Chapter 24
Jendra
I looked at Beta, blinking back tears. I felt so much, but I had nothing more to say: the feelings had stopped lining up, stopped making the kind of sense that could lead to intelligible words, let alone persuasive ones.
Let alone words that could persuade this gorgeous, caring blue man who had decided to save me.
Beta didn’t speak either. He just picked me up and cradled me against his chest, and carried me to bed. I had nothing left. No words, no defenses, no pretense. Just the overwhelming weight of everything that had happened, everything I’d done, everything I’d learned about myself.
The bed welcomed me with what felt like a forgiveness I didn’t deserve. Beta laid me down gently, then climbed in beside me, pulling me against his chest. His arms wrapped around me, holding me close but not confining. Protective, not possessive.
I started to cry again. Not the panicked sobs from before, but something quieter, deeper. The tears of someone who had finally stopped running, maybe.
“I’m here,” Beta murmured against my hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My fingers curled against his chest as I pressed my face into him. His skin was warm, and I could feel his heartbeat—steady, reliable, real. So wonderfully, undeniably real.
“I think…” I whispered, my voice muffled against him. “I think I understand now.”
“What do you understand?”
I took a shaking breath. “That I can submit to you. That I can need you. But that doesn’t mean you can satisfy everything inside me. No one can. Not you, not Omega, not anyone.”
His arms tightened around me slightly. “Go on.”
“The hunger doesn’t go away,” I continued, the words coming slowly as I worked through thoughts I’d never articulated before.
“The need for more, for deeper, for things I can’t even name yet.
It’s always going to be there. But…” I pulled back just enough to look up at his face.
“But that doesn’t mean I have to let it consume me. Or create monsters to feed it.”
Beta’s blue eyes held mine with such tenderness it made my chest ache. “You’re learning,” he said softly.
“I want to understand it,” I said, hearing a note of urgency creep into my voice. “The quantum entanglement. How my consciousness could create something like Omega. The beings of the Collective—how they relate to human minds. I need to know, Beta. I need to understand what happened to me.”
“The relationship between human consciousness and the Collective,” Beta said thoughtfully. “That’s a vast subject, Jendra. One that my brothers and I have been studying since we arrived in this dimension.”
“Will you teach me?” The question came out small, hopeful. “Please?”
His hand moved to cup my cheek. “I want to help you,” he said. “I want to give you the knowledge you’re seeking. But first, you need rest. And tomorrow, you need to face your punishment.”
I nodded against his chest, fresh tears sliding down my cheeks. But these felt different—cleaner somehow. Like I was finally crying out all the darkness Omega had represented, making room for something better.
“Sleep now,” Beta murmured, his fingers stroking through my hair. “I’ve got you.”
I closed my eyes, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest. The weight of what awaited me tomorrow pressed down, but underneath it lay something else. Something that felt almost like peace.
My breathing gradually slowed, matching his rhythm. The tears stopped. My body relaxed completely against him, finally surrendering to the exhaustion that had been building since… powers, since that first day in the museum when I’d watched Sala submit to Alpha.
I fell asleep in Beta’s arms, and for the first time since I’d summoned Omega, I didn’t dream.
When I woke, I was alone.
I lay there for several moments, staring at the ceiling, feeling the empty space beside me where Beta had been. My hand moved across the sheets, finding them cool. He’d been gone for a while.
Then it all came rushing back. Everything. The laboratory. Freeing Omega. The gravitium mines. What he’d done to me there. Beta finding me. The realization about the quantum bond. Omega vanishing. Coming back here. Beta’s promise of punishment.
Tomorrow, he’d said. But… how long had I slept? Was it tomorrow already?
My heart began to race. I sat up quickly, looking around the bedroom. The lights were dim, set to what must be morning levels. Through the doorway, I could see into the living area, but Beta wasn’t there either.
“Master?” I called out, my voice hoarse.
No answer.
Panic started to build in my chest. Had he left me? Had he decided I was too much trouble, too dangerous, too broken to bother with? The thought made my stomach clench with terror.
I scrambled out of bed, ignoring the slight ache in my body—not from punishment, for a change, but from sleeping long and deeply in the same position. My feet hit the cool floor and I rushed toward the living area, my eyes scanning desperately for any sign of him.
“Beta?” I called again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
I moved through the suite frantically, checking the bathroom—empty. The discipline room—also empty, though the sight of the implements on the wall made me shiver. Back through the living area, and then I noticed a door I hadn’t really registered before, slightly ajar.
Through it I saw what looked like old-fashioned bookshelves. A study?
I approached the door slowly, my heart pounding. Through the gap now I could see warm light, hear the soft sound of someone working at a terminal. I pushed the door open.
Beta sat at a large desk, his massive form bent over a holographic display.
Data streams and diagrams floated in the air before him, complex equations and charts I couldn’t begin to understand.
A star map, also, with individual volumes of space linked to the charts.
He was so focused he didn’t immediately notice me.
Relief flooded through me so intensely I felt my knees go weak. He hadn’t left. He was here. He was…
Working on something, plotting a course, maybe, to what looked like the other side of the rim.
With me? For me? my wayward mind asked, with a thrill of helpless affection.
My shame overtook that selfish hope immediately, though—why would my master do anything for me, the girl who had almost destroyed the galaxy?
I watched him for a moment, taking in the concentration on his face, the way his fingers moved through the holographic data with practiced ease. Then, without consciously deciding to, I sank to my knees just inside the doorway.
The movement must have caught his attention because his eyes lifted from the display to meet mine. His expression shifted—surprise, then something warmer.
