Never Submit! The Swarii Brides, Book One (9 page)

He started stripping the bark off the switch he’d found as Ellie regained her footing. “Alright, before you go nuts—I told you that the whole thing downstairs was weird. Maybe I did lose my mind! I don’t know. I couldn’t help it, though, Peyton. I mean, Graham’s actually kind of an ass, but I was still…”

“Lettin’ him in between your legs like a lil’ hussy? Yeah. I saw,” Peyton assured grimly.

She blushed profusely before she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “I’m not a
hussy
, Peyton,” she finally said, feeling small. “I know I put you at risk, though, and I AM super-sorry.”

“Risk?
Risk
? You were about to
screw me
—and not in the good way!” he blared. “May I remind you of what would happen if you…”

“I wasn’t thinking about you…” she admitted. “I just… forgot.”

Peyton looked at her with a very intimidating, very offended expression. “Yeah? Well, consider this your
reminder
, kiddo. Pants off.”

She, instead, put her hands on her pants like she was determined to hold them onto her hips at all costs. “I have something important to talk to you about!”

“Alright,” he said, tapping the switch impatiently against the side of his leg. “Talk. It better be REAL educational.”

She shifted her weight foot to foot, staring at the switch. “I can’t
talk
when you have that…
thing
in your hand,” she told him.

“Talk,” he ordered.

“Okay…” She bit her lip for a moment, and then unleashed everything. She basically recited everything word-for-word, but in the end, Peyton just looked more pissed than he was. He didn’t say anything, though, just locked his jaw and stared at her.

She got goose bumps over her arms as she realized that the reason he didn’t say anything, or move, is because if he did, he was afraid of hurting her.

“Can I change my shirt, at least?” she said, her posture an illustration of capitulation.

“Strip,” he ordered, but it was a short, controlled word.

“Peyton…” Peyton hadn’t seen her completely naked since her first day at the palace, when he ripped about a thousand towels off her body so that he would be able to leather her bottom, resulting in a lesson that she thought she wouldn’t have to learn twice:
Never blatantly disobey Peyton
. She couldn’t
believe
that she would be forced to be naked
now
. Now they knew each other.

Peyton wasn’t in the mood to be whined at, or to wait as she pretended to still have shame left. He stepped toward her, and she covered her body as if she was already nude. He made short work of undressing her against her will—although Ellie was strong in spirit, she wasn’t particularly strong in any other way. Especially up against a powerhouse-type like Peyton.

And she didn’t try that hard, anyway. By the time he took his own jacket from her, her eyes welled up with tears.

She was wailing by the time he ripped her pants down to her ankles.

“Stop your bellyachin’,” he snapped. “We haven’t even begun yet, Princess.”

Somehow, that wasn’t reassuring enough to get her to stop wailing and begging him until he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her bed, forcing her down on it. She was helpless—pinned by the small of her back.

And then he began to switch her.

It certainly didn’t feel like how she feared. No, no—it felt a million times worse. It turned out that she wasn’t very creative. Her mind hadn’t even begun to FATHOM the type of pain that went along with a switching. Mostly because she had never equated itching with pain—or
was it
itching? The way her skin seemed to quiver after a switching was uncomfortable enough to make her want to soothe the hot, inflamed welts it left behind, but it was a pain that couldn’t be scratched away.

It was surely possible that the entire palace could hear her caterwauling; it was as if she was trying to get her vengeance on Peyton by making his ears bleed. But he didn’t stop—he bit the switch into her flanks with such skill, you’d think he was a professional.

He even was able to lecture her, audible around her sobs. “Oh, this could get SO much worse,” he promised. “I told you NOT to talk to them, and then what do you do? Blatantly disobey me and WORSE. Do you know—do you have any idea—what could happen to you if you allowed that to happen? If I didn’t come in just in that second? How could you be so thoughtless? So selfish? So goldarn
stupid
? After all we’ve been through, you go behind my back and do that… There’s no excuse! None whatsoever!”

