Chapter 16

Zazie

I always seemed to forget how much spankings hurt. Murtagh’s hand seemed to be made of wood, and my entire bottom was scalded in less than a minute. He didn’t stop there though. Instead, his palm smacked me harder. He punished all the way down to the middle of my thighs, and before I knew it, I was kicking and crying and trying to hold back tears. When my breathing hitched, he started exclusively focusing on the place where my ass met my thighs, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand it for much longer.

In no time at all, my entire world was focused on his palm and my bare ass, and then my eyes were watering, but he didn’t let up.

If anything, the spanking got harder.

“I can’t lose you, Zazie. Not when I’ve only just found you,” he scolded lightly.

His words pushed me over the edge, the dam of my emotions finally breaking.

Tears welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision. I tried to speak, to tell him I was sorry, but all that escaped was a choked sob.

The realization of how much danger I had put myself in, how my actions affected Murtagh and maybe Caspian too, overwhelmed me.

And then I started to think about… you know, the world.

And then exactly how unfair this all was.

I hadn’t asked for any of this! I was perfectly fine with rotting in my own apartment, as human as I wanted to be, alone.

Okay, no. That had sucked, too.

That was just unavoidable because I was a djinn, and much more so than my brother was, brought in this world not to enjoy myself but as a means to an end. Therefore, the normalcy I’d seen so many people around me enjoy was far, far out of my reach.

Why did my life contain such a ridiculous amount of suck?

I didn’t know what I was saying, but at some point, between the kicks and the screams, I realized that I was letting some of this out. How unfair it all was. I just wanted to be normal, for fuck’s sake, and now I was being spanked. That wasn’t normal, either!

No part of this was normal!

He stopped spanking me, and when he did, instead of stopping the sobbing, it was definitely ramping up. I was in full-blown pity-party mode.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s fair. Nothing here is fair. I just wanted normal, too. So did Caspian. And then we were brought to this realm, with no method to get home. Do you think we did what we wanted to do, or did we do what we had to do to survive?” he asked me.

I didn’t want to really look at things from his point of view, but now that he’d gotten me there, I could see his point.

“You did what you had to?” I sniffled.

“Yes, Zazie. That’s what everyone has to do now. What they have to do. Don’t you understand?”

“You get what you want all the time,” I pouted bravely—at least in my opinion. After all, I was still completely vulnerable here, hanging over his knee like I was a wet towel.

He snorted. “Sweetheart, as soon as I get the girl of my dreams, she’s not only the daughter of my largest nightmare, apparently she’s being actively searched out, putting me right in-between, because I know for a fact that someone like you isn’t going to come my way again. Not to mention, I still need to find a way back home, and I don’t have the freedom or the leisure to search for it.” He rubbed his hand over my shoulders. “And then to repay me, she just sneaks out the window.”

And then the spanking started up again.

This time, I felt way worse about it.

And better about it.

The sobs came harder and faster, wracking my body. I clung to Murtagh, my tears soaking the couch beneath me. It wasn’t just fear or relief that fueled my crying; it was a torrent of emotions that I couldn’t quite name—guilt, gratitude, confusion, and a strange sense of belonging. In his arms, I wasn’t just safe; I felt wanted.

Maybe a little too wanted.

My ass didn’t like any of this roughness, but… I did like the fact that the men that had me now were at least much more interested in my wellbeing than my own parents had been. No wonder I remembered them hardly at all—they hadn’t been parents. They were just cultists who had reared me like an animal, not as a person.

Murtagh’s arms wrapped around me, and suddenly I was sitting in his lap. He held me tight, his own body tense with concern. He didn’t shush me or try to stop my tears; he just held me, a silent pillar of strength that I could lean on. In that moment, his arms were my anchor, the one steady thing in a world that had turned upside down.

As my sobs subsided to sniffles, I felt a strange sense of relief wash over me, like he’d taken away all of the burdens of the past few days and shouldered them himself.

That moment changed everything.

His hand cupped my face, and he turned me to face him, catching my lips with his. I probably still tasted of salty tears, but his insistent kiss didn’t seem to care. In its sweetness, there was an undercurrent of strength, a reassurance that no matter the chaos that surrounded us, we would find a moment of peace in each other. His hand was warm against my face, and the ticking of the clock somewhere in the room faded into the background.

