Chosen by the Governor (17 page)

“This isn’t Gellis’s fault. I didn’t ask her to come. Meesha insisted,” Freya hurried to defend her maid. “I put Gellis in an awkward situation and she demonstrated her loyalty to me.”

“Which is more than you’ve done for me,” he snapped, then took a deep breath. “Meesha has made a mistake, so has Gellis, but it isn’t for me to rectify those errors. However, it is within in my bounds to deal with you. What are you doing here?” He strode further into the room and examined his console. She’d shut down Lucilla’s file. “You’re spying on me, aren’t you? Is this part of your mission? To infiltrate a penal colony and steal information? I told you it was a military outpost and you use that to abuse your position as my jenjin.” His hands clenched into fists. “I trusted you.”

Tears splashed down her cheeks. Freya shook from head to toe. She’d not considered how he might view her actions. She’d spied, acted secretively, but not because she was undermining Marco’s authority. But how could she explain—he looked so cross. So disappointed.

“I’ve not stolen information. I was helping a friend, another jenjin. She’s here as a hostage, not a prisoner. For two years, Marco, two years of living in the Volta because her father is a rebel leader.”

Marco’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Which prisoner?”

“Lucilla. Planet forty.” Freya had backed herself against the window. Would he lash out at her? She peeped down into the valley. It looked no different, no safer. What had she done? She’d blown it. He’d send her back down there into the heat and cacophony of the laundry, leaving her to an unknown fate. “Please, you have to believe me. I did this to help Lucilla. Just read her file.” She pointed at the desk.

“I will. In my own time.” He turned away from her and the sight of his rigid back only made her feel worse.

“What are you going to do with me?”

“That I haven’t decided. Puto!” he shouted toward the door.

A worried Puto entered the room. “Sir?”

“Arrange to have this prisoner escorted to the custody center. Then, young man, we’re going to discuss protocols.”

Puto went pale. “Sir. What about this other woman?” He gestured through the open door to the equally anxious Gellis, who hovered outside.

“She may return to the Volta. I’m sure Lalita will deal with her involvement.”

“Please,” Freya pleaded. “She’s not to blame.”

Marco snapped his fingers and Puto scurried out of the room. Turning to face Freya again, Marco heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m too angry to deal with you now, Freya. You left the Volta without permission, which is a serious enough offense. But to add to my disappointment, you came here behind my back. Why didn’t you ask me about your friend? Do I mean so little to you?”

What could she say? She shared his disappointment, more so because in the aftermath of her foolish decision, she realized he meant much to her, more than he could probably understand. She was convinced she’d fallen in love with Marco. “I’m to be punished?” It was rhetorical. She knew she would be, but how and to what extent was unknown.

“When I’m ready, you’ll be punished, Freya. I will do what I see fit. That is the man I am, a leader—I seek control, discipline, and obedience in all things and I rely on the loyalty of subordinates. However, I still care deeply for you, Freya. I won’t send you back to the canyon. Nevertheless, you must respect my need for resolution in this matter. Without it, I can’t promise anything.”

She gulped down the wave of nausea in her throat. “Thank you. For not giving up on me. However,” she straightened her back, “I don’t regret what I’ve done. I’m will not stand idly by while injustice is done. I will continue to be what I am—an Earthling with a conscience.”

Was that an insult to him? He certainly jerked at the last word. She was sure she’d chosen the correct Vendian word.

Two guards appeared at the door and there was no opportunity for her to speak to Marco again as they cuffed her wrists behind her back. As they marched her out of the room, Marco eyed the drawer that contained the strap. That expression on his face, one of annoyance and disappointment, was etched onto her mind as the men bundled her away. She’d wanted adventure, something to break up the routine of life, and she’d gotten it, heaps of it.

Chapter Twelve

Marco paced up and down Lalita’s office. Having managed to stave off his anger in front of Freya long enough to have her taken away, he’d subsequently come close to punching his fist through the wall of his office.

