52
920 Words
The Alpha glared back with murder in his eyes, and Jack went cold.
Lashes . . . stocks . . . the gibbet. My God, these creatures are barbarians! And judging by the look on the Alpha’s face, Hawk was about to be on the receiving end of some very nasty barbarism, indeed.
“It wasn’t his fault!” she blurted, and she reached out and seized Alejandro’s arm.
The crowd gasped as one, their shock universal.
For a moment there was nothing, just frozen silence and a look of stunned disbelief on Alejandro’s face as he looked down at her hand wrapped around his arm. His gaze snapped back to her face and his look told her one thing for certain.
She’d just made a terrible, irreparable mistake.
“I’m sorry,” Jack whispered. She released his arm, and took a small step back.
“Well,” said the Alpha calmly after a long, horrible moment. He lifted his gaze to the crowd. His voice, clear and strong, carried to the far reaches of the clearing. “It appears we’re going to have not one but two canings to complete the evening’s festivities!”
He clapped his hands. The drums resumed their throbbing beat. The crowd looked on in ominous silence.
And Jack shrank back in terror as two hulking males approached her from either side, while the Alpha watched her, a sinister little smile playing over his face.
The hulking males brushed right past her, however, and grabbed Hawk.
He didn’t struggle, comment, or even looked surprised. He simply let the males lead him away through the crowd as Jack watched on in stunned disbelief, too shocked to move.
The Alpha watched Hawk’s receding back. “Nando . . . you know the drill.” Beside her, Luis Fernando stiffened in outrage. “Sire! He attacked me!”
Alejandro snarled, “And you were either too slow or too distracted to evade him! Either way, he bested the head of my security detail . . . which doesn’t make me feel particularly secure. Failure isn’t an option. You know that. Take your lumps like a man or your second-in-command is getting a promotion.”
He didn’t mention what would then happen to Nando, but judging by the look on both their faces, it wouldn’t be pleasant.
Nando hesitated for only a moment, then followed the path the other guards and Hawk had taken through the crowd.
Jacqueline was left standing beside the dais alone, reeling, her heartbeat arrhythmic, her skin clammy with sweat.
From behind her, Alejandro directed, “Morgan. Accompany our guest to the punishment tree.”
He stepped past, sent a sidelong, penetrating look in her direction, then made his way through the parted crowd with the rest of his security detail in tow while the drums throbbed and pounded.
As Jack watched him go, a gentle hand touched her arm. “Whatever happens next, don’t let them see you cry,” said a woman softly.
Jack turned.
The lady in question was brunette and statuesque, with an angelic face and the body of a Vargas pinup model. In a figure-molding red dress that perfectly showcased all her physical assets, she possessed an air of sophisticated, ladylike chic that was enhanced by her British accent, all of which served to make her even more conspicuous in the atmosphere of pagan decadence.
The expression she wore seemed out of place, too. This bombshell looked at Jack with something like empathy.
And . . . worry?
“If he makes you cry, he wins. Understand? This isn’t just punishment for Hawk and Nando . . . he’s betting you won’t be able to take it and you’ll break down in tears,” Morgan murmured, curling her fingers around Jack’s bicep. “And if you do, you put yourself in grave danger. Here, weakness isn’t just a character flaw.” Her gaze turned flinty. “It’s a death sentence.”
Beyond her horror and hammering heart, Jack found her voice. “W-why are you telling me this?”
Morgan’s fingers tightened around her arm. Somehow the touch seemed comforting, not at all threatening, and Jack felt the insane urge to trust her, which was only reinforced by her next words.
“Because I need you to stay alive, Jacqueline Dolan. I need you to thrive. And you’re only going to do that if you don your big girl knickers and watch what’s about to happen without batting an eye. If you get through tonight without showing weakness, all your tomorrows will be much easier.” She smiled, a wry twist of her lips. “Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about.”
Using gentle force on Jack’s arm, Morgan propelled her forward. Jack allowed herself to be led away, glad for the elegant presence beside her and the hand that felt more and more as if it were the only thing holding her up as they moved through the crowd, faces turning as they passed, the silence almost suffocating.
As it turned out, the punishment tree was aptly named.It was old and crooked, its branches black and devoid of leaves like a haunted tree in a ghost story, the kind of thing you see silhouetted against a fat orange moon on greeting cards at Halloween. Wound around its thick, gnarled trunk were heavy iron shackles on chains. Dangling gruesomely from the upper limbs like hellish ornaments were dozens of skulls, pale and grinning in the moonlight
- Writer
