Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
I no longer think that.
Furious Wrath is terrifying.
It is not just his appearance, but the sheer energy emanating from him. He has not said a word, and yet I feel the how dare you disobey me in my bones. I want to run. So I do. Hell, why not. There’s not much point having instincts if you don’t follow them.
I sprint off away from Wrath, much to the amusement of Cadence and Casey, who hold Lettie and laugh at the top of their lungs. I look over my shoulder to see if the running is working. I feel as though the earth would be shaking if Wrath were giving chase. When I look, I see that he is not chasing me. He’s not actually moving at all. He has stopped, and he is looking at me with his arms crossed over his chest.
I stop too, mostly because it suddenly occurs me there is nowhere to run to. We are in the middle of a densely forested area surrounding this volcano and the wreckage of the ship. If I were to actually get away, I’d probably be lost forever, and I don’t think I’d survive that.
Once I stop, Wrath starts walking toward me again. I let out a little whimper as he closes the distance between us, still very much with that intimidating energy.
I run again. I can’t just stand here and wait for whatever the hell he is going to do to me.
This time I run quite a bit further before stopping.
Wrath has followed, but not at a quick pace. He is just walking after me.
“Don’t do this,” I beg. “Don’t be… don’t think… don’t…”
He doesn’t say a word. I wish he’d say something. I don’t remember ever feeling as though I am in this much trouble before. I am quite literally shaking.
This time, I let Wrath reach me, resigning myself to whatever is to come. He grabs me by the arm, picks me up, and strides off up the mountain with me. I don’t know what he intends to do to me, but I know that whatever it is he wants privacy to do it. Is that good? I don’t know.
He carries me up behind a rocky outcropping not far from the wreckage which provides some kind of shelter from the eyes of the others. There he puts me down, so he can look at me, and so I can look at him as he starts lecturing.
“I told you to stay on the surface,” he growls at me. “It was a singular order, and it was very, very clear.”
His eyes gleam green, and his voice is deep and resonant… and pissed.
“I couldn’t leave you to go up by yourself,” I say, trying to explain myself.
“Yes, you could have. If you had, that would have been for the best. You could have been killed!” He says this, swings me around, and slaps my ass hard. The leathery palm of his massive saurian hand feels like being hit with a brutal implement.
I cry out, tears immediately leaping to my eyes.
He props his leg up on a rock, tosses me over his massive tree-trunk thigh, and proceeds to spanks me hard.
“You will do as you are told. There is one rule when it comes to me, and that is Do What I Say.” He smacks me with each and every single one of those words, making me cry and sob all the more.
Having been through the trauma of a spaceship crash, and this brutish reunion with the saurian I have been stupid enough to fall in love with, I do not have the emotional fortitude to keep myself together. I cry hard. I cry all the tears I probably should have cried before this moment, tears I choked back years ago.
Wrath
This should feel more satisfying. Usually, punishing someone who deserves to be disciplined feels righteous. But I don’t like doing this at all. Every time my palm meets her round ass, I feel a pang of regret as I wish that this was not necessary.
She disobeyed me, and she could have damn well died in the process. I spent the last moments before impact thinking that I was dead. I thought I would never see her again, but I was okay with that because I knew she was safe. But she was never safe. She’d followed me like an imprinted baby lizard.
She really, truly deserves to be thrashed.
I pick her up from my knee and put her on her own feet. This isn’t going to be properly dealt with like this. All I am doing is getting my own frustration out. I want to do more than that. I want to teach her a proper lesson.
And at the same damn time, I am so happy to see her I can barely stand it. I did not like flying in the ship, and I liked crashing in it even less. The sense of desolation in the moments after the impact was like none other I have experienced.