He wasn’t interested in just scorching her bottom for her, either. He switched her all the way down to the bend of her knees, until she brought up her feet protectively, and then he grabbed them both in turn until each pad of her foot had a couple of stripes across each of them.

“Spread your legs wider,” he ordered above her sobs.

She wanted to call out, ‘Are you crazy?’ but she wouldn’t dare. Still, she knew if she spread her legs wide, which she had taken great care to keep from doing thus far in the punishment it would only give him new, tender targets.

Still, it didn’t look like the switching would end until she did it, so, slowly, she began to edge of her feet carefully away from each other. Peyton grabbed her inner thigh with his large hand and forced them wider before he leaned over and issued blows to that area and then—

SWISH-SWICK! He hit the tender, swollen lips of her labia with the flexible wand.

She thought she was going to die.

To keep this short; she began to make promises and apologies. All sorts! She promised eternal obedience, she apologized for talking to the Swarii, she apologized for
looking
at them, she apologized for
being born
, and she promised that she would stay a virgin for the rest of her
life
.

She would have promised to turn into a pink elephant, too, if she thought that would make any difference.

Finally, it stopped. She continued to cry, but her throat hurt too much to even speak, after all her yelping. There wasn’t much to say on her behalf—she had been thoroughly punished; she had gone against Peyton’s wishes and his trust and risked his life, and probably her own. She did feel stupid.

She didn’t move. Peyton dropped the switch to her side and announced that she would stay in her room all night, and would go without dinner. She didn’t want it, anyway. How could she eat, or move around the palace, after that? All she wanted to do when Peyton left the room and locked the door behind him as if she was a naughty little girl, was to crawl up to her bed and cry into her pillow until she went to sleep, and that’s exactly what she did.

* * *

By the time Peyton entered Mary’s room, which was right next to Ellie’s, she was waiting for him, situated with her hands on her hips. He opened the door, walked in, saw her posture, and then quickly turned as if to make a smooth escape.

“Peyton Zachary Jones!” Mary snapped. “What on God’s green earth were you doing in there? Killing her?”

Peyton sighed and turned to face her. He locked his jaw with resolve. “We’re not on God’s green earth anymore, Mary,” he reminded in a low growl. “We’re in Hell. And Ellie lost her damn mind is what happened!”

Mary raised an eyebrow, obviously doubting this. She crossed her arms and settled her feet as if she expected to stand where she was for quite a while. “Explain.”

Peyton looked up at the ceiling, exasperated. “I don’t need to explain,” he told her, swiping his hand through the air. “I have a job to do, and I do it.”

“You
do
have to explain, because even though Eleanor’s a huge pain in the ass, and a brat, and a stupid idiot most times, she has turned back and pulled us both out of the fire numerous times. I’ve never been in Jazeel’s chamber other than during an inspection—and why? Because you asked her to make sure it never happened! Now; what could she have done that was so wrong not to warrant a little
leniency
?”

Peyton didn’t think he had time for a full explanation, but before he could say ‘angry wife’, he found himself telling the story of what happened, and then reiterating everything Ellie had told
him
about the Swarii.

Mary looked at him, her calmness reminding him of the sky before a storm.

“She could have gotten me killed! I mean, her tit was out of her bra, for God Sakes! She was being a skank!” he found himself defending, throwing his arms in the air with frustration.

“She might have lost her mind, yes. But Ellie’s NOT a
skank
,” Mary lectured, folding her arms impatiently and looking soured by the Peyton’s word choice. “At least she wasn’t this morning. When I met her, she still called a penis ‘a
peepers
’ for God’s sake. I’ve never met a more immature nineteen-year-old in my life. Which means
something
must have happened between this Swarii guy and her, and she’s telling the truth. Perhaps she
did
mate with the Swarii…”

Peyton made a guffawing noise in his throat.

“And if that’s so, and they plan to escape with her…”

“But that’s
impossible…
” Peyton grumbled.

“They’ve done it six times, Peyton,” reminded Mary frankly, plucking a fact that she had heard from Ellie’s retold theory. “
Why
is it so impossible?”

