them together. It seemed instantaneous.
He kissed her mouth deeply, tasting her, dominating her tongue with his own. He had never done this before, nor did he care about either of their technique. It felt good to be this close, to be in her already.
She bit down on his bottom lip slightly, making a breathy moan and linking her hands behind his neck. He pulled her body up on his, straddling her on a thigh he bent up against the wall.
He reached up and, wanting to get closer to her skin, ripped her shirt apart. Buttons sprayed across the floor as he revealed her lacy undergarment to his hungry gaze. The white, intricate fabric did nothing to hide her stone-hard nipples. “I hate you,” she growled when she released his mouth.
“I don’t like you either,” he assured, rasping and out of breath. “You’re a brat. Stubborn! Ridiculous! Whiny!” He lowered his mouth to cover the nipple, still imprisoned in its lacy confines. He sucked it for a second and then growled, “And covered with too many layers!” His hands were shaking with need as he fumbled around her utility belt, trying to figure out how to unfasten it from her waist to be able to pull down her pants.
Since he was a boy, Graham had fantasized about what it would be like to claim a woman for the first time. In none of his fantasies had he ever envisioned himself taking his mate against the wall of a prison cell while four of his subordinates watched from the other side of the room.
But at the moment, he found it impossible to be concerned about any of it. There was just blind, pulsing need for his mate. There was nothing else in his universe except for her, and her soothing heat pressing against his thigh. He knew that everything in his life would be right again as soon as he brought her to her release and then pulsed inside of her. Nothing was more important than that…
Just as he was a second away from snapping her belt in half with frustration, he heard her gasp and felt her body freeze. He turned and saw one of the largest humans he’d ever seen marching toward them. Thorton had rushed to step into the man’s way as Graham turned around and pulled her behind him to shield her body with his own. He didn’t know who this man was, but he was a threat.
More interestingly, that threat simply threw—literally threw—Thorton out of his way.
“Peyton,” Eleanor gasped. “Wait. Wait. Chill out!” He glanced back and saw her trying to press the edges of her shirt together where the buttons used to be.
Graham turned back toward the human male and growled, exposing his teeth. He had almost never felt the urge to show his fangs before, but he couldn’t help himself now. There was something primal within him that wanted nothing more than to tear out this Peyton’s heart and discard it, just for having the audacity to interrupt his mating.
‘Peyton,’ to his surprise and annoyance, didn’t even look intimidated, despite the fact that Graham was larger than him by at least a half-foot. The male looked like he was merely being presented a much-desired challenge.
“Graham! Peyton! Don’t!” Graham’s little mate jumped in front of him and pushed her arms against Peyton’s chest. “Shh!” she shushed. “Just don’t. We can just go.”
Graham felt his heart pace at her words. She couldn’t go. There was no going! She was his! His!
Both he and Peyton squared their shoulders and prepared to run at each other. Graham was set to sink his teeth into him, which wasn’t an instinct he had felt before, just as someone grabbed his arms from behind and pulled him back.
It was his whole team. Graham roared in fury and grasped to get out of their hold and at least reach his mate, but they pulled him further back, except for Thorton, who was back on his feet and putting his hands up to the human to show that there was no quarrel, adding that there was no need to inform anybody about anything that was going on down here.
Peyton sneered, took off his coat, and tossed it violently toward Eleanor, who caught it in her hand. “Put that on,” he ordered her in a growl. “You and I are going to have a long discussion.”
“Peyton—” she began, looking wide-eyed and panicked.
“Now.” The male gave her a look that could kill.
Graham’s skin prickled. Had that male just threatened his mate?
He fought even harder. Thorton immediately jogged over and pushed him back as the others pulled, protecting the human male from Graham’s wrath. “You’re not gonna touch her!” Graham growled as he continued to struggle and claw to get away from his men. “She’s mine.”
As soon as she pulled the male’s coat over her shoulders, Peyton grabbed her upper arm in his large grasp. “She’s mine,” he assured, turning toward Graham with threat behind his piercing, dark blue eyes. “I’m Prime. You’re chopped liver. I see her down here again, and I will bring your world to a quicker close.” He tugge
d on her arm and propelled her in the direction of the door. “Let’s go.”