My arms wrapped around his neck. His growl rumbled through me, and I shivered with need.

He was practically exuding dominance. “You needed that, didn’t you?” he purred.

And I knew how he wanted me to answer. “Yes, sir,” I whispered, my voice husky with my arousal.

“I can smell the sweet scent of your desire, mate. You need a fucking, don’t you?” he growled, and my core squeezed tight with heat.

“Yes,” I breathed.

He shifted me in his lap and quickly unbuckled his belt, the same belt that had welted my bare ass the day before, and my pussy clenched tight. He must have noticed my momentary weakness because he drew the strap out of the loopholes of his jeans and slid it around my throat, through the buckle and effectively collared me in the process.

It was much hotter than I thought it would be.

I swallowed hard as he freed his cock. He gripped the end of the belt and pulled it taut. The heady feeling of it around my neck cut off my air just enough to remind me that he held the power between us, and my inner walls fluttered with passionate desire.

“Climb on top of my cock, little mate,” he demanded. “You’re going to ride me. Hard. If I think you aren’t riding me hard enough, I’ll take my belt to you next.”

His threat was more than enough to spur me into motion, and I squeezed my arms around his shoulders, lifting myself up just far enough to position the tip of his cock at my entrance. I bit my lip as I slowly lowered myself down, the head of his dick just breaching my sopping wet channel and stretching me wide open.

Murtagh’s cock was the kind of cock that could never be taken gracefully. Honestly, I should be happy that it wasn’t in my asshole this time because it would most certainly hurt far more. I whimpered and moaned as I took one inch after the next, my body reluctantly opening for him until I took all that I could take. I breathed through the burning pain as the blazing hot desire for more radiated through me.

“Ride me, my sweet mate,” he instructed, and his hands gripped each stinging side of my ass, urging me onward, and I rolled my hips for the first time.

Oh, my fuck.

I wasn’t prepared for the piercing, lightning bolt of sheer rapture that ricocheted through my body, and I ground down on his cock, really starting to ride him. He growled, the sound rolling down the length of my spine like a cool drink of water.

With everything I had in me, I rode him. The thought of his belt loomed at the back of my mind, inciting me to push even harder.

My desire quickly careened out of control. It was a wildfire, spreading through every fiber of my being, fueled by the gentle pressure of his cock inside me and the comforting warmth of his arms around me, all while he held the belt tight around my throat. I could still breath, but the leather strap cut off enough of my air to make the heady feeling of passionate need that much more intense.

My heart raced, pounding against my chest like a frenzied drumbeat, each throb echoing the tumultuous swirl of sensations inside my body. My fingers dug into his shoulders, and my toes curled, and all at once, it became too much for me.

“Come for me, Zazie. I want to watch you shatter all over my cock.”

I came and I came hard.

A whirlwind of blazing hot ecstasy swirled through me, taking me captive and not letting me go no matter how much I writhed. My hips bucked, and Murtagh’s grip tightened on my ass, helping me grind on top of him that much faster. My head shot up straight into the clouds as wave after wave of pleasure throbbed through me. My every nerve fired at once, and I screamed.

Murtagh kissed me, swallowing my screams in an instant, and I moaned, my hips still moving of their own accord.

“That’s it. Such a good girl, coming for me so hard,” he praised, and my body lit up almost as though it had caught flame.

“Murtagh,” I breathed.

“You’re not done, my good girl. You won’t be done until your pussy is full of my seed.”

My eyes opened wide, and his grip on my hips shifted as he moved me back and forth, forcing my pleasure to a head once more. My eyes rolled back in my head, and before I knew what was happening, I was unraveling all over again. My hand slipped between us, and my fingers found my clit, circling lightly, then a little harder, until I was on the precipice of another orgasm, one even more powerful than the first.

“Let me feel that sweet little pussy squeeze my cock,” he demanded, and that was more than enough to shove me over the edge, and I came with a shout. His grip on the belt tightened as I shattered, cutting off my blood flow just enough to make my release that much more intense.

My pussy clamped down on his cock, and he roared, thrusting up into my core like it belonged to him. I screamed, rubbing my clit a little harder and forcing the white-hot bliss to spiral through my every nerve. The blood rushed through my veins in a tumultuous, heady storm, and I lost myself as he came.

