Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
My legs carried me to the bench automatically, my body already having learned the routine of punishment over the terrible few days since Prince Hendren had taken me as his concubine.
I bent over the leather-padded surface, my heart hammering against my ribs. The prince’s hands were efficient and impersonal as he secured the restraints around my wrists and ankles, checking each one with a precise tug. The webbing cuffs bit into my skin, not painfully, but with enough pressure to remind me of my helplessness. I felt the cool air of the stateroom against my exposed sex, my bottom raised and vulnerable, my face burning with shame.
“This is a naval cat,” he said, letting the tails of the whip brush against my naked buttocks. “Nine strands of knotted leather. Traditionally used for discipline on Federation warships.”
The first lash came without warning, a swarm of fire across my bottom that made me cry out. I jerked against the restraints, my body instinctively trying to escape the pain.
“Euporia,” Prince Hendren said conversationally, as if we were discussing the weather over tea, “is perhaps the most fascinating planet in the outer systems.”
Another lash fell, deliberately placed just below the first. I gasped, tears springing to my eyes.
“The society there developed along unique lines after the colony ships landed.” The prince paused, letting me feel the burning aftermath of the strokes. “Parallel lines, in certain essential respects, to the ones we followed on Magisteria—but also very different. From the beginning, however, just like our own founders, they understood something fundamental about human nature that your Artemisian democracy pretended didn’t exist.”
The third stroke landed with precise aim, and I whimpered, my fingers clutching uselessly at air.
“On Euporia, they embrace what they call the Good Way.” He traced the welts forming on my skin with a cool finger. “Girls are raised in an all-female milieu. Many are identified early for their submissive tendencies. At eighteen, those lucky young women enter the Girls’ Training Academy.”
Another stroke, another cry torn from my throat. He was spacing them perfectly—just enough time between each lash for the pain to crest and begin to transform into the need I seemed completely unable to push away.
“At the Academy, they learn not just academic subjects, but how to serve. How to please. How to surrender.” His voice lowered, becoming almost hypnotic as the fifth stroke landed. “They sleep in special restraints called virtue-keepers to ensure their purity. On the classroom walls are educational posters that show proper submissive positions, proper behavior.”
I bit my lip, tasting blood as the sixth stroke fell across the tender underside of my buttocks. My tears were flowing freely now, but beneath the pain, something much more shameful had begun not just to happen but to grow impossible to deny—warmth spreading from my core, wetness gathering between my thighs.
“After their first few days at the Academy, they’re assigned to Guardians and Mistresses—married couples who complete their training. The Guardian takes the girl to his bed while his wife supervises, corrects, guides.” Another stroke, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Eventually, the girls are presented at a Suitors’ Meeting, where men select their future wives.”
The eighth stroke made me sob openly, my body shaking. But pain alone couldn’t account for the shudders that racked my limbs. As the ninth stroke fell, I had a thought so shocking it nearly made me gasp louder than the pain itself. For a terrible, bewildering moment, I wished I had been born on Euporia instead of Artemisia. To have grown up knowing my place, trained from the beginning to accept what seemed increasingly inevitable. Never to have tasted power, since I had done so only to have it stripped away. To have learned submission not as humiliation, but as purpose.
“The most beautiful thing about Euporian society,” Prince Hendren continued, his voice almost gentle now, “is how the women there embrace their nature. No resistance. No political careers pretending to be something they’re not.”
The tenth stroke landed, and I moaned, recognizing with horrifying clarity exactly what he was doing. Each word, each lash was designed to drill deeper into my psyche, to force me to confront the yearning I’d buried beneath layers of ambition and power. The need that had always been there, even as I’d signed treaties and addressed the Artemisian Congress.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Your body knows what it wants, Viola. Why do you fight it?” His hand slid between my thighs, fingers finding the wetness there. “Your presidential mind says one thing, but your sweet cunny says another.”
I tried to focus on my breathing, on the burning welts across my bottom, on anything but the growing arousal that seemed to weave itself through the pain like golden threads through dark fabric. Each stroke of the whip now sent dual signals—agony and need—creating a tapestry of sensation I couldn’t untangle.