A Brat’s Tale (Tristan #2)

Prologue

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: EAGAR KANES

Ihate staring at a wall. Especially half-naked with a smarting behind.

I’ve been standing here for a long while.

Of course, any amount of time spent standing, staring at a wall, will feel like a long time, but I know I have been standing here for at least an hour.

My feet have become restless, and the ache in my backside has become more of a nuisance.

After a spanking, the sting lasts for some time; the length of time depends on the implement used, but then the sting turns into an ache, the same ache muscles get when they’ve been worked over.

The ache is more annoying than the sting, in my opinion.

“Fidgeting is not the way to get out of the corner. You’re meant to be thinking,” Arcade says from behind his desk.

I know that.

I would snark at him, but that would not go over well.

I’d be right back over his knee. Instead, I find the calm place within myself, the one Arcade helped me find long ago and I’m able to still my aching legs.

Don’t know how much time passes after that, but I finally hear the words, “Come here, please.”

I move to stand before my husband’s desk and keep hold of my shirt as I had been instructed. Humility is part of it. Hard to explain that bit; all I can say is that it is.

“Turn around, please.” Biting my lip, my heart pounding in my throat, I turn around so my husband can look upon the artwork he painted on my backside earlier. “Is this what you wish me to see as I drive my cock into you? Evidence of your disobedience?”

“N-no, sir,” I say, my voice wavering.

“Turn back ‘round, return your clothing proper, and take a seat.”

Damn. He’s not finished with me.

When I’d returned here, to the barracks, after bringing Tristan back to his mother at the palace, he was waiting for me—even opened the door to our chambers before I could so much as touch the door handle.

I couldn’t look at him and stood there waiting for him to speak, my eyes downcast. “What is the real reason I’m about to spank you, Eagar? ” he asked me.

“The real reason? Not my muddy clothing? I know you don’t like me traipsing around the palace that way unless I’ve been out on the field. In which case I’m to come directly here, and—"

“—that was not an invitation to spout off our rules, Eagar. You could have cleaned Tristan and yourself at the palace. I would have been none the wiser, yet you chose to come here. Why do you think that is?”

“You said you’d be gone for the day. I didn’t think you’d be here. I wasn’t trying to get caught,” I’d explained.

“Maybe not consciously, but I have a good feeling if I hadn’t come back, there would be other evidence of this mishap left for me to find.”

When he said it, I knew he was right. I hadn’t given much thought to what I’d do with the dirty clothes.

I most likely would have tossed them in the laundry bin—on top—where he’d see them plain as day.

Not to mention the baths would not have been cleaned until the next day—even if he missed the clothing, he wouldn’t miss that.

It’s textbook bratting. And I am not typically prone to brat behavior.

I know this, yet I still don’t understand myself in the way I would like—there are no books on people like me in Markaytia. “I know it’s hard for you to ask for a spanking, angel,” he said, his voice softer.

“I don’t want a spanking,” I complained and sighed.

It’s the strangest conundrum. I never want chastisement, but always feel a world better after it.

I avoid it at all costs, but it never ceases to amaze me—the ways in which I’ll seek it if I need it—even ways unbeknownst to myself. If I know this, why is asking so hard?

“I see. Your undisguised rule-breaking is evidence that you, my love, need a spanking. You’re all wound up. Come with me.”

I followed him to his office. My eyes widened when I saw what awaited me, and my heart raced. Several implements from hairbrush to punishment strap, laid out in a neat row side by side. “Arcade! You can’t use all of those on me. What I did wasn’t that bad.”

“I could if I thought you need it, but I have not decided which I will use. You know I always want to be prepared. I didn’t mean to scare you, love.”

I calmed down. Arcade has never been unfair; I should have known he wasn’t about to start now.

“And yes, breaking that rule wasn’t that bad; however, there is something bigger going on and I plan to deal with you properly,” he said with serious eyes.

Arcade chose the hairbrush. I hate that Gods-awful thing if anyone wants to know.

He bared my bottom and put me over his knee in the most uncomfortable position possible.

My toes couldn’t reach the ground, and I was unequally weighted, so I felt like I was falling forward.

I put my hands out in front of me to catch my weight, but he wouldn’t even permit that.

“Give me your hands, Eagar.”

“Arcade, please.”

“Now.”

