Page 43 of The Gargoyle and the Maiden (Nightfall Guardians #1)

Idabel

T onic simmered on the workbench, its honeyed scent filling the apothecary as Idabel struggled to keep her eyes open. Three hours of sleep. That’s all she’d managed between Lo?c’s restlessness, Brandt’s episodes, and rising at dawn to open the shop.

She’d worked all day, collected Lo?c from school, fed him supper, dropped him off at flying lessons with Ghantal, and then returned to the shop to work on the latest batch of medicine.

“You’re adding too much valerian,” Betje observed from across the room.

Idabel jerked awake, nearly dropping the vial of tincture. “Damn it. I’m just—”

“Exhausted. I can see that.” Betje took the stirring rod and vial from her hands. “Go home. Rest.”

“I can’t. Rikard needs this draught tonight.”

“I can follow a recipe, Idabel. I’ll drop it off at the Nadir’s office when it’s done. Go.”

She wanted to argue, but her hands were shaking with fatigue. The walk back to the Tower felt endless, each rung of the four ladders to their tier more difficult to climb than the last. When she finally reached their eyrie, she found Brandt teaching Lo?c to file his claws on a piece of slate.

“Mama!” Lo?c bounded over, flashing his fingers at her. “Papa’s showing me gargoyle stuff! Look how shiny and sharp they are.”

“That’s wonderful, sweetheart.” She tried to inject enthusiasm into her voice, but she must have failed, because Brandt narrowed his eyes assessingly.

“When did you last sleep? Properly sleep?”

“Last night.” A traitorous yawn slipped out.

“For how long?”

She couldn’t lie through the bond. “A few hours.”

“Lo?c, please go get ready for bed.”

“But Papa—”

“It’s time. You have school tomorrow. Go get cleaned up.”

Once their son had reluctantly departed, Brandt stalked toward her. “You’re destroying yourself trying to do everything.”

“I’m fine!” She sucked in a deep breath, forcing her eyelids to stay open a normal amount.

“You’re not. You’re stretching yourself too thin.

Doting on Lo?c every second he’s awake and most of the time he’s asleep.

Working yourself unconscious at the shop.

Anticipating my needs before I know them myself.

Staying up late to spend time with us, getting up early to get everything else done.

” His tail switched behind him like an angry cat’s. “When did you last eat?”

She couldn’t remember. Breakfast? Maybe?

“This stops now.” His voice carried command. “You’re going to eat properly. You’re going to sleep a full night. And you’re going to do both before you do anything else.”

“What if Lo?c wakes up?” His gargoyle nature meant he was often restless at night.

“Then I’ll comfort him. That’s what fathers do.” He cupped her face, thumb tracing the dark circle under her eye she knew had to be there. “Your whole life can’t be penance, Idabel.”

While she ate a meal that he prepared, he put Lo?c to bed, firmly but gently explaining that big gargoyles slept in their own nests.

She heard him telling stories through the wall, his deep voice rumbling through tales of brave warriors and their dragon friends until Lo?c’s chirps faded to the slow sighs of sleep.

When Brandt returned and saw she’d cleaned all the dishes, his expression was dark, but the bond told her he wasn’t angry. He was feeling something else, something that made her pulse quicken and her knees press together in anticipation.

“You’ve been very disobedient,” he said in that dangerous, soft purr of his. “I told you to sleep.”

Sheepishly, she dried her hands on her apron. “I was just trying to help. Someone has to wash them.”

“It doesn’t always have to be you. You starve yourself while you feed others.

You drive your body to exhaustion to heal others.

You give up all the comforts of life except when I force them on you.

And for what?” His voice grated the harsh question like she on trial for a crime.

“To prove your shame? To punish yourself before I can?”

Her stomach cramped. She wanted to argue, but the truth twisted painfully in her belly. “I don’t like to take too much,” she whispered. “After what I did. I’ve taken enough.”

A growl cut her off. “Enough. You don’t decide what you deserve.

I do. And what you deserve right now is care, Idabel.

Since you will not give it willingly to yourself, I must correct you.

” He led her into the nesting chamber, where he sat on the edge of their nest, patting his lap. “Lie down here.”

Heat flooded her face at the implication. He wasn’t really going to spank her like a naughty child, was he? “I’ll do better,” she swore. “I’ll ask before I wash the dishes next time.”

“Now, Idabel.”

Her pulse leapt and heat surged through her. The command in his tone was as intoxicating as mead. Her thighs clenched as she tried to summon defiance, but she wanted desperately to please him, even if it involved her own humiliation.

He reached and pulled her onto his lap so she lay across his muscled thighs on her belly. One large hand pressed between her shoulders, pinning her easily.

“You have neglected my mate,” he growled, caressing her backside through her clothes, kneading the flesh beneath. “You’ve allowed yourself to grow weary and thin. That is not acceptable.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, part of her still hoping he’d relent. She felt his cock thicken beneath her at the apology.