“Mary,” Peyton sighed. “The reason we haven’t escaped isn’t because I’ve been chicken. Humans can’t use Frian weapons, we can’t fly Frian ships. We aren’t able to use their crystal technology!”

“But are
the Swarii
able to use crystal technology?” Mary posed, waving her hand as if she was physically putting the question out there.

Peyton’s body stilled, his eyes darkened with thought. Suddenly, his eyebrows rose. “I don’t know…” Suddenly, he waved off the thought. “Say they can, I mean, could we possibly trust them? They’re aliens!”

“Peyton!” Mary groaned, frustrated. She stepped towards him and put her hands on his strong upper arms. “I don’t want to be your virgin wife forever. I want to be your
real
wife. I want to have sex. With my
vagina
. I want to have children—
your
children. And you know Jazeel’s betrothed likes human children; she’ll likely start breeding us. And what if we’re not lucky enough for us to breed with each other—maybe you and some other girl! Maybe you and Ellie
together
? Or maybe Lady Galaal’s prime and myself! Is that what you want? Peyton… This might be our
last chance
!”

Peyton sighed; he hated when his wife was right. It seemed like he was always trying to be the head-of-household, the fearless leader. Unfortunately, it was very possible that she was smarter than him. Or, after being kidnapped for only about two years, even combined with her service under a different master, she still had a sense of optimism about her situation.

Either way, she was right. The thought of another man breeding with Mary was simply unbearable—he’d rather die than to see such a thing happen. And it was possible—Frians bred humans constantly, and the new mistress had fine, multi-ribbon studs at her disposal. It was just a matter of time that he would be fighting for the girl’s virginities for their own sake rather than his.

He nodded. “I’ll go learn more, Mary,” he assured, kissing her cheek. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Then you better make nice with them. Try not to intimidate them,” she added, pleadingly.

“Who?” he grinned mischievously. “
Me
?”

* * *

“So let me get this straight…” Graham was leaning up against the wall at this point, his face vacant of all expression as he stared at Peyton. Graham was much calmer than he had been, but he looked uncomfortable, and ill. The room was cold, yet he was sporting the same feverish look that Ellie had about her. “You switched my wife half to death, and then you come down here and want me to include you in some sort of escape plan?”

“I didn’t switch her
half to death
,” Peyton assured with a frustrated sigh. “I might have tanned her hide for her, but I came out about it to you—gave it to you straight despite me going out on a limb to trust an alien like you. I thought Ellie had lost her mind—Jazeel LOVES his surprise inspections around here, mostly because he likes the way the girls squirm when he shoves a finger up them. BUT if he finds a girl without a hymen,
I’m
responsible. And if he’s angry enough with me—or BLAMES me, then it’s snip-snip.”

Peyton scissored his fingers through the air to illustrate, causing the two other Swarii and Graham to grimace at the imagery.

Graham looked indecisive, but another Swarii began to speak up, in English so he could be overheard by Peyton. “Look, Boss—you have to admit, it would be nice to have someone set off a diversion while we secured a ship on the West Dock.”

Graham slowly looked over to the Swarii who was speaking. Suddenly, he smacked him upside of his head. “Why don’t you just tell the human the whole plan? Why don’t you show him a goddamned map, Thorton!” He rolled his eyes and looked up at Peyton. “Fine. But if you slow us down, we leave you behind.” He rolled his fingers in his direction, beckoning Peyton closer. “Alright, Muscles—here’s what you do…”

* * *

Ellie slept on her belly, and when she woke up with a surprised jerk, she was immediately still conscious about the pain in her flanks. She was still naked, but didn’t care—her legs certainly weren’t bothered by the coolness in the room.

Her face was still buried into her pillow when she felt two thick, long fingers trace along the side of a welt. For a second, she felt like she was still dreaming. In the next moment, however, as the welt began to sting at the touch, she snapped her head up and looked straight into Graham’s eyes, who was, for some reason, kneeling right next to her.

Her brain couldn’t piece it together fast enough and she gasped in air to let out a scream of terror. He moved faster than her, however, and quickly covered her mouth with his hand, sufficiently gagging her. “Shh,” he shushed. “You okay?”