I stifled a groan as I placed my hands at the small of my back, and he held them in place. I felt all of five years old—good job, Arcade—but I knew better than to complain out loud. I earned this spanking, subconsciously or not.

He began with his hand. Anyone who says bare-handed spanking is nothing has never been spanked by my husband. I was bleating like a lamb in less than two minutes. “I’m sorry, Arcade! I’ll behave proper next time!”

“You will, sweetheart.”

“Please. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I’m sure you have, but you have not paid the penalty.”

“But it hurts!”

“It’s meant to.”

No amount of crying or pleading stopped him.

I suppose that’s why I trust him the way I do.

That’s part of it too. Trusting him to do what’s best for me despite what I want in the moment, because no submissive or brat wants a spanking in the moment.

If he had stopped because I’d begged him to, it would break the chain; it would be hard to trust him to catch me when I needed him to.

It’s important he knows I trust him to know to stop when it’s time to stop, but also never stopping before that point.

Tears streamed down my face, and I reached a point of clarity.

Spanking is the physical manifestation of my emotions and in those moments over Arcade’s lap, I reached the true reason for my disobedience.

He knew. He always knew, and that was bloody annoying sometimes.

“Having any epiphanies down there?” he said as he took up the Godsforsaken brush.

“Yes, sir. I am. Please don’t use the brush. I can tell you in detail.”

My pleading did not deter him. Arcade took to each of my sore cheeks with his evil, wooden paddle, disguised as an instrument of vanity.

“Do enlighten me,” he punctuated with more of the same.

I kicked my limbs as the tingling turned into a throbbing ache. “By the love of the Gods, Arcade. Allow me to—owww—speak!”

“You’re telling me that a man of battle as you are—my second in fact—cannot take a child’s chastisement while speaking? I don’t believe it,” he continued.

“I didn’t—ooowch!—come to y-oou, because I really didn’t want a spanking.”

“Yet here you are, getting one.”

Snot was running down my face by this point, and I couldn’t wipe it away, since my hands were secured at my back within Arcade’s grasp.

“Yes,” I panted, and finally Arcade let up, giving me a break.

I knew it wasn’t over, so I took the opportunity to get more words in that wouldn’t be interrupted by cries.

“I don’t like that I need to be spanked. ”

He rubbed over my sore flesh, sending good tingles to my cock, and I couldn’t help my arousal. Not that I was going to get any sexual relief during a punishment, but I couldn’t help my body’s reactions. “It’s who you are, angel.”

He proceeded to spank me with his blasted brush until my voice was hoarse. When he was finally finished, I was done holding back any feelings I might have and was ready to talk. But of course, he saved the talking about the feelings part, helping me stand and directing me to the wall instead.

“I want you to think about any conclusions you have come to, and while you do, you are to hold up your shirt, so I can see your naughty, spanked bottom. Is that understood?”

My face heated and my damn cock responded in kind, hardening like a rock. Don’t get too excited, it’s not like you’re about to get any rewards. “Yes, sir.”

Now, I suppose, we’re going to talk about the conclusions I’ve come to at the wall. He waits for me to speak. “Tristan is going to be like me, and it’s all my fault. I should stay away from him, but I can’t. I’m too selfish, and I love him too much.”

He’s quiet for several heartbeats. “Tristan is like you,” he says. “But not because you made him that way. It’s something you’re born with, Eagar. Tristan has been the way he is since birth.”

I shake my head. “He sees too much, even if he doesn’t know what he’s seeing. He’s started to ask questions. I don’t want this for him, Arcade; needing someone to decide what’s best for him because he’s too pathetic to do it for himself.”

“Are you calling our son pathetic?” He quirks a brow.

“No. Arcade listen to me. Our son is going to have the same dysfunction I have, but he is made from your and Olivia’s genes, not mine. He could only have gotten it from spending so much time with me—learning to behave as I do. I’m not good for him.”

Arcade sighs long and heavy, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Where do I begin with all of that?”

“It’s simple. Just—”

“—do you make the decisions, Eagar?” he cuts me off.

“No, sir.” I shake my head.

“That’s right. I’m surprised by what you’ve said, is all. I suspected other things, but not this.”

“What other things did you suspect?”

“We shall get to those things in due time, but first and foremost, I will not be keeping you from our son. You are his papa, and he needs you. Let that be the end to that one.”