Chapter Eight #2
He folded his arms across his chest in an effort to prevent himself reaching out to stop Ellery from delivering another blow, and to stop himself clamping his hands over his ears, too. He claws sliced through his shirt dug into his biceps as his control almost failed him.
His heart raced faster and faster as he watched another vivid red line bloom across Franklin’s shoulders.
No!
The word roared through his mind, drowning out almost everything else. The only words that survived the onslaught of the sound were the ones he’d been repeating to himself ever since he agreed to the punishment.
A good master makes sure his pet has whatever he needs. If this was what Franklin needed, Cameron had to make sure it was what he received. He had to.
Blood dripped from Cameron’s arm as his claws cut deeper into the muscle, but Cameron barely felt it. All he could think about was Franklin’s pain. Humans were more fragile than lions. The fact it was a human whipping Franklin ceased to make Cameron believe that would keep his pet any safer.
Cameron swallowed rapidly. He should have loved seeing one of the rich men from the clubs tied up and whipped. He’d imagined it so many times, when he’d had no choice but to take what they’d dished out to him.
Revenge should have been sweet. It shouldn’t have turned his stomach.
To have one of those men—
Cameron’s thoughts faltered. One of those men…
None of the men who’d offered him money in those clubs had felt the least bit guilty for anything they’d done to him. None of them would have seen any need for them to be punished for taking whatever the hell they wanted from him. None of them were the man under the lash.
Franklin would have offered him money—Cameron had no doubt about that. But, as he looked across the room at Franklin, it suddenly occurred to him that that alone didn’t mean that Franklin would have treated him the same way the punters had if he’d taken that money.
Would Franklin really have enjoyed knowing that he was forcing Cameron to do something that Cameron hated just because he could? Or would it have been more like when the sacrifices were thrown to the lions, where one hint of fear or reluctance would have seen the whole thing brought to a halt?
With his mind racing faster than Cameron had ever known, he tried to picture Franklin acting the way other humans had treated him, tried to imagine him in the place of those other men. It…
It wasn’t possible…
The whip fell again, pulling another harsh, pain-filled sound from Franklin’s throat.
Cameron blinked at the scene before him as he was roughly shoved back into the here and now. He dragged his claws out of the ripped flesh on his arm, carelessly tearing his skin further as he rushed forward.
Somewhere unimportant, somewhere outside the bubble that seemed to exist around him and Franklin in that moment, someone spoke. Cameron didn’t have any attention to spare for that person as he took several more paces forward, until he stood directly behind Franklin.
Franklin’s shoulders shook as he fought to draw a breath into his body.
The dark red lines of pain the whip had painted across his back stood out in stark contrast to his tanned skin.
With just a few inches between them, Cameron stalled.
He reached out, but he had no idea how to touch Franklin, how to soothe him without making his pain worse.
“Don’t stop…” Franklin’s words were barely more than a broken whisper. A lion’s hearing still made easy work of them.
Don’t stop, Cameron repeated to himself, because the punishment was what Franklin needed. Any reply that he might have wanted to make caught in his throat.
The man he loved needed him to ensure that the punishment was finished. He needed the whip to fall the full twenty times. The man he loved…
Cameron closed his eyes.
The humans in those clubs hadn’t quite killed off that ability in him then. Cameron supposed he should be grateful for that, but it was hard to think that anything in the world could ever be right when the man he loved was in so much pain.
“Finish the punishment.” The words were so calm, so confident, even Cameron himself found it hard to believe they came from his own lips.
“Cameron?”
Cameron recognised Arslan’s voice, but he couldn’t drag any scrap of his attention away from Franklin.
“I can’t use the whip while you’re standing there.” That was Ellery, and his words finally sparked Cameron into action.
He couldn’t remain where he was. All at once, that was obvious. He wasn’t where he should be. But Cameron already knew where his rightful place should be in that moment. He took a step forward.
With all the care he was capable of, he cautiously lined his body up behind Franklin’s.
Lifting his arms, he settled his hands on the back of Franklin’s hands. His limbs were longer than Franklin’s. He bent his arms a fraction at the elbow, forming them into the best shape with which to shield his pet from the whip.
