Darkness Bound

56

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.

Alejandro jerked his chin at the usmi’s two assistants, who jumped to comply with their master’s command. They released Jacqueline’s wrists from the shackles and chains, one at a time. When she was free she collapsed into their arms, boneless as a rag doll.

“Let him go,” said the Alpha to the four holding Hawk. They did.

He sprang to his feet. He sprinted to her. He shoved the two males aside and gathered her up—gingerly, tenderly, fury and anguish twisting his handsome face—hooked one arm under her knees, pressed her chest to his, and cradled her head with his other hand, leaving her bleeding back untouched. Without a word, he turned and strode swiftly away into the darkness with a semiconscious Jacqueline in his arms. The crowd parted silently for them to pass.

Everyone watched them go.

Xander said under his breath, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. What the hell has gotten into Hawk? Why would he care so much about her? Did you see his face? The way he fought? And the human . . . why would she do that for him? For Nando?”

“I don’t know,” Morgan answered in a whisper, just as the first of the tears crested her lower lids and began to stream down her cheeks. She swiped them angrily away before anyone could see them.

This had been her idea. Though the Alpha had approved it and even pretended he’d not only agreed to it but had also thought it up in the first place, it was Morgan who had wanted this, who had risked this very outcome. She’d brought the woman here, knowing all the dangers, all the ways an outsider could be harmed or worse, and yet she’d hoped they’d somehow navigate the murky waters together to find a common ground, a safe place where they could come to understand each other. A place where they might learn to live peacefully, so they could show the rest of the world it could be done.

Now that hope was as flayed and bloodied as Jacqueline Dolan’s skin.

What would she tell the world of them now that she’d been beaten bloody within ten minutes of her arrival, beaten so badly her knees wouldn’t even support her own weight?

The old man in white stepped forward into the clearing. He was kalum, the priest, Keeper of the Ancient Ways, the oldest, most venerated member of the Manaus tribe. Without speaking, he turned in the direction Hawk and Jacqueline had gone, gazed into the darkness, then bowed low at the waist. One by one, the crowd began to follow his example, paying their respects in silence, until the only one left upright was Alejandro.

The Alpha gazed impassively at the lowered backs of his subjects, then turned and walked slowly away.