Authors: Kim Dare
Bayden nodded quickly.
Axel chuckled. “You have no idea what that means, do you?”
Bayden looked down. “If you’ll tell me what I need to do, sir.”
“It means choosing to give up one of your privileges for a certain length of time—volunteering to lose something you enjoy, to show that you’re sorry.”
Bayden nodded.
“Make your choice.”
“Me?”
Axel smiled. “Yes, I expect you to pick which privilege you’ll lose.”
Bayden looked down. At some point he’d wound his fingers together. His knuckles were all white. “You don’t want to pick?”
“I’ll decide the details, but I want you to choose what to give up.”
There was only one real choice he could make. “I should go, sir.”
Axel put his hand on Bayden’s shoulder. For a second, his expression was angry, then it cleared. “Because being here is something you like?”
Bayden offered a tentative nod.
“That’s not what I mean. A privilege is something you do, or I do, that you like. Something you don’t want to lose, but not something essential.”
Bayden turned his attention back to his hands.
“You don’t have to make the right choice the first time. If I don’t like one idea, I’ll tell you to pick something else.”
Thinking through all the things that Axel did, or allowed him to do, Bayden had no idea how to work out what Axel considered important.
What would a human think was important? What would a human want to take away? Bayden’s grip on his fingers tightened further. A couple of digits were starting to tingle.
“No ideas or too many possibilities?” Axel asked.
“Too many, sir.”
“Tell me what they are. Random order, let me hear them all.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
It was by far the most dangerous order Axel could have given him. List the things you care about. List all the ways a human can hurt you. Make it easy for me to tear your soul out piece by piece. A wolf would have to be a fool to trust a human with that kind of information.
He met Axel’s gaze very briefly before looking down. He’d hurt Axel. He should be hurt in return. Telling Axel how to even the score wasn’t foolish. But, all the things Axel did…
“I don’t want to insult you, sir,” he whispered.
“By doing what you’re told?”
“If I pick something that’s too small.” He forced himself to unfurl his hands. “A lot of the things I like, I’m not sure you even think about them, sir. If I pick something that doesn’t mean anything to you…”
“It’s not about what it means to me.”
Bayden rubbed the back of his neck.
“Okay. Give me the list and I’ll pick the most suitable thing from it.”
Bayden turned his attention back to his hands. “I like that you let me stay here with you,” he offered.
Axel nodded, encouragingly. “Keep going.”
“I like that you let me ride with your club.”
Axel stroked his thumb back and forth over the skin on Bayden’s shoulder.
“I like sharing your meals with you at your table and sleeping warm and comfortable next to you in your bed,” Bayden admitted. He didn’t look to Axel for extra reassurance. Axel shouldn’t have to coddle him like that. “I like not having sex with anyone apart from you, and that you don’t seem to want to have anyone else either.” He took a deep breath. “I like that you trust me with a key and you never think I’m going to steal anything from you. I like that you think I’m good enough to work with you in the pub and that I can be useful. I like that you have a right to be in my space and give me any orders you want. I like calling you sir. I like not being cold all the time. I like that you’re okay with me shifting—that it doesn’t bother you when I shift. I…”
Bayden shrugged helplessly, knowing that he could keep going in the same vein for hours, but doubting that he would come up with anything more suitable in all that time. They were all things that were big to him, but to someone like Axel—someone who gave so much without ever thinking about it—it had to sound so stupid.
“They’re all things you think of as privileges?” Axel asked. “None of them are rights that you never doubted you’d have?”
Bayden opened his mouth to respond but then thought better of it. He shrugged.
Axel stroked a fingertip across Bayden’s bottom lip. He’d noticed Bayden’s slip. He didn’t say anything, but that was the point. Bayden knew Axel wouldn’t say anything at all until he’d heard what Bayden would have said.
Bayden cleared his throat. “Wolves learn not to expect too much from humans, sir. It’s easier that way.”
Axel thought about that for a while. “Sleeping comfortably in my bed with me.”
Bayden glanced up.