Eleanor turned to glance back at him, but he barely got to look on her for a whole second before the prime pushed her out of the room the rest of the way. Then, she was gone.
* * *
Despite what Peyton had said, they didn’t have much of a discussion. Certainly it wasn’t a long one. What they had could more aptly be described as a begging ceremony, where Ellie tried her best to keep Peyton from taking the skin off her after he dragged her by the scruff of the coat he’d lent to her all the way up to the gardens to snap a fresh switch.
She’d never been switched before, but as she still had bruises from earlier that day, she didn’t really feel up to finding out what the combination would be like.
“Peyton,” she tried again, her eyes following his newly cut switch’s every movement as he tested it on his own thigh. “If you can just hear me out—”
Peyton showed no signs that he was interested in hearing her out. In the next moment, he grabbed her upper arm and wheeled her roughly toward her bedroom.
“I know what I saw,” he retorted. “And what I saw was you lose your everlovin’ mind. I’m gonna tan the brains back into you, girl!”
Desperately, she grabbed ahold of her doorframe when he dragged her across the threshold of her bedroom, certain that there was nothing good to be experienced within. “Well, I can kind of explain that if you—Ack!” She forgot how strong Peyton was. She was surprised she didn’t take a chunk of the doorframe with her when he pulled her in and shut the door behind them.
He started stripping the bark off the switch he’d found as Ellie regained her footing.
It was time to explain things as quickly and as eagerly as possible, because she had no time for missteps in her story. “Alright, before you go nuts—there’s something weird afoot. Earlier, it was possible that something happened between me and that Swarii, and supposedly that’s the reason for the fever. There’s something big going on down there. Maybe I did lose my mind! I don’t know. I couldn’t help it, though, Peyton. I really couldn’t. It just happened! I mean, that commander’s actually kind of an ass, but I was still…”
“Lettin’ him in between your legs like a li’l hussy? Yeah. I saw,” Peyton assured grimly.
She blushed profusely before she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “I’m not a hussy, Peyton,” she finally said, feeling small. “I know I put you at risk, though, and I am super-sorry about that.”
“Risk? Risk? You were about to screw me—and not in the good way!” he blared. “May I remind you of what would happen if you…”
“I wasn’t thinking about you…” she admitted. “I wasn’t thinking really much at all. I just… forgot.”
Peyton looked at her with a very intimidating, very offended expression. “Yeah? Well, consider this your reminder. Pants off.”
She, instead, put her hands on her pants like she was determined to hold them onto her hips at all costs. “Just let me tell you my side of the story, at least!”
“Alright,” he said, tapping the switch impatiently against the side of his leg. “Talk. It better be real educational.”
She shifted her weight foot to foot, staring at the switch. “I can’t talk when you have that… thing in your hand,” she told him, waving at the switch he was wielding.
“Talk,” he ordered.
“Okay…” She bit her lip for a moment, and then unleashed it all. She recited everything that she had said and heard in the dungeon word-for-word, but in the end, Peyton just looked more pissed than he already was. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t even move, but the tenseness in his jaw and the way he was glaring at her spoke volumes of its own accord.
She got goosebumps over her arms as she realized that the reason he hadn’t said anything or moved at all in the course of the story was because he was frightened that if he did, he’d do something rash.
She sighed and accepted her judgement. “Can I change my shirt, at least?” she said, her posture an illustration of capitulation.
“Strip,” he ordered, but it was a short, controlled word.
“Peyton…” she whined. She hated being completely naked in front of him. And she hadn’t been naked and alone with him since their first day together. Not that there was anything between them, but she had imagined that they had a relationship that was a little more equal than his relationship with the other girls.
Now, she was presented with a lesson that she thought she’d never have to learn twice: Never blatantly disobey Peyton.
Peyton wasn’t in the mood to be whined at. He stepped toward her, and she covered her body as if she were already nude. He made short work of undressing her against her will—although Ellie was strong in spirit, she wasn’t particularly strong in any other way, especially in comparison to a beast of a man like Peyton.
Not that she fought very hard against him. By the time he took his own jacket from her, her eyes welled up with tears.
She was wailing by the time he ripped her pants down to her ankles.
“Stop your bellyachin’,” he snapped. “We haven’t even begun yet, princess.”
