Page 23 of Brave
No one she knew would ever deliberately provoke one of Ethen’s punishments. And if ever that insane urge had once lived inside of her, then he had surely beat it out of her long ago.
Did her face pale? Maybe it was her trembling that Carlson suddenly glimpsed, his gaze sharpening on her while her legs shook so violently that it was a wonder she was still standing. Whatever it was, something made Carlson stop. His eyes narrowed, even as some of the harshness softened on his face.
“What made you change your mind, sweetheart?”
“P-Pony.” She tried, but she couldn’t make herself stop shaking.
“You have a pony?”
She almost laughed, but that was when the first tear slipped past her faltering defenses. She shook her head, her hands balling into fists, pulling at her own hair. The pain of inadvertently pulling her own hair helped to ground her.
“Who’s Pony?” Carlson asked.
“W-we served him… M-Master Ethen. There used to be more of us, b-but now it’s just me and Pony.”
“All right,” he said slowly. “So, what about Pony made you change your mind?”
“I-I-I c-can’t eat,” she stammered.
“You can’t eat? According to who?”
“No, you—you don’t understand.” It got harder to breathe. “I was disobedient.”
“According to who?” he countered again. “The guy who went to prison?”
He was still calm, still not yelling, and yet the way he arched his eyebrows and squared his shoulders said clearly he was growing annoyed.
“Are you still in contact with him?”
She flinched, dropping her gaze to the floor. She didn’t want to be. Her face burned; her chest felt suffocatingly tight. “I-I—”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he get put away for what he did to you?”
“Y-yes.” But mostly what he’d been incarcerated for was his theft of Kitty’s house and car, which he sold and for which he received a five-year plea deal with supposedly a guaranteed two years before he was eligible for parole. But prison was crowded and because his convictions were only for white collar crimes, with very little of his physical abuse even having been mentioned in court, he was getting out early.
“Are you planning to go back to him?” Carlson demanded.
“I don’t want to!” But Pony did, and desperately. If she went back, then Puppy would have no choice but to follow. She could take Ethen’s sadistic streak. Pony couldn’t. She just wasn’t strong enough.
“Good,” Carlson said bluntly. “I’m glad to hear it. Look at me.”
Reluctantly raising her gaze back to his, she flinched again at the severity waiting for her in his stony eyes.
“Am I your Sir, or is Ethen?”
More than anything, she wished she’d never met Ethen, but it was hopeless. She couldn’t cut him out of her life now anymore than she could shoehorn Carlson in. She had no business wanting his comfort, or his safety, or any other part that she couldn’t have, because none of it was destined to last. Carlson wasn’t damaged like her. He wasn’t messed up. He had options, and she just didn’t.
She ought to let him go. Surely someone less selfish would have, but already the loss of what she shouldn’t have was breaking her. Her bottom lip was quivering. Two more tears slipped free as she rasped a shaky, “You,” from a throat so tight that she could barely speak.
“Good,” he said again, “because I don’t share my submissives. I especially don’t share them with people who hurt them. Shall we try this again?”
She blinked hopefully, struggling to see through her tears.
“We’re going to go back out to the table and we’re going to do a proper negotiation. Unless you have an allergy or a serious dislike of something I ordered, I expect you to eat your share.”
Puppy deflated. “I can’t! Pony got punished because of me. It’s not right.”
“Yes, you can,” he countered. “You can because I’m telling you to. I can’t do anything about Pony. She’s making her own decisions, but if you’re serious about submitting to me as your Sir, then part of that power exchange involves trusting me to do what’s best for us within the parameters of our dominant-submissive relationship. Right now, our parameters are undefined, but I don’t care. You need to eat something. Frankly, honey, you need the calories. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You are bones under skin, you are so thin.”
