Page 45 of The Dragon Warlord

“If you want to, Alpha. If it’ll make things easier.”

His eyes narrow, trying to figure out what I could be up to and why I’d be up to anything at a time like this. But the man is as curious as a cat. He nods. “Very well. River, would you like to do the honors?”

He had to go there, didn’t he? I’m sure he can read his son well.

“Do I have to do it, Warlord?” My omega is a smart one. He pulled the ol’ “I need to defer to my alpha”, bit.

“You don’t have to, but are you going to feel comfortable with someone else doing it?” I hope that shows everyone how much I know him and that we have left our mark on each other, even without physical proof.

Borrowing a sword from one of his parents, he storms over, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing. Gripping my hair in one hand, he brings the sword down, chopping it so that it sits at the nape of my neck. Then he stares at me, and I have a hard time reading him, but I note that he’s keeping his eyes strictly on my face.

In other words, off my deflated penis, which is on display for all to see.

“Thank you, Omega. Please return to your post,” I say as I do my own perfunctory check of him.

“Yes, Alpha.” He’s the dutiful omega on the outside, while his insides swirl with turmoil. I wish I could comfort him.

Chains drop from the ceiling. “Arms up, Omega.”

The dragon lord shackles me by my wrists, and I’m raised into the air until I’m on my tiptoes. My shoulders are forced to take the brunt of my weight. The manacles bite into my wrists. I’ve been in this position before, but for what’s considered “fun”. With my men, the experience is entirely different. They use soft cuffs that don’t hurt me even when they are purposely planning to inflict pain.

With this, the helplessness is amplified. It takes all my training in every vocation to prevent terror from taking over. He hasn’t even begun, and I know that I’m going to avoid punishment like this one again.

Gripping my chin in his hand, he forces me to look into his blue-fire eyes. “What have you to say for yourself, my pretty pet?”

The brat in me rankles and wants to respond with snark. Even I can’t believe it.Not fucking now, Tristan. I school my features, putting my new Warlord’s mask in place, and search for the words he wants to hear.

“I’ve misbehaved horribly, Alpha. Will you please correct my behavior so that I might do better in the future?

6

River

Of all the things I should be focused on, the things I’m most upset about are his hair and the fact that he’s naked in front of everyone. He hasn’t been mine for very long and now everyone gets to see him like this.

Let it be said: I hate his hair like this.

Hate. It.

He’s still the most handsome man on the planet, some might prefer this look, but how will I bury myself in his hair with it gone? If anyone was going to cut it from him, it was going to be me. Like hell was someone else going to do it. I have something to hang onto while the whip cuts into his skin over and over. I kept the long strands I cut from him and let my fingers sink deep into their silky texture.

Tristan bravely endures the first thirty lashes without crying out, but somewhere around thirty-two he lets out a howl to raise the dead and that’s not good. He’s still got another sixty-eight to go.

“You aremyomega,” Father says. “What you do reflects me whether either of us likes it or not. I expect perfect obedience.”

“Ye-Yes, Alpha. S-Sorry. Yes. Please,” he says his words broken and slurred from the pain.

Please stop? Please believe him? It’s hard to say what he means with so many emotions swirling inside him. He’s supposed to submit to the punishment in its entirety though. He’s being careful not to explicitly ask for it to end.

The dragon whip is called the scale skinner for a reason. It’s made for dragons. Tristan won’t have experienced the like of it before. Even I’ve earned it a time or two in my thirteen hundred years. I have a healthy respect for it.

I’ve never had to endure more than twenty lashes at a time. I’ve never seen anyone take one hundred. Father is always going to go the hardest on his omega because he’s the dragon Warlord.

And he probably doesn’t wish to repeat this lesson.

When they reach the halfway point, I want to leave. I don’t know if my stomach can handle watching my alpha suffer any longer. I’m not here to enjoy this, I’m here for support. He’s already reached out to me a few times and when he does, I reach back to let him know I’m here to metaphorically hold his hand. I have to toughen up. I doubt this will be the last time my trouble-making alpha finds himself in this position.

Father stops there, letting Tristan hang miserably while the last of his screams die off, echoing off the jade-stone walls. Tristan pants, unable to take a full breath hanging like he is. He tries to anyway, wanting to calm the shaking pain riveting his body. Someone taught him about breathing into pain, but with that whip, it’s almost impossible. He cries out again when he can’t stand the burning the whip has left behind as tears drip off his chin.