“Jendra,” he said quietly. “You’re awake.”
“Please,” I whispered, the word escaping before I could think. “Please, Master. Whip me.”
Beta’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Now?”
“Yes.” I clasped my hands in front of me, the posture of supplication coming naturally now. “I can’t bear waiting any longer. I can’t bear thinking about what I’ve done without… without paying for it. Please. Teach me a lesson I’ll never forget.”
He stood slowly, moving around the desk to approach me. His presence loomed over me, and I kept my eyes downcast, trembling.
“Tell me why you deserve it,” he said, his voice taking on that stern quality that made heat pool in my core despite my fear.
“Because I freed him,” I said, my voice breaking.
“Because I betrayed your trust. Because after everything you did for me—claiming me, disciplining me, making me yours—I still chose to go to Omega. I endangered everyone. The entire Federation. I…” A sob caught in my throat.
“I don’t know if I did it because he commanded me or because some terrible part of me wanted to, but either way, I deserve to be punished for it. ”
“And what do you hope to learn from your punishment?”
I looked up at him then, meeting his blue eyes. “That actions have consequences. That submission means obedience, even when it’s hard. That I can trust you to hold me accountable because you care about me, not just because you want to control me.”
Beta studied me for a long moment. Then, to my surprise, a small smile touched his lips.
“You’ve thought hard about this,” he observed.
“I couldn’t think about anything else when I woke up,” I admitted. “It was like… like my mind had worked through it in my sleep.”
He reached down, his hand cupping my chin, tilting my face up.
“I’ve been preparing a curriculum for you,” he said, gesturing to the holographic display.
“Lessons about quantum consciousness, about the Collective, about the relationship between human minds and interdimensional energy. Everything you asked to learn.”
My breath caught. “You were… you were going to teach me?”
“I am going to teach you,” he corrected. “But first, yes. Your punishment.”
“Thank you, Master,” I whispered.
“Stand up.”
I obeyed, rising on shaky legs. Beta moved back to his chair and sat, then looked at me with an expression that made my stomach flip.
“I’ve been thinking too,” he said. “About how to punish you in a way that satisfies as many of your needs as possible. The ones you’re aware of and the ones you’re still discovering.”
“As many… as possible?” I repeated uncertainly.
“So… different…” I swallowed hard, trying to imagine what he meant—and at the same time trying desperately not to imagine it, because of how hotly and darkly the things that my mind and body craved had rushed in at the idea.
“Different things?” I asked in a whisper.
“Come here.”
I approached him slowly. When I was close enough, his hands settled on my hips, and then he was guiding me down across his lap. The position was so reminiscent of the ceremony, but different too—more intimate somehow, less formal.
“I’m going to start,” Beta said, his hand resting on my bottom, “by spanking you the way a husband chastises his bride—or, as you know, as a master corrects his concubine for smaller faults. With his firm, open hand. So you feel the personal connection between your misbehavior and my correction.”
Before I could respond, his palm cracked down on my right cheek. I gasped at the sharp sting—so different from the cane and even more from Omega’s horrible energy whip. Beta’s hand felt so much more immediate, more… personal, exactly as he’d said.
He spanked me methodically, alternating cheeks, covering every inch of my bottom with firm, stinging slaps.
It hurt, but not unbearably, especially now that I had so much experience of traditional family discipline.
What made it intense was the intimacy of it—his hand on my flesh, the way I could feel his strength controlled and directed specifically at teaching me a lesson.
“This is what you get,” Beta said as he spanked, his voice calm and steady, “for betraying my trust. For endangering yourself and others. For letting your needs control you instead of learning to channel them properly.”
“Yes, Master,” I sobbed, my hands gripping his leg. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The spanking continued until my bottom felt hot and tender, until I was crying freely, until I felt something inside me finally break open and release. When Beta finally stopped, his hand rested gently on my punished flesh.
“Up,” he commanded.
I slid off his lap, my legs wobbly. He stood as well, and I found myself looking up at him through tear-blurred vision.
“Now,” he said, his hands moving to the fastenings of his uniform, “you’re going to thank me properly.”
I watched as he freed his cock—that massive blue shaft already hard and ready. My mouth started to water as I understood what he meant, and I could feel the delicious waywardness of my body’s response, how I had learned to ready myself for the shameful task of giving pleasure on my knees.
“Kneel,” Beta commanded.
I dropped to my knees immediately, my eyes fixed on his manhood. It seemed even larger from this angle, intimidating and mesmerizing at once.
“Open your mouth.”
I parted my lips, extending my tongue the way he’d taught me during the ceremony. But this time, when he guided his cock into my mouth, it wasn’t gentle or ritualistic. This was different—more demanding, more intense.
“That’s it,” he murmured as I struggled to accommodate his size. “Thank your master for disciplining you. Show me how grateful you are.”
I did my best, using my tongue and lips the way instinct guided me. My jaw ached almost immediately from the stretch, but I didn’t pull away. This was part of my punishment, part of my lesson. I needed to accept it, to submit to it completely.
Beta’s hand moved to the back of my head, not forcing but guiding. He taught me the rhythm he wanted, the depth, the way to adjust my mouth to please him. Tears streamed down my face as I took him as deeply as I could, trying to make my mouth a vessel for his manhood’s enjoyment.
Abruptly, my master pulled my face from his lap. He yanked my head back with what I could somehow feel represented calculated force, designed to let me feel his dominance without risk of injury.
“You’re going to stand up and go to the desk,” he said, his eyes shining with lust. “You’re going to bend over it and I’m going to cane you like an old-fashioned schoolgirl.”