Chapter 15
Zander turned and strode out, the door slamming behind him with a boom that shook the hinges.
He didn’t move vampire-fast because there were too many people in the hallways. Also, he needed every footstep to keep the beast inside from ripping free. He couldn’t afford to come face-to-face with his top people when his control hung by threads. Not like this.
Steel against silk. She’d stood up to him with the same iron will she’d had at three years old, but then immediately handed over the memory when reminded of her obligations.
Because she had honor. Ethics.
To have a low-powered vampire of little means treat anyone in his flock that way would be infuriating, but treating a valued dragon as he had meant he could no longer be trusted with any decisions.
He would be moved out of the underground to a light-proof room attached to the stables.
Zander didn’t want him in the coterie house at all until the motherfucker could prove himself trustworthy.
He told himself it was merely because he’d treated a valuable dragon as he had, but deep down, he knew the rage roaring through him had to do with the fact he’d done it to Emerald.
Kendra happened to be in town, and he skipped the courtesy of a telepathic knock and went straight to issuing orders. Take custody of Alistair, strip him and string him up in the statue garden to be whipped. I’ll want the steel barbed lash. Get with Spencer if you need more information.
He shut down the connection before she could ask questions. She’d obey because he was her Master, but she’d want to know what Alistair had done, and he wasn’t up for explaining himself at the moment. Spencer had the details and could handle questions.
His jaw clenched as Emerald’s memory replayed unbidden. Kneeling obediently and trotting out a bunch of humiliating nonsense. Folding his shirt like a servant. Used as if she didn’t matter and then left bleeding.
Left bleeding.
One always seals the holes after feeding. It was a Concilio rule, and now a Senatus law.
Not only that, but there are rules about how the flock is treated, and that every contract be respected. Emerald’s contract is clear she isn’t to be given pain, and the bastard hadn’t respected a blood-signed contract.
Zander growled low in his throat. Every muscle locked against the fury in his chest, the urge to tear through the walls, to find Alistair and snap his fangs off with his bare hands.
He’d known Emmy’s time as food for his vampires wouldn’t always be ideal, but this was different.
This was deliberate disregard. Callous use without honor.
Lucien had hurt her badly, but he’d paid handsomely for his time with her, and he’d abided by the contract she’d agreed to.
Zander may have been personally pissed, but there was no cause for punishments because Lucien had followed vampire law and standards.
But Alistair was a low-level vampire trying to pretend he had power by abusing the flock.
And Emerald was a motherfucking dragon princess. He’d been clear at the coterie meeting just before she arrived that anyone gifted with dragon blood should be fucking appreciative of the fact they had this luxurious decadence in their coterie.
And god, what had made him agree to put her in his fucking flock to start with. She was a fucking genius, capable of so damned much.
And, he reminded himself, in need of figuring out how to stop being a rebellious teen. Her father was convinced she needed a kick in the ass to help her become a responsible adult, and he’d asked his old friend for help.
Zander had honored Aaron’s request, but the Dragon King’s daughter deserved better than this.
Also, he hadn’t seen rebellion since she’d arrived. Hadn’t received any reports of such.
And someone in their third fucking century with illusions of grandeur had looked at her and seen only a warm hole and a blood source.
Unacceptable.
Worse still was the complication of her response to him. The way her body had bloomed with heat the moment he touched her. Her scent shifting so it screamed her arousal, pupils widening, chest rising. Dozens of signs she’d wanted to be handled.
It was normal, though. A biological response to power, nothing more. It meant nothing, and yet it would make everything more difficult if she developed some misplaced infatuation with the vampire tasked with watching over her.
And his own body had reacted in kind, but it was easy enough for him to reroute the blood flow away from his cock.
He was Master Vampire of Alaska while he spent a few decades away from serious power, but he’d recently controlled twenty percent of the fucking United States — and he would not allow a spoiled dragon princess to complicate his carefully ordered existence.
He stepped into the room he shared with Spencer and saw the leather and linen outfit ready for him to put on.
His boy knew where his head was.
The tightly woven linen was strong enough to hold up to multiple bleachings, and was made into a bone-white frilly blouse. The leather pants had been treated so blood could be wiped off and it wouldn’t soak in.
