Chapter 6 #2
The look he gave me said he wasn’t messing about, so I refrained from my usual bratting. I’ll have to find another way to antagonize Andothair.
“Tristan?”
“Uh?” We’re back in his chambers, he’s in his closet and I’m lazing about. Not the sophisticated way of a dedicated manservant, but then again, I’m not a dedicated manservant.
“Do you happen to know where my white blouse went? I need it for dinner tonight,” he says removing his cuffs by himself for once.
My skin prickles. This is the dinner, isn’t it?
I hop up and begin to remove my nice clothes—the only other set I have—and change into the clean but worn-out beige pants. I’ve had to use some of my mother’s sewing lessons to patch and repatch certain places.
Before I get a chance to answer, he looks me up and down. “Tristan, you know I am not in a position to give you clothes. It’s complicated, like with not being able to have you train my warriors. Why have you not stolen more in all this time?”
I squint at him. I don’t have an answer, at least not one that makes sense. “You said I could acquire these.”
“Do you mean to tell me that’s the directive you chose to obey all this time, while you’ve disregarded so many others?”
“I guess. I don’t know. I’m complicated.”
“You most certainly are. It’s just as well; I like seeing how clever you can be.”
“Wait, if you can’t give me clothes, how were you able to give me my tunic and the matching pants?”
“I have reason enough for that if I’m asked. You train on my field and it’s within my jurisdiction to grant you a uniform if I feel you’ve earned it. Your work with the younglings allowed for it.”
“Well, I do like being clever. I shall have more clothing by nightfall.”
He smiles. “Good. You should know I don’t plan on making it easy for you. Now, where is my shirt?”
Shite. I haven’t come up with an excuse that’s good enough. “It’s right there. Are you blind?” I strut over to the closet and pull any white blouse from a hanger. They all look the same to me. “Here.”
His brow raises. “That’s not the one.”
“This one?” I try handing him each white blouse successively and even a blue one I claim will look better on him. And then, “Maybe you don’t need one at all. You look handsome in your battle armor.”
“Come here little human,” he says figuring it out.
I briefly glance at the door before I try to make a run for it.
It’s easy for him to catch me and toss me over his shoulder.
I kick and bang on his back to no avail; it’s like beating on a mountainside.
He swings out a chair and stands me before him in a ritual that has become formulaic for us.
“Are you going to tell me now, or while you’re over my knee, hmmm? ”
I contemplate which I’d prefer, because either way, I’m going over his knee. “I don’t even know how it happened. I suck at laundry, Bayaden!”
“Tristan.”
“Fine. It somehow ended up with a red splotch on it, and then it became fire kindling.”
“How did my fine shirt become fire kindling?” he says with a hard edge to his voice.
“Because I threw it in the fire in hopes you wouldn’t find out. You have so many, how can you tell the bloody difference?”
His mouth forms a line and then his fingers are at my waistband, pulling them down, baring me for the spanking I’m about to get and over his knees I go.
Bayaden knows what a warrior I am and therefore how much I can take, so he’s not easy on me.
His hand is leaden, coming down on each cheek in successive sets of five.
My arse is quickly on fire and I’m squirming and kicking, trying to free myself, which is a useless endeavor and happens to be something else I like about this—being manhandled, unable to get away. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry all right?”
“That’s the fourth shirt this month, and I liked that one best.” He keeps spanking me.
“Ow! Baya-aaayowwch! You have seventeen others.”
I’m flushed in more places than my backside, it’s still embarrassing getting a spanking like a child when you’re a grown man, even if you need it.
Any person could knock at any time and they do.
Bayaden lets them stroll right in. Does that mean he’ll let me up?
No. If I want to misbehave, then such is my fate.
When he finally lets me stand up, after the spanking from hell, I pout at him, but I feel better even with my arse afire.
Sometimes I don’t even know I need a spanking until after the fact.
I think that’s why his shirts “mysteriously” end up ruined.
He pulls me in for a kiss with my pants still down. “That was naughty, brat.”
“You really do look better in the blue one, you know,” is my answer, because yes, I’m a bit naughty and I can’t deny it. In my defense, Bayaden brings it out in me. I pull my pants up.
“All right, fetch me the blue one then.”
