“Why bother even asking me? I’m your prisoner here. Your slave.” She shrugged and huffed like she didn’t care what fate she’d meet in return for her actions. “You’ll do whatever you want to me, and no one will stop you. You’ve made that pretty clear.”
“When I was trained as a child, disobedience was met with corporal punishment.” I raised an eyebrow. “Do you feel that would be appropriate?”
“If you’re going to hit me, then do it already.” She was putting on a brave face, but I did not miss the way her color turned a little paler at the suggestion. “It wouldn’t be the first time tonight.”
“No,” I said with a gentleness that surprised even me. “I do not think I will.”
“Well, that’s…generous of you.” She did not want to show it, but she looked relieved.
“It is,” I assured her. “Considering that as you have acted as disobedient as a spiteful cub tonight, the traditional method would be to take you over my knee and whip your ass red with my belt.”
Just like that, Atlanta stiffened again. She took a step back from me, shaking her head. “I’m not letting you spank me.”
“And I do not intend to. Disobey my orders again and I may change my mind, though.” I took a step toward her, closing the gap she had made. “All that I have done, I have done for your safety. All that I do tonight, and in the future, is to protect you. More often than not, from yourself.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“We both know that is a lie,” I scoffed, loud enough that she could hear my disdain. “Tonight, you could have been raped. Killed. Worse. How am I to keep you safe, if you insist on placing yourself directly into the mouths of beasts? How am I to keep you alive, if you cannot even follow the simplest orders? Idiot female.” My voice was raising now, and I hardly knew whether my anger was still something I controlled, or some deeper fury that was fully untamed. “You know nothing of your position here. Nothing of your situation, the danger you are in. What would have happened to you if I had not awoken when I did? If they had stolen you away, or if I had not found you in time?”
“I’m not—” Atlanta glared up at me and drew back her hand like she wished to slap me with it. But though I had no doubt she was fully capable of doing so, she apparently thought better of the action. Slow and heavy, her hand fell to her side and her eyes lowered to the floor once more. “I’m not an idiot,” she said softly. “And I do understand the position I put myself in. I do. I just…I have no reason to trust you. I have no reason to believe a word that you say. And without trust—”
“We are nothing.” I understood. Of course I did. How could I, who had lived my entire life trusting no one and nothing beyond my own cleverness, my own ability to ensure that whatever side I ended up on was the winning one, not understand such things? “If I have not yet earned your trust, then this near-disaster is as much my fault as it is yours. So. I will not punish you for what you did tonight.”
“You won’t?”
“Let it be the first act of trust between us. If you cannot place your faith in me yet, then let me place mine in you instead.”
“How do you mean?” She looked as though she wished to draw away, but when I took another step closer to her, she did not.
“For running, I could have you in chains again in an instant. Caged. Kept like livestock to ensure that you are not so stupid as to endanger yourself again.” I closed my eyes and let out a heavy breath through my nose. “But I will not do so. I will trust that you have learned your lesson tonight, and that a mistake of this nature will not be made again.”
“It won’t.” She closed her own eyes just as I opened mine. The delicate curves of her nostrils flared slightly as she echoed my sigh. “I…won’t run again. I promise.”
“Good. Then, in exchange for this trust I am giving you, you will give me something in return.”
Her eyes snapped back open. The greens of her irises were alight with confusion—and once again, with fear. “What do you want?”
“Your obedience. It is time you learned your first lesson in it from me, Atlanta.”
“And what’s that?”
I let a careful smile slink onto my lips. As much as she had vexed me tonight, I could not pretend I would not enjoy this.
“How to kneel.”
Her mouth fell open slightly, and once again I spotted the red indentions on her lower lip where her teeth had broken skin. If she was shocked by this notion—kneeling for me—then she would not be able to remain that way for long.
“We must trust that Razael and Votan will be too ashamed to speak to Lieja of your little adventure into the halls,” I explained, “but if we wish for Lieja to have faith that I am training you appropriately, so I might justify keeping you here in my room where you will be safe, then tomorrow morning we must bring her evidence of your progress. Do you understand?”
“So…what? You want me to go in front of her tomorrow and get on my knees for you? Call you master and kiss your feet?” She looked disgusted at the mere thought, though I was fairly certain at least half of that disgust was just out of pride. “I’m not a slave.”
“No. You are an actress, and a fair one at that.” I nodded, then took a