“Fuck, Zazie, look what you do to me,” he growled as his cock pulsed inside me, his hot come spurting up into my channel with savage pulses. One stream after another pelted my inner walls, and I came even harder.

My pleasure surged through every vein, a storm that threatened to rattle me senseless, and I drew in a ragged breath. My senses were heightened, attuned to every brush of his skin against mine, every shared breath that mingled in the space between us. It was as if a dormant volcano had awakened within me, erupting with a passion that was both overwhelming and intoxicating. His every touch was like a spark, igniting a blaze that threatened to consume me whole.

I screamed.

When my pleasure finally crested, my heart seemed to stutter, and my breaths came in pants. Murtagh’s arms wrapped around me impossibly tight. His cock still throbbed inside me, echoing in the pulses still racing through my body. Trembling aftershocks took me by surprise, again and again until they began to fade too.

What was left was an utter sense of soaring freedom. I didn’t care about my father anymore, or the weird talking cat, or even the blood-licking sunglasses guy. Instead, the only things that mattered were centered right here in Murtagh’s embrace, right where I was supposed to be.

I melted into his arms as he slowly loosened his hold on the belt. He unbuckled it and slid it free from my throat, letting it fall to the couch cushions beside us.

“That’s my good girl.”

Just as I started to get my breathing under control, the door burst open with an urgency that tore through the shroud of pleasure that had woven all around us. Caspian stood in the doorway, his expression grave, a stark contrast to the passion-filled haze that had enveloped Murtagh and me. I should have been more concerned, but I couldn’t bring myself to be.

“They’re here.”

I didn’t understand his words and looked at him like he had walked out of a picture. I was feeling very detached from reality just then.

“What?” Murtagh said, his whole body going from extremely relaxed to as tense as steel in an instant. He pushed me off him and began to dress. “How?”

“I don’t know. The Shadow showed back up.”

“Put some pants on!” the shadow shouted from somewhere outside the room, and the unsettling, raspy tone made me understand what was going on.

“How is that possible?” I demanded, pushing myself up from the bed and stabbing my feet quickly through my panties.

The shadow crept in. Two weeks ago—scariest thing I’d ever seen. Now, not so much. It was the way he talked, I guess. He was casual. Somehow there were no signs of evil incarnate there. I was still trying to get my underwear on.

“Hey, I’m dressing!” I squeaked with annoyance.

“I guarantee you, you want to dress faster.” Suddenly the TV on the other side of the room turned on, and it showed pictures of people in dark hoods and completely black masks. At least I thought they were people; they looked more like walking black ghosts.

Thatwas probably the scariest thing I ever saw.

Okay, now I was able to set the getting-dressed record of the century.

Caspian put his arm around me and then picked me up when it was very quickly apparent that I was not going to be able to keep up with their pace. “Let’s go. Go, go, go.”

“We’re going through tunnel one. It’s clear,” Caspian announced to Murtagh over his shoulder. “MILES! Move it!”

Miles ran out of the kitchen, throwing a backpack over his shoulder.

We all turned when we heard someone trying to push down the front door. For about two seconds, we were arrested by terror.

Then we turned and somehow moved even faster.

“Get goin’! Samael told me to make a diversion for you all. Get movin’!” the shadow demanded, moving in front of the door. I could see the manlike shape push against the door handle. “Don’t do anything stupid!” he shouted.

They took me down to the tunnels, only one of which was complete, but not complete like it was fancy. It was, at best, a mining tunnel, closed off by huge, iron gates.

It was impressive that they were able to create such an exit in two weeks. Honestly, I felt like I should have been more impressed.

“Where are we going?” I asked Caspian.

“Shush,” Caspian hissed at me. “I’m not going to stop and answer your questions.” He looked pissed. At me.

Now I knew how Steve Urkel felt when he’d created a mess. Maybe I had done that. How, I wasn’t sure, but the attack seemed suspiciously near my return to my brother’s house.

So I stayed quiet and let them take me to the tunnel.

I felt like I had gotten out of this pretty damn easy. Despite everything that had happened and everything that was going on, I felt like the luckiest girl on the planet.

Because if my dragons could do one thing, it was keep me safe.