Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (27 page)

He nodded at his daughter who smiled and made a
little curtsy to the assembled weres. I noticed that not many smiled back.
Probably, they resented having a young, spoiled brat in such an important
position. The pack master leads the pack but the Alpha Bitch sets the tone—I
was guessing that the tone LeeAnn was setting wasn’t exactly classy.

Tonight she was wearing what she probably thought
of as a sophisticated gown but the way the shiny silver fabric dipped down low
enough to practically show her nipples and rode almost up to her crotch just
made her look easy. At least in my humble opinion—I’m a guy. What do I know
about fashion?

I
did
know though, that Taylor’s simple black dress with my mom’s pearls looked about
a thousand times better. She looked so elegant, so refined—I was proud to have her
by my side and I didn’t give a damn that she was a vamp instead of a wolf.

“The person who committed this crime is among us
tonight,” the pack master continued, glaring down at Taylor. To her credit, she
didn’t cringe or look away—she lifted her chin and glared right back at him. I
felt a surge of pride. Her expression said she’d been through a lot and she
wasn’t going to take his shit. I squeezed her hand again and she squeezed back.

“She has agreed to offer compensation for her
heinous actions,” Wainright said, still trying to stare Taylor down.

She opened her mouth to reply but I beat her to
it.

“I am Taylor’s bonded mate,” I said, causing an
uneasy murmur to run through the crowd. I caught some of the hostile stares
various weres shot at me and shot back a few of my own.
Yeah, I’m bonded to a vamp. Fucking get over it.
“And as her mate,”
I went on, “I will be taking any and all punishments she may have incurred upon
myself.”

“
Victor
!”
Taylor protested under her breath. I shook my head and gave her a warning look.
She had to let me do this—I couldn’t bear to have it any other way. Couldn’t
stand to see anyone hurt her.

The pack master frowned. “That isn’t custom and
you know it, Victor.”

“Yeah, but it’s not outside the law, either,” I
pointed out. “You want to punish someone, you fucking punish
me.
Or I swear to God—”

“Very well.” Wainright held up a hand to stop me.
“You may ascend the rock,” he said, gesturing for me to step up.

“Taylor’s coming up with me,” I said. “But nobody
touches her.” I didn’t like the idea of leaving her all alone in the crowd of
hostile weres. We stepped up on the long, flat rock and stood beside Wainright
and LeeAnn.

A cool wind blew through the field, ruffling our
hair and I felt Taylor shiver. I put an arm around her waist and drew her
close, wishing I could feed her and give her some of my warmth.

“Victor…” she whispered and pressed her cheek to
my chest. I dropped a quick kiss on the top of her head and scented her heat.
Despite the dangerous situation we were in, it made me instantly hard. God, how
I wanted her alone in the bedroom. Wanted to taste her sweet pussy until she
came for me again and again like she had last night…

“Can’t take your hands off that fanger skank for
even a minute, can you?” LeeAnn said under her breath—but loud enough for me to
hear.

I growled at her, low in my throat. “You offer
offense to my wife, you offer it to
me.”

“But she shouldn’t
be
your wife,” she protested, taking a step toward us.
“I
should. Victor, honey, can’t you see
we’re the perfect couple? She’s just got you all bewitched with her vamp magic
or something. She—”

“LeeAnn,” Wainright said in a low voice, giving
his daughter a stern look. “This is not the time or the place.”

“Sorry, Daddy.” She crossed her arms over her
chest, pushing up her breasts in a gesture that managed to be sulky and slutty
at the same time.

“Now.” Wainright turned to me. “We have prepared
a special punishment that I feel befits the heinous nature of the crime your
wife
committed against our Alpha Bitch.
You will be publicly flogged—”

“What?” Taylor exclaimed. “But you can’t—”

I put a hand on her arm. “Yes, they can. It’s all
right, baby—I can handle it.”

