A Short Leash (17 page)

“Kade!” She shouted his name, but there was no reply, only the sound of her feet landing amidst the leaves of the forest floor and the beating of her heart. “Kade!”

“
Sierra…
”

His reply was faint, and perhaps not even heard by her ear, but she followed the voice nonetheless and it did not lead her astray. She hurdled a fallen tree and there he was, trapped.

Sierra skidded to a halt by the hunter’s body on the ground. It was just as she had seen in her mind’s eye, Kade was pinned by the tree, unable to rise. His strong form was rendered completely helpless and his skin was an ashen gray, which spoke to blood loss and perhaps other injuries.

“Kade!” She shouted his name in his face, clutching at him with both hands.

He opened his eyes and looked upon her naked form with a bleary disbelief. The moon was in full glow, shedding silver light on Sierra’s naked body, transforming her from mere pet into midnight nymph.

“Sierra? Is that really you? Or am I dreaming again?” His voice was dry and cracking and weak and she knew that he must be in a bad way. He had obviously been under the tree for quite some time, long enough to lose control of his senses.

“It’s me,” she confirmed, going to her knees beside him. “You’re hurt.”

“I got the tigress,” Kade said groggily. “I never thought a tree would take me out.”

“It’s not going to,” Sierra said. “You’re going to live. I’ve found you.” She lay down beside him and pressed kiss after kiss to his bruised face. There was little she could do about his wounds or the tree, but she could give him comfort and that was what she did, curling up next to the master she loved.

“You’re a good pet, Sierra,” Kade murmured. “Remember me, and be good for Charles.”

“I won’t be good for Charles,” Sierra said. “And I’m not going to remember you because you’re not going anywhere. You’re going to be alright. I found you, so you’re going to be alright.”

Kade opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and eerie in the moonlight, pupils dilated almost to the point that their beautiful hue was swallowed by the darkness.

“I was injured before this tree fell on me,” he rasped. “I think it will finish me. I’m sorry I won’t be able to complete your training, my pet.”

“No,” Sierra sniffed, her tears falling upon his face, leaving streaks of clean skin amid the dirt. “You are going to live. I will not let you die.”

“Sierra!”

Charles’ voice broke the night. He must have followed in her wake for a moment later he burst through the brush, saw the situation, and immediately went into medical mode. Unlike Sierra, he had taken the time to dress, and not just to dress, but to bring with him a plethora of supplies in a rucksack. It was so very like him to be rigorously prepared, and Sierra had never been more pleased for it. He had never been so handsome as he was in that moment, soaked with his own sweat, his dark hair plastered against his forehead with exertion.

“He’s dying,” she cried. “Save him.”

“What have you done to yourself, man?” Charles gently moved Sierra out of the way to work on Kade.

“Lost a fight with a tree,” Kade said with a ghost of a groggy smile. Even inches from death he was brave. Sierra tried to be too.

“Sierra, activate that emergency beacon,” Charles directed her. “It’s the big red thing in my bag.”

Sierra did as she was told then watched silently as Charles began to inject Kade with all manner of things. One of them put Kade into a deep sleep so quickly he was gone before Sierra knew what was happening. She had to sit with the knowledge that she might have heard Kade’s last words, an apology for a failing that was not his.

Soon Charles finished tending Kade and announced that all they could do was wait. Waiting was the last thing Sierra wanted to do, but she pressed herself against Kade’s side and hoped that some part of him knew that she was there.

“You found me quickly,” she said as Charles packed his medical supplies.

“You left quite a trail,” Charles replied. “You also left without permission and without clothing, for that matter.”

Sierra shrank away, whimpering. “But I knew Kade was here… I knew…”

Charles’ expression softened. “I know,” he said. “I’m the one who owes you an apology. You did what you were supposed to do, Sierra. You listened to your senses. I should have paid attention earlier. If I had, Kade might not be in such a bad way.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sierra hastened to reassure him. “You didn’t know.”

“I didn’t,” Charles agreed. “But you did.”

A humming noise above announced the arrival of rescuers, six strong men in a shuttle. They all wore environmental protection suits to keep their tender skin safe. Sierra noted that Charles had not bothered with any kind of protection. He would probably pay the price for that later.