It made no odds to him that she’d done the deed for another. What bothered Marco was that she hadn’t trusted him. How to prove to her that she could and that she had to for both of their sakes? He’d been alarmed when Lalita had reported her missing from the Volta. The overseer left in charge had had second thoughts about Freya’s request and contacted Lalita, who in turn had sent for him to check his office. He’d not expected to find Freya there because logic taught him that prisoners tried to escape. She’d not though, and it seemed she’d every intention of returning to the Volta, and then what? Confess? Her reasoning defied the logic he preferred to live by.

She’d accused him of having no conscience. He disagreed. He spent much time and energy trying to drag the colony out of anarchy because he believed it was better for the prisoners. Yet, perhaps he’d given little thought to individuals. After he’d calmed down, he’d inspected Lucilla’s file and he was appalled. Her treatment saddened him. A young woman bartered about and when her rebellious father had risen up in arms again, she’d been taken as a hostage and sent to Tagra. Although in the meantime there had been a fragile peace on her home world, Lucilla’s fate had seemed forgotten—she was an inconvenience to the empire. The only reason she’d been sent straight to the Volta had been to keep her safe from hostile prisoners. The previous governor had seen to that, but beyond keeping her out of harm’s way, he’d left her to live in apparent ignorance and to placate her family, he’d merely sent the occasional proof that she was alive. Marco’s predecessor had not even bothered to tell the new governor about Lucilla.

While Lucilla might be the kind who accepted her fate, Freya wasn’t. Freya’s benevolence stirred in Marco a strange sense of pride, but at the same time, it riled him that she’d not thought to approach him directly.

Lalita, sitting in her office, was furious at Freya’s deception.

“She broke so many rules, governor. She is a jenjin. An inferior alien. She must not assume she can simply order us about. She might have adapted to life in the Volta, but she’s still a prisoner and from what I can see, a potential upstart. The others must witness her punishment.”

“I agree she should be punished. I shall carry it out this evening.” He’d prefer to do it privately, but he sensed Lalita wasn’t going to be obliging.

“I insist I am present, and the overseers and servants. Gellis will be spanked thoroughly too by me.”

“Freya coerced her into this; I don’t think she knew that it was a ploy to reach my office.”

“Nevertheless, Gellis admits to her involvement.”

Marco halted his pacing. He felt calmer; it helped to think of Freya and how he would turn her bottom red. The question was how red and with which implements. He folded his arms. “You want this to be witnessed?”

“Absolutely. She will be bound, too. She must be made an example, sir.” Lalita’s eyes were tiny pinpricks and she exuded a determination that even Marco couldn’t consider countering. The woman had been the favorite of one of the emperors and consequently, she had powerful friends back on Halos.

“What else were you thinking of?” he queried softly.

“Her tight little bum hole. It would be appropriate to punish it, don’t you think?”

Marco sighed. It would and he’d thought many a time on how he would do it if the occasion arose. The fantasy itself often had made his cock hard, but now, faced with the reality, it wasn’t so easy to induce an erotic pleasure. “How?”

“The crushed seeds of the sarne plant.”

Marco shook his head and grimaced. “Even Vendu women struggle to tolerate the burning. Too harsh. She’s my jenjin, remember, and I won’t have her suffer.”

Lalita huffed, but she seemed to be losing the fire in her eyes. Time always quelled anger—Marco relied on that theory a great deal when dealing with difficult situations.

“I would suggest the aylerberry then, sir. The juice of which is less potent.”

He used it before, and its side effects might prove useful. It would do. “Very well. This evening she will be brought back to the Volta and straight to the bondage room. You may bring your witnesses, but Lucilla is not to be among them, understood? I have other plans for her.”

* * *

The guards escorted Freya from her cell, where she’d been contained since the morning, and took her back to the Volta. They had left her wrists unbound, but kept her sandwiched between their beefy figures as they walking in unison.

For the few hours she’d been in the custody block, listening to the shouts of the prisoners held in solitary confinement, she’d fretted that Marco might change his mind and send her down into the canyon. When the soldiers had ordered her out of the bare room, they’d said nothing of her fate, but as they marched across the plaza, their destination was apparent.

