Taken, Lane L.V. [free novels to read .TXT] 📗

the correction is done,” Caden says, folding his arms. “A blessing given how much she needs.”

“I suspected as much. Some wenches need a firm hand and lots of rutting,” Raglan says like he is an authority on disciplining errant wenches and rutting. Perhaps he is.

Raglan crooks his finger at me, and all the blood drains from my face.

“No!” I turn, intending to run from the room . . . although where I will go given we are on a ship, I have not thought through. The air behind me crackles. I’m snatched off my feet. “Ufff!”

Did Raglan shift to get to me so quickly? The hand enclosing my arm is entirely human, but there is something about his other form that both terrifies and arouses me. In short order, I’m tossed over Raglan’s lap, and stinging spanks rain across both cheeks of my bottom, protected poorly courtesy of the shirt. My breasts all but spill out of the coarse material, hardened nipples catching and scraping against Raglan’s muscular thighs, driving them to even stiffer peaks. Dissatisfied with the encumbrance of my shirt, Raglan pauses to thrust it up and out of the way that he might spank directly upon my bare ass.

True to Caden’s assessment, I take none of this with grace. I scream and wail, and I curse the three with an inventiveness that impresses even me.

“Where the fuck did she learn these words?” Raglan demands of my mates. He pauses the punishment and smooths his big hands over the stinging flesh of my bottom. I fidget. “Hush,” Raglan says, closing his other hand over my nape. I shudder at the feeling of his warm, calloused fingers toying with my hair as much as the broad palm smoothing over my bottom. The two different sensations tie me in knots.

“Belle,” Caden says. “Lord Bram’s Omega mate, whom he shares with his brothers. She has a propensity for cursing. The two of them are thick as thieves and always up to mischief.”

“I am—oh!” A yelp escapes me as Raglan lands another firm swat.

“Quiet, lass, when your mates are discussing you. If I need your input on a matter, I’ll be sure to ask your opinion.”

Brook snickers. I shoot him a glare from under the curtain of my wild hair.

“Wait! Mates?” Spank. “Ouch!” Spank. “I was only asking a question!” Spank, spank, spank. “Goddess save me from brutes!”

 “Does the wench never stop her backtalk?” Raglan growls. More firm swats land upon my upturned bottom in relentless waves.

“Very rarely,” Brook says with a sigh. “The only way to stop her talking is to put something in her naughty mouth.”

I’m sure Raglan has just groaned a little at Brook’s determination, but I’m too busy wriggling away from the punishment to be sure.

“You have put yourself in grave danger, lass,” Raglan says as he continues to pepper the surface of my bottom with sharp, stinging blows. “I understand the circumstance was difficult. That a Blighten thug dared to enter your room, and I’m proud of you for fighting back, but you should not have ridden off.”

The tears come upon me suddenly. It’s like the bank breaking on a flooded river, and everything spills out. The terrible fear when the man tried to put his hands upon me. Raglan’s genuine pride in me. And my terrible sorrow that through this, Posey was lost.

The spanking has stopped, and I’m jostled as Raglan turns me over on his lap and cups my cheek to his chest.

He purrs, but the tears fall harder. “There, lass,” Raglan says. “You have been brave beyond measure. But it’s over now, and you are forgiven. We will talk on the matter no more.” I cling to him, trying to bury myself under his skin. I am volatile with emotion and desperate for comfort.

“You said mate,” I whisper softly.

“Aye, were you confused about that part?”

“No,” I say. “But Hawthorn will not be happy.”

“Of course, he will not be happy,” Raglan says. “He was a miserable bastard at the best of times and now he must accept a fourth Alpha rutting his sweet little Omega.”

“You say that like you know him?” I peer at him through tear dampened lashes.

He raises a brow. “Of course I know him.”

I fidget a little. My bottom is very sore, I’m emotional and needy, and now I’m also baffled. “You do?”

“We fought together in the Imperium Guard before he was called back to your estate. We were as close as brothers, as close as I’m sure he is now to Caden and Brook. Although knowing Hawthorn, he’ll find something to be pissed about in my handling of this . . . and you.”

I swallow. This morning’s discipline is not merely about my misdeeds. It is also about the handling that happens between mates. Back when I was a broken Beta, I did not understand the consequence and impressions that can form when a man handles a woman’s discipline. From the first time Hawthorn, and then Caden and Brook, took me in hand, the tentative bond between us bloomed into something much more. A bond is forming now. It has been forming for a while. The spanking and what comes after will tighten that bond leading toward the culmination when we finally rut.

As I sit on Raglan’s lap, I feel particularly small . . . and enthralled by the prospect of him rutting me.

But I’m aggrieved that he has never once mentioned Hawthorn . . . then again, he also did not mention that he was working for the King. The more I think about all this, the more aggrieved I become.

“Do you need me to make you feel good now, Priya?” Raglan asks.

I hear the smile in his voice like he can see right through my mounting outrage. But I’m also very needy, which causes me to reprioritize my outrage as slightly less important than being made to feel good. “Yes, please, yes.”

Fingers brush under my chin, tipping my face up. I see his handsome face through watery eyes before