The men worked with electronic saws to remove the tree and carefully moved Kade onto the stretcher. The stretcher was then attached to great cords and pulled up into the shuttle.

“I want to go with him,” Sierra said, watching as Kade was lifted into the sky by forces beyond her imagination. “I want to stay with him,” she whimpered louder still, clutching at Charles. “Don’t let them take him away, don’t let them!”

“He needs surgery,” Charles said in calm tones, wrapping his arms tight around her naked frame. “You can’t be there for that. I think it’s best we go home. They will let us know when he is well enough to visit.”

“What if he never gets well? What if he dies alone up there? What if…” Sierra was more than distraught, she was outright panicked, fighting against Charles because there was nothing else to fight against.

“Shhhh,” Charles said, holding her tight. He did not seem to have any other words of comfort for her, and Sierra knew that was because there was a very real chance that Kade might die. He might already be dead for all she knew.

“No! Where did they take him! Where?!”

“Calm down, sweetheart,” Charles said soothingly. “He’s in the hospital. I think he will survive; he’s tougher than most.”

“You think, but you don’t know. We have to go and get him. We have to go see him!”

“Sierra, you’re exhausted. You’ve barely slept for the past four days. I think you might be on the verge of a breakdown. I’m going to give you something,” he said. “It will help you relax.”

“I don’t want to relax!” She began struggling against his grasp, but it was no good. Charles held her in place with one arm wrapped around her waist and picked something up from his bag. She didn’t see what it was but she felt a sharp prick in her left buttock.

A moment later, she started feeling drowsy. A second later, she passed out in his arms.

* * *

Sierra did not know what time or day it was when she woke, but when she opened her eyes again she was in Kade’s bed, still quite naked and still very worried. Kade was not there. She was alone. The light filtering through the window told her that it was the afternoon.

“Hello, sweetheart,” Charles said, entering the room. As always, he was elegantly dressed and completely composed. There was nothing left of the tousle-haired savior who had come to Kade just in the nick of time.

“You drugged me!” Sierra sat up, scowling fiercely.

“I did,” Charles said without any measure of apology. “You were stressed to the point of illness. You needed rest.”

She stood up on the bed to equalize their height and glowered at him as he drew close. The moment he was at arm’s length, she reached out and slapped him hard across the face. The sound cracked through the air and was followed by a stunned stillness as Charles looked at her with an expression of surprise and displeasure.

“You had no right,” she said, shaking with anger.

“I had every right,” he said grimly. “And now I have the right to teach you never to do that again.”

He took her by the wrist and pulled her forward against his body, reaching around to slap her bare bottom hard. Sierra let out a yowl of anger and bit him hard on his neck, unleashing the anger and the fear she felt for Kade on Charles’ flesh.

“Bad girl,” Charles said, his tone devastatingly mild. “You think you can behave that way with me? Because I am not Kade?” He wrangled her off his neck and pinned her face down on the bed with ability Sierra had not expected. “Or is it because you need Kade?”

Before Sierra could answer, Charles slapped her bottom several times very hard. “I have always been gentle with you,” he said. “But that is because you have always been good for me. You need to keep being good or you will be a very sorry girl.”

Wriggling in his grasp, Sierra spat like a wildcat. “Where is Kade?”

“He is in the hospital,” Charles informed her, slapping her bottom again. “And you are in my care. Now get yourself under control, Sierra, or I will do it for you and I promise you, my girl, you will not like it one bit.”

“What will you do? Drug me again?”

Charles leaned down, his lips half an inch from her ear. “Sweetheart, I will strap every inch of your bottom and pussy.”

In spite of her anger and her rage, Sierra felt a tremor rush through her. This was Charles as she had not known him before. Calm, yes, but more masterful and intense than ever before.

“I was hoping to talk to you,” Charles said. “But instead you wanted to hit me. You know that’s unacceptable, don’t you?”

Sierra did know that it was unacceptable, but it was too late to change what she had done. Besides, he had drugged her and that was unacceptable too.

“You deserved it.”

“Ah, then you deserve this.” Charles sat down on the bed and turned her about so her head was facing away from him, her bottom perched over his thigh, her legs on either side of his. Her pussy pressed against his leg as she wriggled on the fulcrum of his body, waiting for the inevitable.