I race off to get it. “What’s going on tonight anyway?” Bayaden is a Warlord, Warlords don’t dress fancy for anything. They wear their finest armor and that’s as lucky as you get.
“A dinner.” So he’s still not going to tell me. “I’ll need my tall black boots unless you have another suggestion?” His brow quirks over a dark eye, his smile half-formed.
“No, the black boots, but with pants.”
He wrinkles his nose. He’s not fond of pants. “If I must.”
“And your hair tied back. I’ll do it for you.”
“I would appreciate that. Very well. I will go bathe. You’ll need to look nice too. For that I can have you done up.”
“I will be presentable.” I’m more worried than I was before. He’s never had me come to his fancy dinners. He hates them in the first place and only goes because he is required.
“I see that look in your eyes. Don’t ask questions. Now go before I think you need another spanking.” Bayaden’s gruff as usual—by the Gods he can be infuriating—but there’s something behind his eyes.
Still, I can’t allow him to talk to me like that and give him cheek right back. “Yes, my Liege.”
“Out!”
I leave, before he smacks my arse again, laughing all the way.
When Bayaden is dressed for the event, I can’t stop staring.
He’s magnificent in blue, his large biceps pressing into the long sleeves.
The shirt tapers into his solid black pants, which are tucked into the boots I polished for him—the best job I’ve done yet—and his long hair tied into a ponytail at the nape of his thick neck that stands out under his square jaw.
I’m proud of myself for dressing him so nicely and at the same time, I’m smirking.
He’s like a schoolboy dressed up for mass with the way he’s scowling, and I’d say so to him if he knew what it meant to go to church—Elves believe in the Gods, but they do not attend mass.
He hates dressing up. “My, you look fetching,” I say.
“I look all wrong. I’m a warrior, not a socialite.”
“Here, this will make you feel better.” I hand him one of his favorite swords, sheathed in its baldric.
He straps it onto himself, so the sword sits at his hip.
I realize I’m the only one who ever sees Bayaden without a weapon.
The large Warlord always has a weapon or several on his person.
The only time he removes them is when he’s in his chambers, or on mountainsides with me.
Having the sword does make him feel better and I can see it as soon as the sword is securely around him. “I like you naked better,” he says.
“For the Gods’ sake. I spent all afternoon cleaning myself up, I won’t have you ruin me.”
He smirks. “I suppose flea-removal takes a while does it?”
I glare at him. I know he’s joking, but still. “Would you like me in nothing but my collar, sir?”
He grunts, which means no. “Tristan? Did you hope to have children someday?”
I stare at him before I can answer. First, there was his behavior on the mountainside and now this.
“I wanted an heir to succeed me as Warlord until I had my title stripped. With Corrik, it was part of the marriage contract. We were obligated to have at least six, but as many as we wanted after that, or we could stop.”
“Forget about all that. What did you want?”
What I want is a foreign concept. “I think I might have liked four, but much later. I was going to be gifted immortality. I would have liked to wait a few hundred years.”
He nods. “Come here.” I go to him and he pulls me to him. “We could never have children, Father wouldn’t allow that, but if we did, what do you think they would have been like?”
I can’t help the immediate thoughts that come to mind. “The Gods help us, they would have double Warlord in them, dragon blood, and Elven. They’d be so stubborn, and you’d be so annoyed.”
He smiles. “They would obey me.”
“They would, you’d be a strict Father like mine was, but they would love you fiercely like I do mine.” I enjoy the thought for a moment. “What about me? Would I have made a good Papa?”
“You would have coddled our children, except for on the field; there you are a barbarous taskmaster.”
I can’t deny any of that. “They would have been magnificent warriors.”
“Las nah,” he says, an Elvish expression for “all is well” or “not to worry,” but my heart now aches for our stubborn children. “We agree on something.”
It will anger him, but I have to ask. “Baya, what’s going on?”
He plays with the tag at my throat. “Don’t ask questions. Just obey me for once. I mean it, Human. Best behavior or I shall spank your bare bottom right in front of everyone.” He turns heel sharply. “Come.”
Something is coming, something that’s going to shatter me. But I follow him because however much this is going to hurt me, Bayaden is hurting several times over.