Somehow, that wasn’t reassuring enough to get her to stop wailing and begging, but he ignored her pleas as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her bed, forcing her down on it. She was helpless—pinned by the small of her back.
And then he began to switch her.
The switch certainly didn’t feel the way she had feared it would. To her surprise, she discovered that it felt a million times worse.
It turned out that she hadn’t been very creative when she wondered what being switched was like. Her mind hadn’t even begun to fathom the type of pain that went along with a switching. Mostly because she had never equated itching with pain—or was it itching? The way her skin seemed to quiver after each stroke of the switch was uncomfortable enough to make her want to soothe the hot, inflamed welts it left behind, but it was a pain that couldn’t be scratched away.
It was surely possible that the entire palace could hear her caterwauling; the only thing she could do to seek retribution on Peyton was to try to make his ears bleed. But he didn’t stop—he was practically a professional at wielding the implement that bit into her flanks.
He even was able to lecture her in a way that was audible around her sobs. “Oh, this could get so much worse,” he promised. “I told you not to talk to them, and then what do you do? Blatantly disobey me and worse! Do you know—do you have any idea—what would have happened if you allowed him to have his way with you? If I didn’t come in just in that second? How could you be so thoughtless? So selfish? So goldarn stupid? After all we’ve been through, you go behind my back and do that… There’s no excuse! None whatsoever!”
It was clear that Peyton wasn’t interested in just scorching her bottom for her, either. He switched her all the way down to just above the back of her knees, until she brought up her feet protectively, and then he grabbed them both in turn and soon enough each pad of her foot had a couple of stripes across it.
“Spread your legs wider,” he ordered above her sobs.
She wanted to cry out, “Are you crazy?” but she wouldn’t dare. She knew if she spread her legs wide, which she had taken great care to keep from doing thus far in the punishment, it would only give him new, tender targets, but if she didn’t obey it would just make things even worse.
It was clear that the switching wouldn’t end until she spread her legs, so she ever-so-slowly began to scoot her feet carefully away from each other. Peyton held her legs open with one large hand while he made sure both inner thighs were thoroughly welted. When he paused at last, she dared to hope it was over, and then—
Swish-Swick! The switch fell directly across the tender, swollen lips of her labia.
She thought she was going to die.
As the punishment of her intimate areas continued, a passionate need to stop the pain took control of her completely. This need d
idn’t care about her pride. She began to make promises and apologies of all sorts. She promised eternal obedience, she apologized for talking to the Swarii, she apologized for looking at them, she apologized for being born, and she promised that she would stay a virgin for the rest of her life. She would have promised to turn into a pink elephant, too, if she had thought that would make any difference.
Finally, it stopped.
She continued to sob, but her throat hurt too much to speak after all her yelping, screaming, and crying. There wasn’t much to say on her behalf—she had gone against Peyton’s orders and violated his trust, risking his safety and probably her own, and she had been thoroughly punished.
She didn’t move, just rested wearily in place.
Peyton dropped the switch to her side and announced that she would stay in her room all night and would go without dinner. She made no complaints; she wasn’t hungry, anyway. How could she eat or move around the palace after that? All she wanted to do when Peyton left the room and locked the door behind him as if she was a naughty little girl who might try to run away was to curl up in bed and cry into her pillow until she went to sleep, which is exactly what she did.
* * *
Peyton entered Mary’s room, which was situated just across the hall from Ellie’s. He was feeling exhausted, but Mary was there when he entered, standing in the center of the room with a sour expression and her hands placed firmly on her hips.
She didn’t look pleased about something, and he hoped that whatever it was had nothing to do with him.
“Peyton Zachary Jones!” she snapped incredulously. “What on God’s green earth were you doing in there? Killing her?”
He sighed; nope, he was definitely the one she was annoyed with. He reached up and rubbed one of his ears, which was still ringing after all the screaming that Ellie had been doing. “We’re not on God’s green earth anymore, Mary,” he reminded gruffly. “We’re in hell, and Ellie lost her damn mind!”
Mary raised an eyebrow, looking doubtful, despite the fact that they had spoken at great lengths about how weird Ellie was. Mary crossed her arms in front of her chest and settled her feet as if she expected to be standing where she was for a good long while. “Explain,” she ordered him.
His Untamed Mate (Swarii Mates Book 1) Page 10