His shirt brushed against the whip marks on Franklin’s back, making him whimper.
Cursing himself, Cameron leaned back slightly, so they didn’t touch there.
“Cameron?” Arslan asked again.
Finally, Cameron managed to turn his head. He looked to Arslan and Ellery, and to Kefir and Ryland, too.
“Finish the punishment,” Cameron said again.
He met Arslan’s eyes, then Ellery’s. He saw the two men look toward each other and exchange slight nods as the feline and the human worlds reached an agreement.
Ellery turned his attention back to the whip in his hand, freeing Cameron to turn his own attention back to his pet.
“Cameron…?” Franklin whispered.
“Hush.” Cameron pressed a tender kiss onto the back of Franklin’s head.
As the whip fell against his back for the first time, Cameron arched into the pain, determined not to let it make him sway forwards. Sickening heat rushed through him, just as it had so many times in the past. His shirt was no protection against the leather whip.
He closed his eyes for a moment, but his position didn’t falter. He’d learned how to take a whipping a long time ago. For the first time in his life, he was glad for that experience. If it helped him take better care of his pet, it could only ever be a good thing.
“Cameron?” A touch of desperation blossomed in Franklin’s voice; he tried to turn in his restraints. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done from the start,” Cameron whispered.
Franklin shook his head.
His struggling pushed his back against Cameron’s chest.
“Don’t,” Cameron chided, gently, the way a full-grown lion might chide a little cub who was under his care. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
And that wasn’t acceptable. If it was the last thing he ever did, Cameron was going to make sure no one hurt his pet ever again.
The world became a very simple place as he realised that was what his life was about now.
He’d make sure Franklin was never hurt and make sure his pet never did anything he’d have to feel guilty for either.
“I…”
“You’re mine. Let me look after you?” It came out more like a plea than an order.
Franklin stilled. “I… You…”
“You’re nothing like them.”
Franklin looked over his shoulder. They were too close together to see each other properly, but Cameron couldn’t have taken a step back for all the money in the world.
Franklin turned back to face the bed. “I…”
“I know the men in those clubs. And I know you. You’re nothing like them.
Maybe you managed to pretend you were for a while.
Maybe you gave men money, but…” Cameron shook his head, wondering how the hell he’d ever been stupid enough to think that alone made him anything like the men who had hurt him.
Franklin swallowed rapidly.
“Finish the punishment,” Cameron said again, loud enough for the others to hear.
A movement on the other side of the room warned Cameron that Ellery was about to fulfil his request.
The whip came down again and again. Cameron’s stomach turned over, his head spun, his back burned. Still, he never once stopped whispering to Franklin, trying to reassure his pet that everything was fine, that his master wouldn’t let anyone hurt him now.
Cameron told him over and over that the punishment felt different to a lion, that the whip didn’t really sting at all when it hit a shifter’s flesh.
But, as the pain from one particularly harsh lash rolled through his body, he couldn’t quite drag enough air into his lungs to lie anymore.
All he could do was wait for the next blow.
A minute passed, but the whip didn’t fall again.
Cameron blinked open his eyes. Turning his head, he looked toward the other members of the pride.
Ellery held his gaze as he pointedly set the whip aside. The punishment was over. Cameron pulled a shaky breath into his body. The punishment was over. The same fact rolled around and around inside his head until it stopped being about anything so simple as a punishment.
It was over. The worst was over. Everything that had happened since he’d left his parents’ pride was over…
Cameron closed his eyes again. Turning his face into Franklin’s hair, he hid there for a moment, simply relishing the knowledge.
“Cameron…?”
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be fine.” He’d make sure everything was fine. He was the master. That was his job.
Cameron nuzzled gently against Franklin’s neck once more before slowly turning his attention to the buckles holding the cuffs around Franklin’s wrists.
Moving made the injured skin on Cameron’s back stretch in a different direction. Pain rushed through him, making him clumsy. Somehow, he still got the buckles undone. Without the leather to support him, Franklin began to collapse forward.
Unable to pull his pet back safely against his body without hurting him, all Cameron could do was guide him down onto the dustsheet-shrouded mattress. He quickly followed him onto the bed, not at all sure how to make him more comfortable but as determined as hell to try.