Page 61 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
e of a lightweight, flexible wood from the Capirona tree.
Flexibility causes less damage to the underlying tissues. The skin, however, disintegrates.
At the first crack of impact, Jacqueline sucked in a loud, hard breath. Her back bowed, her head flew back, and her mouth opened wide, as did her eyes. She pulled hard against the wrist restraints, her fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the chains.
What she didn’t do was cry out.
The next strike distorted her face to a grimace of pain. Her eyes clenched shut.
By the fifth horrible, echoing whack, all the color had drained from her face and she was shaking uncontrollably, her jaw gritted so hard all the tendons in her neck stood out.
She still didn’t make a noise.
Standing beside Morgan, watching with his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders, Xander muttered, “Damn.”
Hawk, still being restrained by the four men on the ground, had turned his head away.
When the count reached ten, someone in the crowd behind Morgan whispered, “Ten.”
Whack!
Someone else said, “Eleven.”
Whack!
“Twelve.” More voices, joining in with the first.
Whack!
“Thirteen.”
Now the crowd took up the count in unison, their voices growing stronger with each unforgiving strike of the cane.
Whack!
“Fourteen!”
By the time the count reached twenty, the entire crowd was shouting together. And still Jacqueline was silent, though her body jerked violently with each blow. Nando looked as if he was going to vomit.
A female had never before been caned against this tree.
Their punishments, though handed out liberally, were typically less severe than the males’, who were able to withstand more vigorous physical discipline as they tended to heal faster than the females. The punishment tree had seen floggings and canings and beatings of various violence and bloodshed, but never had a woman stood chained to its trunk.
Never had a human stood there.
Never had a female offered belu for a male . . . one she wasn’t even mated to.
Whack!
“Twenty-one!” roared the multitude.
With every hit, with every vicious stroke that elicited howls of agony from almost all the previous victims under the cane’s unforgiving bite, but produced nothing from Jacqueline but that awful, unyielding silence, Morgan felt a growing certainty she was witnessing something holy.
When the count reached twenty-five, Alejandro held up his hand.
“Enough.”
Álefe, the tribe’s usmi—the hooded punisher, literally translated as “he who shows the way”—lowered his arm and stepped back, breathing hard. Jacqueline sagged against the tree, swaying on her feet, her face a mask of agony. From her position, Morgan couldn’t see Jacqueline’s back, but Hawk’s guttural moan when he turned to look at her told her everything.
