Page 76 of A Brat's Tale
Strobavik smoothens salve into my skin. There has always been good aftercare with Elves as much as there has been violence and pain. When he’s done, he gets behind me again, but I flip to face him and wrap my body around him in a Markaytian death grip—not so death-grip-like to an Elf, I know, but still. He hesitates, I know he’s thinking about telling me to turn back around but he sinks into me too, kissing my forehead.
“You know Tristan, you do have some submissive in you. You are not slave, but you have need for some stricter submissive protocol from time to time.”
I scowl into his chest—he smells of sweat and wildflowers. “I am brat. You’ve said so yourself.” But I’m only so angry because I’m worried it’s true.
“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to offend you, just sharing what I see.”
I don’t know how many fierce ex-Warlords cry in front of their scary dungeon master Doms once, let alone twice in one day, but that’s what I do. I cry again. Just when I think I know who I am, it changes. “Sir? I don’t want to marry him. I want to go home.”
That’s not true. I’m not sure I’d be happy in Markaytia anymore. I’m not who I was. I wouldn’t make sense there and I don’t make sense here.
Nothing makes sense without Corrik.
I haven’t even been able to write to my family since Corrik’s disappearance because I don’t want to tell them—telling them makes it true. The book is the only way to relay information quickly across such a distance. It’s a long way to ask a messenger to travel or to merit sending a bird that may or may not get there. It would only acourtesy at this point anyway—Mortouge owns me. They can do with me as they wish without permission. No one has said whether word has been sent or not and so I’ve assumed not. I don’t want to ask.
Strobavik should spank me and leave me. I doubt he’s supposed to be this familiar. Instead, he whispers something to me in Elvish that doesn’t translate to Markaytian well—a language I don’t speak anymore. Corrik was the only one who still said the odd thing to me in my home tongue.
The best I can tell anyone it means is,“The Gods give us strife so we might have a moment of happiness.”I enjoy the way his accent curls around the words.
“I know.I know,sir.”
He lets me cry till I’m done. I haven’t resolved a thing, but I’m renewed—the doubt and anguish washed gone out with the tide.
He sighs. “Okay. No more sadness. Enjoy yourself. I’m proud of you for today. And Tristan? I will know if you disobey me.”
I peek an eye at him. “How?”
I get a smack to my arse for leaving off the “sir.” “Because I will ask and you are a terrible liar.”
Something happened today and I’m not sure if I like it because Ilikedit. Yeah. Make sense of that one—I certainly can’t. I spin my fork on the wooden table, the pokey end stabbing into the tender pad of my pointer finger. The welts from today’s session still burn, but they surround me like a cozy blanket. I sink into them.
What am I?
When I was with Bayaden, it was clear to me that I’m brat. And I am. But maybe there’s more to me?
What happened today was natural and electric.
My stomach stirs at the thought of what I’m about to do. I’ve been given a little magical device that will tell me when an hour has passed. In Markaytia, we had sun dials to tell us the passage of time, but theyare not precise enough for sex games, apparently. I only have an exact amount of time to make myself come.
My lips twist at it, but my cock springs to life. “You do not help,” I say to my crotch. It won’t be a sword that defeats me as Corrik’s vision predicted, it will be my penis.
Before Strobavik left, he placed the chair where I’m to sit. “These are not my orders,” he said. “They are Alrik’s. You will follow his directives categorically. And Tristan? You will think of him this time.”
Initially my dragon blood raged. How can that Elf expect me to pause my grief over Corrik to think happy little thoughts of him so I can get off? Sure, I’m not actually grieving, not yet, but he can’t know that. Can he? Even still, I am mad with worry and I think that’s enough of an excuse thank you very much.
But I suppose that’s very Alrik.
I don’t believe Alrik’s doing this for me but Alrik, like my father, has many responsibilities. He knows neither of us have the luxury of grieving especially if I do become Crown Prince Consort. He probably views us moving on as a duty to our people.
Strobavik gripped my chin his hand. “Remember that this is a reward from him. He is pleased with you, Tristan. He’s said so a few times.”
He has?
Fuck, that got me. I’m a fucking sucker for pleasing someone. Especially when that someone is a piece of jagged rock—the harder they are to please, the more I want to. Yes, I know, but I’m complicated.
I can do this.
Done with dinner, I get up. “You’re to strip naked,” Strobavik said. “Then you’ll sit in that chair with your legs spread wide as they’ll go.”