“You shouldn’t
have
to.” There were red-tinted tears in her eyes and an expression
of worry and guilt on her face. “This is
my
punishment, Victor. I don’t want you taking it for me.”

“I have to,” I said and turned to Wainright. “All
right. Let’s get it over with.”

“Of course. But I haven’t finished yet.” He gave
me a smile that crossed the border from self-satisfied to completely fucking
evil. “As I was saying, you will be flogged publicly—thirty strokes with a
silver lash.”

I frowned. This was something I
hadn’t
counted on. Silver tends to leave
a permanent scar and is usually saved for only the worst infractions, say, the
murder of one pack member by another. Also, it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. But
then, I hadn’t expected to get off easily.

“With a silver whip? You’re planning on using a
silver whip on him?” Taylor exclaimed.

Again I put my hand on her arm. “Let’s just get
it over with and get out of here.” That was pretty much the only choice we had.
There was no way I could fight my way through so many weres and still protect
Taylor. I would probably be permanently scarred as a result but hey, I’ve never
gotten by on my looks anyway.

I unbuttoned my shirt about three fourths of the
way down and shrugged it off my shoulders, baring most of my back but keeping
the lower part covered. I could feel the call of the moon and the weight of my
curse bearing down on me. I didn’t need the glowing brand giving me away.

“You’re awfully stoic for someone who’s about to
get the whipping of his life, my boy,” Wainright remarked. He turned to LeeAnn.
“Bring the lash.”

She stepped off the rock for a moment and
returned holding a long, shiny red box in both arms that looked like it ought
to be wrapped up with a bow. Great, a designer lash. Where did they get the
fucking thing, Whips R Us?

LeeAnn took the lid off the box and pulled out a
black leather whip with a braded handle and six long leather strands hanging
from the end. On the tip of each strand pieces of jagged silver metal gleamed
in the moonlight. She held it up in front of me and I had to fight not to
recoil.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of being whipped—I’d
been branded by my own pack, after all. I didn’t think a whipping, even with
silver, could hurt worse than that. But there was something about this
particular whip—something
wrong.
Evil.
It was the same feeling I’d gotten about the damn trap someone had placed on my
land—probably Wainright himself. I wished I’d thought to call the witch,
Gwendolyn, and check to see if she’d made any progress on finding the identity
of the one who’d left it. Maybe I could have used it as leverage. Then again, maybe
not. Wainright probably wasn’t going to admit dealing with a witch—not in front
of his pack, anyway.

“What’s wrong with that thing?” Taylor asked,
giving the whip a mistrustful look.

I glanced at her. “You feel it too?”

She nodded. “It’s like it has malicious
intent—like the trap.”

“Exactly.” I frowned at Wainright. “I never said
anything about letting you whip me with a spelled lash. Since when does a pack
master need magic to get his job done?”

He glared at me. “The whip is a device of
punishment—nothing more. Your attempt to claim otherwise must be seen as an act
of cowardice—you’re just trying to get out of your whipping.”

“That’s not true,” I said angrily. “But I can
feel the dark magic coming off that fucking thing in waves. You can’t—”

“Oh yes, I can.” The pack master made a motion
and four of the largest males came up onto the rock. Before I knew it they had
pushed Taylor aside and were holding me down.

“You fucker,” I snarled at him. “I’ll make you
pay for this. First the trap, then the lash—you’re in it deep with some witch
somewhere, you fucking coward.”

He frowned coldly. “I don’t know what you mean
about a trap. The whip was specially commissioned by LeeAnn herself, to right
the wrong your female did to her.”

“But it’s not supposed to be for
you
, Victor.” LeeAnn leaned in close to
me, drowning me in the scent of her sickeningly sweet perfume—bubble gum and
roses. It made me want to gag. “Renounce her,” she pleaded, shaking the whip in
front of my face. “Give her up
right here
and now,
and I swear you won’t get a single stroke. Just let me hear you
say you pick me, not her.”