“That’s right, you are a sorry thing. So perhaps now you will listen to me.” He dragged her skirt and petticoats up over her hips with the other hand, baring her. “You will learn. And you will not forget again.”

The first strike of his broad palm landed with a dull crack.

Fire blossomed across her flesh. She gasped, every nerve ending alive.

The swift shock of the second stole her breath.

A third followed and then a fourth, each one a stinging rebuke that overlapped and built upon the last. She clenched her jaw, determined to take this punishment in silence to show her remorse.

But Brandt didn’t want her silence. He paused, rubbing over the spot he’d punished. The sensitive skin there made her squirm away from his hand. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Forgive me,” she panted. His cock leapt again, pressing into her soft stomach. So it wasn’t a coincidence. He wanted her apologies. She shifted so her breasts brushed over his swelling shaft. “Please, Brandt, I’m so sorry.”

A throaty growl slipped out of him, and he gripped the back of her neck, stilling her. “I know what you’re doing, Idabel, and I won’t be distracted. I thought you were a rabbit, but you’re a little vixen, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry?”

That made him laugh and harden even more, but he grew serious too quickly, delivering another half-dozen slaps to her increasingly heated bottom before pausing again to torment her with gentle, feathering fingers that skimmed over her dampening folds.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked again, delivering another blow as punctuation. “Can you feel my frustration with you? My fear that you will not let me help you when you need aid?”

“Yes,” she whimpered, squirming. The next slap landed square between her legs with a wet sound, and her whole core clenched.

Brandt groaned. “Fallen gods, you like it. I’m not sure you’re learning what I want you to learn tonight.”

“No, I am!” she rushed to say. “I’m learning a lot. Don’t stop.”

With a dark, resigned chuckle, he resumed the spanking, mounting a rhythmic assault that turned her skin into a tender map of his disapproval.

With each strike, something within her began to unravel.

As she put herself into his hands, her guilt and shame, so crystallized during the years without him, began to fracture and fall away.

A low moan escaped her, not just from the pain, but from the rightness of it. This was her atonement, physical and undeniable. It was so much deeper and more satisfying than all the small ways she punished herself.

“What have you learned so far, little rabbit?” he murmured in her ear. Her whole body was throbbing so much that she hadn’t noticed when he’d paused again.

She could hardly think, but she owed him an honest answer. “That I should trust you to care for me. That I should ask for what I need, and you will give it to me.”

“Very good.” His fingers teased between her legs, stroking and pinching her slippery folds. “And what do you need right now?”

“This,” she breathed, pushing her hips back against his hand. “More.”

“I think you’ve had enough punishment for one night, my pretty, pink mate.” Two blunt fingers traced along her wet heat and then pushed inside her, soothing the hollow ache that had built between her thighs. “I think you need pleasure more. Perhaps that will help the lesson stick.”

Her body jolted as he thrust his fingers into her, eased by her arousal. He shuttled them in and out, curving to touch a place that sent sparks through her, like she was flint and he was steel.

The feelings built so quickly. She whined and writhed against them, resisting the sensations. Shouldn’t he be taking his pleasure, too? From the feel of him, he wanted it as much as she did. She couldn’t bear to think that he might deny himself while she indulged.

“Brandt, please!” she begged. “Won’t you let me touch you? I can’t stand being the only one who feels this good.”

“This is part of the lesson,” he said, his voice softening though his hand still pressed heavy on her back. “You must learn how to take what I give you without trying to balance the scale. I am your justice, remember?”

He pumped his fingers deep, his thumb teasing her swollen clit. The sting of the spanking only heightened the sensations, every thrust nudging her closer to her release until she felt balanced on a precipice. She moaned, rocking back against his hand.

“That’s it, come for me.”

“No,” she gasped, the word torn from her. “Don’t let me…it’s too good.”

His hand left her back to fist in her braid, pulling her head back sharply. “You deserve what I say you deserve,” he growls. “And I say you deserve to come all over my hand. I want to feel you milk my fingers. Now, Idabel . ”

He buried his fingers in her, hitting a place that unspooled her completely. The orgasm ripped through her violently. Her body seized around him, a series of frantic, clutching spasms that tore a broken sob from her lips. Her vision whited out at the edges as she surrendered to it completely.

He held her, working her gently until the spasms eased, then withdrew to stroke her hip, grounding her until she caught her breath. He eased her off his lap into the nest, covering her and tucking the furs around her.

“Sleep now,” he murmured, kissing down her face from her hairline to her lips. “If you wake, I’ll be here. With more punishment or pleasure, depending on what you need.”

Idabel sagged back into the furs, her skin throbbing, her head and heart strangely light. The guilt she always carried hadn’t vanished, but it didn’t weigh heavy over everything. Brandt’s lesson had lifted some of it, leaving her free to sleep and dream.