“Giving up that would work as a penance,” Axel said. “All you actually achieved by hiding the truth from me was to make you far more uncomfortable than you needed to be over the last few months. Being uncomfortable for a few nights might help you remember not to make the same mistake in the future.”
The only thing that really registered with Bayden was that he’d managed to pick something Axel found acceptable.
“One night to represent each month you lied to me,” Axel said.
“Yes, sir.” Bayden moved to the edge of the sofa cushion. “I should—”
“I told you I’d decide the details.”
Bayden subsided back into his seat. “Yes, sir.”
Axel smiled, and Bayden guessed that his relief must have been obvious.
“In some ways a penance is similar to a punishment. No one is supposed to enjoy it. It’s not supposed to be easy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All the usual rules apply, including the one about using your safe word if you need too.”
Bayden frowned. The need to deny needing any sort of safety net warred against Bayden’s need to do what would please Axel. Finally, the latter won out. He nodded.
That night, when he led Bayden into the bedroom, Axel seemed especially serious. He nodded to the bathroom. “It’ll be your last chance until morning.”
By the time Bayden returned to the bedroom, Axel had several lengths of leather and chain resting on top of the chest of drawers.
“You can put your clothes away.”
Bayden quickly obeyed, but his movements were all muscle memory. His attention remained on Axel.
Axel spread a blanket on the floor. “The best kind of penance replicates the mistake you made and gives you something to think on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lies create distance between people.”
Bayden looked at the empty stretch of carpet between the bed and the blanket. “Yes, sir.”
“Lie down, on your stomach.”
Bayden quickly got into position. The blanket was thin. It didn’t provide much cushioning, but Bayden had slept in far worse conditions.
Axel crouched down next to him, and placed the bondage on the floor within easy reach. “You also got yourself tangled up in a lot of half-truths, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And made yourself very uncomfortable in the process.” Axel guided Bayden’s hands behind him and fastened leather cuffs around his wrists.
“Yes, sir.”
Axel deftly fastened another set of cuffs around Bayden’s ankles. Metal rattled. Tension tugged at each of the four cuffs. Bayden looked over his shoulder. A chain connected the pairs of cuffs. Axel hadn’t used the full length. He’d purposefully made it a few inches too short, preventing Bayden from straightening his legs.
Bayden frowned. “Am I supposed to tell you the truth even if you don’t ask, sir?”
“I don’t expect you to spontaneously disclose every detail of your life. If I find something you haven’t got around to mentioning yet, you won’t get in trouble. But if there’s something you think I should know, I want you to tell me the first chance you get.” As Axel spoke, he checked the fastenings on the restraints.
“Is now a chance?” Bayden checked.
Axel fell still, giving him his full attention. “Go ahead. What is it?”
“It’s not that uncomfortable, sir,” he blurted out.
Axel chuckled. “You’re good for telling me, but give it a few hours and you might change your mind.” He ruffled Bayden’s hair. “There are two rules I expect you to follow tonight. Disobey either and all hell will break lose.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t shift.”
Bayden looked over his shoulder at him.
“I have no problem with the wolf side of you, but now’s not the time. I don’t know what would happen if you tried to shift in bondage, but we’re not going to find out. If you want to shift, tell me and I’ll untie you. Any questions?”
Bayden shook his head.
“If you panic, don’t try to hide it—let me know.”
“I won’t—”
“You won’t disobey me?” Axel cut in. “Good.”
Bayden squirmed at the idea of having to tell Axel anything of the sort. The metal links in the chain rattled.
Axel caught hold of the cuffs and tugged Bayden over to lie on his back, trapping the cuffs and the chain awkwardly beneath him.
“I won’t be disappointed in you if you need help, but I will be if you disobey me—very disappointed.”
Bayden swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Good boy.” He stroked a fingertip along Bayden’s jawline before disappearing to take his turn in the bathroom.
Bayden took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His arms were uncomfortable behind him, but the moment he rolled onto his side, he knew that his own discomfort wasn’t the biggest problem. The chain rattled whenever he so much as twitched. He’d have to remain completely still if he wanted to avoid waking Axel up every two seconds.