I glared at her. “I’d rather let you fuckers whip
the skin off my bones than renounce the woman I love. I’ll never give Taylor up
for you. Fucking
never.”

“You son of a bitch,” she snarled. “Fine—you want
the skin whipped off your bones? I’ll be happy to do it for you.
More
than happy!”

She marched around behind me and I heard the whip
whistle as it came down on my back. It wasn’t a light blow—being a were, she
was considerably stronger than a human female would have been. But still, it
would have been easy to handle…if it wasn’t for the immediate effects I felt
from the silver whip.

Oh God,
I thought as the lash fell
again and again and the magic began to work on me.
Oh God, no…No!

* * * * *

Taylor

I saw the jagged silver pieces glitter in the
moonlight as the whip arched up again and again. By the third time it fell they
were wet and red with blood.

“No!” I screamed and struggled against the weres
holding me. I nearly got free—there were two of them but I was stronger than
ever after drinking from Victor so much. Then another one came to hold my legs,
and I was completely immobile—all I could do was watch and try not to cry.

LeeAnn—the little bitch—was vicious with the lash.
Her arm rose and fell tirelessly, literally whipping the skin off Victor’s back
and all because of me. Because he wouldn’t renounce me. He was paying for my
crimes—my sins and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Victor,” I shouted, straining toward him.
“Victor…no, oh please…”

“Hold still, fanger,” one of the weres holding me
grunted in my ear. “Let pretty boy take his beating and
maybe
we’ll let you go.”

“Or maybe not,” the one on the other one said,
smiling. “She’s pretty hot for a fanger.”

In the past, the implications of what he was
saying would have sent me cowering in fear, would have brought an avalanche of
hurtful memories and past abuse down on my head until I couldn’t think
straight. But now all I cared about was Victor.

“You just try it, you son of a bitch,” I snarled
at the one who was leering at me. “I’ll rip your fucking throat out, I swear to
God I will.” I bared my fangs at him and had the satisfaction of watching him
recoil.

“Goddamn, Lex,” he muttered to the were holding
my other arm. “This fanger cunt is hard core.”

“She’s feisty, all right,” the other grunted.
“Maybe that’s why he likes her. Maybe she gives good head.”

“With fangs like that? She’d probably bite your
dick off, man.”

I was barely aware of their conversation at all.
I was watching Victor, feeling every blow of the silver lash as it striped his
broad, bare shoulders and back. Hearing his muffled cries of pain and seeing
him…seeing him
change?

I looked again, wondering if my eyes were playing
tricks on me in the moonlight. But no, he definitely
was
changing and not into his wolf form. He seemed to be getting
bigger somehow, becoming even larger and more muscular. His face, which I could
only see from the side, was strained and his eyes were squeezed shut. It looked
like he was whispering something to himself over and over again. But what?

LeeAnn, who was still doing the whipping, clearly
didn’t notice. Or if she did, what was happening to Victor didn’t bother her.
She kept right on beating him, although I was sure that he’d already had thirty
lashes by now. Finally, she fell back, panting.

“He’s not crying,” she said, clearly unsatisfied
with the results of her labor. “Strip that shirt all the way off him, boys. I’m
not getting a good clean stroke.”

“No!” Victor roared. He opened his eyes and I saw
that they were glowing—but not his usual wolf gold. No, they were red—scarlet
red—and his face looked wrong somehow.
Distorted,
as though that part of him was changing too. It was frightening to see but
again, LeeAnn didn’t seem to notice any of it.

“Rip it off,” she demanded. “Let’s see what it
takes to make him beg for mercy!”

“Don’t!” I gasped. “Can’t you see there’s
something wrong with him? Stop this—stop it
now.”

“The only thing wrong with him is
you,
you fanger cunt,” she snapped,
turning to lash out at me with the whip.

I managed to duck just in time and the jagged
silver pieces hit the were who was holding me instead, right across the face.
He jerked and lunged back, letting go of my arm.