Traditional garb for a whipping master.
Tonight, he would bleed the lesson of respect and true authority into Alistair’s back. He would teach everyone the dragon princess’s value with every lash of the whip.
He could hear the forming crowd the second he left the house, and when he arrived at the statue garden, vampires and flock alike lined the inner circle five deep. Some perched on benches or stone railings, but most stood.
No one outside the garden could see into it, but he saw people on the upper balconies. They’d hear what happened even if they couldn’t see. Many of the daywalkers would need to wake early, but that didn’t seem to have kept many away.
Alistair stood with his arms chained over his head near one end of the circle, but Emmy wasn’t in the chair he’d told Spencer to put her in.
He scanned minds and saw her stepping out of the house and heading toward the garden. They had another four minutes until they started, so she was fine.
Walk her to the chair, he telepathed Fawn. Meet her outside the circle and bring her in.
He looked at the naked and chained malefactor again. Skin pale under the low lights despite the fact he’d recently fed.
Zander went into the vampire’s head and saw fear and anger. No regret. The man was pissed at the daywalker who’d lied about his treatment of her.
So he went into the arrogant prick’s head to see what his version of the feeding looked like, and realized the worthless cunt didn’t see anything wrong with making her kneel, and thought he was truly that much better than her merely because he was a vampire and she was not.
And the bite? He’d thought it would do her good to remember who’d drank from her until it healed.
Zander’s rage threatened to redline, but he’d had centuries to perfect the art of displaying calm.
Zander stepped into the space, every eye turning to him. He walked to the pedestal with the whip coiled on it, lifted it, and then let it drop to the ground and drag behind him.
“There was no tattling,” Zander told the malefactor, standing behind him.
“I scented blood on her and had to order her twice to share the memory of how her side had been ripped open as if by a rabid fucking dog. How are you in your third century and still unable to bite neatly? And what part of respecting and valuing the dragon in our midst did you miss?”
He bit the words out and looked down at the long tail of the whip snaking along the tiles. Thick braided leather with seven steel barbs woven and threaded into it.
He felt Fawn seating Emerald in the seat off to the left behind him. The best seat in the house. Technically, the only seat, but the best viewing spot.
He put a little power into his voice to announce, “The malefactor is sentenced to one hundred and forty-four lashes for the crime of mistreating a flock member. No silver, all steel, and all to be given by my hand as the last dozen would traditionally be.”
He heard the collective gasp of the crowd and ignored them. It was indeed a savage sentence, but in Zander’s eyes, the sentence equaled the transgression.
“Mercy!” Alistair cried out. “Please have mercy! It was a rough bite to the ribs! One bite! Not over a hundred, Master Zander!”
“You made her kneel before you and call herself unworthy. She isn’t contracted for those kinds of sex games, and you damned well knew you were pushing past her agreed-upon, consensual limits. This on top of my instruction to value the dragon blood I’d gifted you all with…”
He stopped, checked his temper and set it aside. He spoke slower. Colder. “Not only did you not respect her value to the coterie, you didn’t respect the orders of your Master. Keep complaining and you’ll get silver for the final dozen, so you’ll bear the scars for the rest of your existence.”
He sobbed in his chains, but Zander felt nothing but disdain for him.
Finally, Alistair said, “I bend to my Master’s wishes in all things.”
Well, it was about damned time the bastard remembered his place.
“That goes without saying,” Zander responded. “Willing or not is entirely up to you, but if you don’t bend, I will fucking bend you into the shape I desire.”
And with that, the time for talking was over, and he dealt the first of the twelve-squared lashes he’d decreed.
The first lash landed with a crack. Alistair grunted but didn’t cry out.
By the tenth, blood streaked the vile fucker’s back in dark rivulets.
By the thirtieth, skin hung in strips.
And still, rage burned in Zander’s chest like liquid nitrogen under pressure.
The garden was completely silent around them. No one spoke. No one moved around. No shuffling feet. No rustle of fabric.
He went into a flock member’s head who was looking at Emerald, sitting on the throne-like stone chair. She sat upright, chin high, her expression carved in ice.