Axel came back in. He tossed his jeans on the chair in the corner, but he didn’t get straight into bed. He returned to Bayden’s side and crouched down alongside him.
“You know, you had a perfect opportunity to tell me the truth the first time I patched you up.”
Bayden’s mind rushed back to that day in the pub kitchen. Axel had been kind to him. “Yes, sir.”
“If you’d done that then, I’d be able to take all this off right away. You wouldn’t have been uncomfortable for more than a few minutes. You’d be in the bed all warm and curled up next to me under the blankets for the rest of the night.”
He left Bayden laying on the floor, got into bed and switched off the bedroom light. The room remained partially lit. Peering over his shoulder, Bayden realised that Axel had left the light on in the bathroom and the door partway open. Even without a wolf’s night vision, Axel would be able to see him clearly.
A good penance replicated the situation where he’d screwed up. Axel was watching over him, just like he had when Bayden was taking fights in the yard behind the pub and lying to him about everything. Knowing that just made the comfort and warmth of Axel’s bed seem further away.
* * * * *
Axel wasn’t actually chilly and uncomfortable in his own bed. That wasn’t why he couldn’t sleep a damn wink. He was restless because he knew that Bayden wasn’t as warm as he liked to be. It had nothing to do with Axel missing his werewolf shaped hot water bottle.
Bayden wasn’t wriggling as much as Axel had expected. The chain seldom rattled. But, Axel knew that wasn’t because he’d made the penance too easy. A slight discomfort stretched out over hours was harder to take than a whipping—especially when he expected it was something Bayden had been given less opportunity to get used to.
Axel ran the calendar through his mind. It had been just over three months since they’d first met. Call it three and a quarter months by the end of the penance. Three and a quarter nights on the floor.
Halfway through the night, Axel glanced at the clock beside the bed for the millionth time. He pushed back his blankets and swung his legs over the side of the mattress.
Bayden was wide awake, his open eyes clearly visible in the light from the bathroom. Crouching down next to him, Axel checked each of the restraints. Next, he ran his hands over Bayden’s shoulders and down each limb, checking how knotted his muscles were.
Bayden’s skin was cool to the touch, but he wasn’t chilled enough to do him any harm. He was tense, but most of that seemed to come from his confusion at being checked upon rather than his predicament.
Axel touched Bayden’s cheek and encouraged him to look up.
“One night for each month,” he reminded him. “We’re a fortnight in. If you’d told me the truth that night you took the bet with Richards, all this would be over, and you’d be able to come back to bed with me.”
“Yes, sir.” The words were softly spoken, but they were full of both knowledge and emotion.
Axel pushed his fingers through Bayden’s hair in a gentle caress before going back to bed.
“This is about the time you started riding with us,” Axel said. “If you’d told me then, your penance would only have lasted one night.”
“Yes, sir.”
After a cold, sleepless night on the floor, Axel wouldn’t have blamed Bayden if there’d been an edge to his voice, but there wasn’t. He spoke softly, but there was a calmness there.
“You’re going to be stiff when you start moving. Take it slow,” Axel ordered, as he undid the cuffs from Bayden’s ankles and from around his wrists.
“Yes, sir.”
Axel helped him to roll over and sit up. “Sore?”
Bayden shook his head. “I’m fi—”
Axel silenced him with a fingertip over his lips.
Bayden cleared his throat. “Not sore enough to want to complain about it, sir.”
“That’s more like it. Go on.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “A hot shower might count as a privilege, but it’s not the one you gave up.”
Bayden hesitated.
“My choice, not yours,” Axel reminded him. “Adding to your penance would be just as disrespectful as trying to skip bits of it.” He waited in the bathroom doorway, making sure Bayden set the shower to a suitable temperature before he headed into the kitchen.
Axel let Bayden finish his breakfast before he broke the news of the next item on their itinerary to him.
“When we started this, you set me visiting your place as a limit.”
Bayden’s fork clattered against his empty plate.
“Because that would have made the rich pillock lie obvious,” Axel went on.
He let the silence stretch out until Bayden finally broke it. “Yes, sir.”