Given to the Savage(16)

“Help me gather the ripe ones, but not all. We can’t take all the fruit of the tree.”

“Why not?” he asked.

She looked at him confused for a moment. “Someone else might need them.”

He studied her as if surprised by what she said and she realized he most likely did not have the abundance in his life as she had had in hers. Food was aplenty for breeders. They needed to remain healthy and strong to carry the colony’s children after all.

Silas nodded and they gathered the ripe fruit. They carried it back to the wagon before she collected the pile of wood she had managed to find and Silas started a fire.

“They’ve packed smoked meat and some bread for us. It’s not much, but it will do for our journey,” he said.

“How many days until we reach your settlement?”

“Two full days at our speed.”

She nodded, her mind wandering to her reception there.

“Sit down,” he said.

She did, but flinched when her sore bottom came in contact with the ground and decided to sit on her heels instead, or pretend to. The flesh of her bottom and her bottom hole in particular still stung from earlier. From the look on his face, he noticed. She cleared her throat, blushing a little at the memory of how he had seen her.

“You are not afraid to look at me?” she asked, desperate to stop thinking about the humiliations of earlier.

“Why would I be?” he asked, tearing off a piece of meat and handing it to her.

She took it and sucked on the salty flesh, wanting to make it last. “People think breeders have magic. That we can curse with a mere look.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“What about those at your village? What do they believe?” She had no idea and she was dependent on him for everything from food to safety and she knew it.

“We are perhaps more human than those at your colony.”

“What will happen to me?” she asked, breaking off a piece of bread and looking at it while waiting for his answer.

“You will, hopefully, become pregnant quickly, give the colony their breeders, and go home.”

“Chances that I birth a breeder are minimal. My mother only had two out of seventeen births.”

“Your mother birthed seventeen children?” he asked, his expression one of shock.

Rowan nodded. “It is our only duty.”

“Did you do what they said you did?” he asked. “Are you responsible for two deaths?”

Rowan squeezed the bread into crumbs and wiped them off her lap. Her eyes warmed with tears. “Ana was my friend,” she said, looking at him. “I would never have hurt her. I would never have hurt anyone, breeder or not.”

“Then why were you accused?”

She snorted an exhale and threw a piece of bread into the fire.

“Don’t waste food, it’s not abundant where you’re going,” he said.

She sat shaking her head.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

She looked up at him.

“I can see from the flesh on your bones that you had plenty when you lived in the colony but that is not the case any longer. It’s wasteful and spoiled to waste food. Don’t let me see you do that again,” he chastised.

“It was a bite of bread. And I’m done eating anyway,” she said, rising, surprised at the spite in her tone.

“Sit down.”

Without answering, she began to walk to the wagon.

“I said sit down,” he repeated.

She ignored him.

“If you are not back here sitting down in the next instant, I will bare your bottom and spank it so you won’t be able to sit for the rest of our journey. I don’t think you want that, Rowan. Not after what I saw them do to you today.”

She turned then, her eyes narrowed in his direction. “You’re no different, no better than they are,” she said.

He was on his feet in an instant and as soon as he was, she turned and ran. Where she was going she did not know, but she ran. It was the only thing she could think to do. But Silas was easily faster than her. In a moment, he had caught her and was dragging her back toward the fire.

“Let me go!” she yelled, fighting him every step of the way so that when he lifted her off the ground, she was kicking at his shins.

“You’re going to understand my rules and fast,” he said, sitting back down by the fire and pulling her face down across his lap.

“Please don’t! Not now, I’m too raw. Please!”

Silas pushed the fur aside and looked at the backs of her thighs, then pushed her dress up to her waist, baring her bottom. Yes, she was still raw, every stripe of that strap and the fading marks of the switches still visible on her backside.

“Please don’t spank me,” she said, looking at him over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”