It came in the form of hot, hard slaps painting her bottom and her thighs with heat and pain. For the most part it was nothing Sierra hadn’t experienced before, but Charles was not Kade and his touch was different. He spanked faster, and with more precision. He used his other hand not to hold her in place, but to spread her cheeks and bare the cleft of her bottom to his punishing strikes.

Sierra yelped as he began spanking her there, taking a thorough approach that left her without any modicum of modesty. Her cheeks were being disciplined from top to bottom, and when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin strap of leather, she let out a whine.

“What is that?”

“This is the strap that will teach you not to ever slap me again,” Charles said, keeping her cheeks spread. He brought the strap down lengthwise down her cheeks, catching the depths of her cleft and the tender bud of her anus with the damnable thing.

“Eeeeowww!” Sierra screeched at the top of her lungs. The strap bit like an angry hornet, leaving her writhing over Charles’ lap. “Stop! That hurts!”

“Does it now?” Charles paused, his palm patting her bottom. “What do you have to say for yourself then?”

“Nothing,” Sierra growled. She was rewarded for her insolence with another cut of that strap, this time across her nether-lips. The sudden stinging impact made her buck over Charles’ thigh, whining as she did. “I mean… I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“I’m scared,” she added. She felt him melt as he laid back on the bed, her thighs still spread around his as his touch turned from punishing harshness to tender softness. He rubbed her bottom and looked into her flushed face.

“I know you are, Sierra. I was going to tell you before you slapped me. Kade survived surgery very well. He’s going to be home soon. You’ve nothing to worry about.”

She pulled her arms up under her and looked across at him with a small measure of shyness. Her bottom was burning deep in the crevice and she knew she would not soon forget the punishment, but the news of Kade’s recovery overshadowed all her discomfort. “Really?”

“Really,” he reassured her. “In fact, he should be home any minute now, so why don’t you go get cleaned up and make yourself look nice, presentable, and relatively unpunished.”

“A little late for that.” Kade’s voice growled through the room, quickening Sierra’s pulse. She leaped up from Charles, turned and threw herself across the room into Kade’s arms. He made a grunting sound as she wrapped her arms around him tight and looked up into his face, almost unable to believe that he was there.

“Easy,” Charles said from the bed. “He’s still recovering; try not to squeeze him to death.”

“It’s alright,” Kade said, holding Sierra just as tight. “I know how she feels.”

“Did they fix you?” Sierra looked him over. “What about your arm?”

Upon closer examination she saw that his left arm was quite different than it had been. It wasn’t just healed, it was… new. Though it looked almost normal, she could sense that it wasn’t. The scent was wrong, as was the appearance. It was just a little too shiny and it was completely unmarked by scars.

“This is a biosynthetic arm,” he said with a little grin. “All the better to spank you with.”

Sierra marveled at the technology of the citizens. What a world they lived in where a man could be given a new arm. For the first time in her life, she was grateful to the people of the city. If Kade had been treated in the wilds, he would surely have died. Thanks to them he was not only not dead, but he had a new limb that seemed almost as good as the first.

“You are not allowed to go anywhere without me,” Sierra informed him, wrapping her arms around his neck and biting the side of it with light possession.

“Is that so, my pet?”

“It is,” she said. “I found you all on my own. You cannot say my senses are not sharp enough anymore.”

“That is true,” he agreed, cupping her bottom with his good palm. “Thank you, Sierra,” he murmured, nuzzling her gently. “You saved my life.”

Sierra whispered her reply, for her voice was beginning to crack and her eyes fill with tears as emotion so deep she could barely contain it filled her body and soul.

“
You saved mine first
.”

She was no longer the wild one she had been, nor the desperate captive she had become, or even the frightened pet taken to Kade’s arms. She was more than all of that now. She was mate to two men, the feminine link in a chain so strong it would not be broken as long as she drew breath. Her senses soared as she held Kade and reached for Charles. Both men wrapped their arms around her, holding her close as they whispered words of love and comfort in each of her ears. Though her bottom throbbed and would probably never be unmarked, she had discovered an oasis of love and contentment beyond anything she had thought possible.