Although she knew she was walking to her punishment, she was relieved to be returning to the relative safe haven of the Volta. Pacing her tiny cell, she’d realized she feared being cast aside by Marco more than anything. More than the punishment that awaited her. More than the years of captivity. He’d been angry, and perhaps in hindsight, he’d every right to be. She’d treated him not as a lover in whom she could place her trust, but as a means to unlock Lucilla’s secret—she’d abused her position as his jenjin.

She would be corrected and probably severely. She envisaged the punishment suite with its array of implements and spanking benches, wondering which he’d choose. She gritted her teeth and walked up the steps of the Volta—she would have to dig deep, but with Marco, and him alone, she could accept her fate.

Lalita met them in the atrium. Freya expected harsh words of reproach or some cruel words. However, to Freya’s surprise, Lalita seemed pleased to see her. “You’re safely back here, Freya. It would have been better for you not to breach the rules we put in place for you protection and care, but,” she slowly shook her head in an overt display of disappointment, “what’s done is done.” She spoke to the lead guard. “Take her to the bondage room. That is where she will be punished.”

“Bondage room?” stuttered Freya. She edged backwards and one of the guards snatched her arm, halting her progress.

“Yes. It’s a bigger space.”

“Bigger?” Her stomach churned, just as it had done when Marco had confronted her in his office. “Why not the punishment room?”

“Witnesses are required. You will be punished in the presence of the overseers, maids, and a select representation of jenjins.”

Freya’s legs nearly buckled. Marco had agreed to this? What about his promise to be the only one to discipline her? “No,” she whispered, then louder. “No. I won’t go. I won’t let you—”

“Guards,” said Lalita, raising her voice. “Escort this jenjin to the bondage room now.”

The two men hooked their arms under her armpits and lifted Freya off the floor. Her feet flapped uselessly between them as they dragged her along. She cursed them in numerous languages, but had the wits not to use Vendian. The double doors of the bondage room swung open and she was thrust before the small crowd, which had shaped itself around the perimeter of the room. She recognized the stern faces of the overseers, the maids, including Tanara, and the chosen jenjins with their bowed heads and demure postures. Thankfully, Lucilla wasn’t present—Freya couldn’t bear it if her friend witnessed this, knowing Lucilla would blame herself for Freya’s foolish undertaking.

There was no sign of Marco. Freya hung her head and ceased struggling. The guards planted her back on her feet.

She wasn’t alone in her punishment. Gellis was bent over a spanking bench and the tips of her long hair were brushing the floor. Poor Gellis. Her situation was all Freya’s fault and she wished that she could make amends, but how when there was nothing she could give her maid?

Lalita read out the charges facing the maid—a long list of protocols breached, mostly relating to her time alone with Puto, who must have admitted to touching her during Marco’s promised reprimand. If Freya hadn’t have left her alone with him, Gellis’s punishment would have been lesser.

Lalita picked up a long rod and swept it back before striking her across both buttocks. Gellis jerked and pulled on her bindings, but emitted no sound. This wasn’t the first time she’d been caned, Freya guessed. She blinked away tears of guilt. Nobody in the room spoke as Lalita applied the cane again and again, creating thin red lines stacked in neat rows. Freya wanted to dash over and release her maid. She hadn’t had an opportunity to apologize and the first opportunity she had, she would beg Gellis’s forgiveness and hope they could stay friends.

After ten whacks, Gellis began to make noises. Freya tore her eyes away and focused on a spot on the wall opposite. While her lips trembled, she imagined how she would be soon bent over and punished.

Where was Marco? Why had he abandoned her to this? Had he decided to return her to the Volta but also give up his claim to her? Leave her for any man to take and use? That idea horrified her. She’d rather face her fate in the canyon.

The final stroke cracked and Gellis cried out. It signified the end of the punishment. Another overseer released her from her bonds and helped her to her feet. When Gellis turned to face Freya, she expected a glare of hatred; instead Gellis lowered her tear-clogged eyes. Whatever animosity she felt toward Freya, she left hidden behind a stony face.

Freya’s trembling worsened. It was her turn. The bench was dragged away and a different one took center stage in the middle of the room. Unlike the simple version of a sawhorse, this bench had a long plinth on which she would rest her torso and head, while her legs would be spread and bound to the legs.