Zerk turned away from her only long enough to grab something from the table next to his bed. When he turned back around, she could see what he was holding—and it didn't look at all good for her.

"Do you know what this is? Probably not," he said conversationally.

Allowing herself to be goaded into answering him and regretting it immediately, she said, "It's a small cat."

He was suitably impressed. "How did you know that? Do you read?"

She clamped her mouth shut stubbornly, and he didn't bother to pursue that line of questioning because it wasn't relevant, anyway.

"Yes, it's a cat. It was used in the very old times to discipline sailors on board ships."

She only understood some of what he'd said, having never heard of sailors and not knowing what a ship was, but wasn't about to ask him any questions about anything.

"And you're right, this is a small cat." It had a handle that was about eight inches long, with deceptively thin tails that were about fifteen inches in length, and it was made of a lethal looking black leather.

He found himself rising again—surprisingly—as he looked her up and down in this position, and instantly wanted to sink himself into her again. But he couldn't. Discipline was important in the world of the military, such as it was now, and it was equally as important regarding an Alpha and his omega.

When she had answered him, his eyes had gone immediately to her back. He'd seen it before, but he hadn't been looking for scars. There were surprisingly few on her body, overall, and none of them had been made by a cat, he was glad to see. He would endeavor to make an impression on her with each punishment, but he would also be careful to retain that relatively unmarred skin.

But he definitely intended to know how she'd known what this implement was, and then it came to him—she must've seen others being punished that way, and he could only think that that was an advantage to him, as was the activity itself. If he was going to keep himself from mounting her again before he finished disciplining her, then he needed to do something physical.

And punishing her was going to be very physical, for the both of them.

Although he firmly believed in the efficacy of punishments for his mates, at the moment, he also acknowledged to himself that he was using them as something beyond just physical chastisement. He intended to make sure that her mind recognized and accepted the discipline, and thus, her submission to the man who was striping her ass, too.

What he most wanted to do at the moment was part her legs and apply his mouth to her most feminine of places. To bring her to what he had no doubt would be her first experience of ecstasy while she was suspended, naked, would undoubtedly be extremely humiliating to her, and he knew he needed to knock her down more than a peg or two. He was loath to break her spirit entirely, although he knew she probably wouldn't see it that way.

He could barely wait to push her past her considerable control while her body cheered him on, and the way she had responded to him moments ago only made him more eager to do just that.

But he couldn't.

He didn't use the cat on her first, though. Instead, he very deliberately began with a much less adult punishment designed specifically to humiliate her as his palm cracked sharply down on her bottom. Despite the size of his hand and the strength with which he was spanking her, she only moved a little each time because of how tightly he had secured her.

It was too much motion for him, and he stilled her entirely with an arm around her waist as he smacked away at that firm, rounded flesh. He preferred a more generous bottom, but then, she was fighting lean and wouldn't need to keep herself that way any longer. Zerk looked forward to watching her behind fill out a bit more as he fed her up. If she was going to carry his children—who were likely to be rather large, based on his size—then she would need all of the strength she could get. Hell, she'd need the same amount or more during their conception, too!

She stiffened angrily when he began to spank her, and he added to her mortification at being disciplined like one by also lecturing her as if she were a recalcitrant child, making certain that his tone was one of deep disappointment.

"It was very naughty of you to have escaped. You put yourself in terrible danger in doing so, and I will not tolerate that any more than I will tolerate being spat on. I know my men think that I'm a bastard as a commander, but that's nothing to what I'm going to be like with you. I will severely punish each and every transgression, which means that you shouldn't expect to sit very comfortably around me—ever."

When he had peppered her entire behind several times over, he moved on to the backs of her thighs. Throughout, she had kept her mouth clamped tightly shut, although a few shrieks had escaped, and they continued to do so as he made certain that the livid shade of that tender territory matched that of her bottom.

But he saved the worst for last, and when he squatted down in front of her, he could see in her eyes that she wasn't sure what it was that he was going to do, so when his hand smacked down hard on the underside of her breast, he got the full-throated scream he'd been aiming for.

He followed that quickly by a swat of the same power on the other breast, but he was disappointed when she managed to suppress her response to that. Having lost the element of surprise, he simply began to spank her breasts as cruelly as he had the rest of her, not letting up until they, too, were the same shade of alarmingly crimson red as her other spots of interest.

Just when she was losing her ability to control her vocalizations, when all of those cries of outrage and pain and humiliation were clogging the back of her throat, he rose and reached for the cat he'd put on the bed.

It was all horrid, but the cat was obscenely awful. The thin tendrils of leather—not unlike the bonds with which he had bound her to the bed last night—were knotted at the end in order to deliver maximum discomfort with a minimum of effort.

This time, there was no lecture, no words at all, and that somehow made it worse, for a reason she couldn't put her finger on.

He literally had her trying to dance away from it from just after the very first stroke landed across her backside, tearing an inhuman cry from the back of her throat. And it went downhill from there.

She—who had learned from an early age to pride herself on never crying no matter what was being done to her—began to wail almost immediately and continued to do so until the very end. There were no sounds in the room except the snap of the tails against soft flesh and of the very true anguish that resulted.

And when he bent down to attend to her breasts in the same fashion that some—certainly not her—might have mistaken as loving, the frenetic volume of her wails rose considerably, not that he paid them any mind. He was quite expert with the cat—having, on his way through what passed for ranks, delivered more than a few punishments with it in his day—and he generally avoided her nipples, although not always.

And she let him know, in no uncertain terms, when he'd managed to catch one.

Just as he had folded it over itself and was going to put it away, he stopped and turned back to her.

"Come to think of it, I asked you a question that you refused to answer."

She was too far gone—she could barely interpret what he was saying.

He patted her bottom gently, but that was enough to make her stiffen in concern that he was going to do more than that, and he knew he had her full attention.

"What's your name, little girl?"

She rankled at him calling her that but kept her mouth shut.

"What did your cohort call you?"

She didn't care if he knew that and answered him almost matter of factly, "Freak."

Zerk sensed that her answer was utterly without guile or anger. It was just the truth. He also sensed that she regretted it once it was out of her mouth, judging by how hard she blushed afterwards.

"They called me by my rank."

"That really doesn't answer my question, though, now, does it, little one?" he persisted, letting the tails dangle down so that she could see them and using his other hand to cup her womanhood.

He didn't need to say a word as soon as he did that—the implied threat being much more than enough for her—and she began to babble, to her own complete mortification. "I don't know it! I don't know it! I was born in the streets! I never had a mother or anyone to tell me!"

At least she managed to stop herself from begging him not to whip her most sensitive bits with that thing, but it was a closer call than she wanted to know she was capable of, frankly.

Zerk wasn't sure why, but that stopped him in his tracks. He'd certainly heard hard luck stories like hers; that was pretty much everyone's story nowadays. His own wasn't that much better. But it did strike him, somehow, as particularly unacceptable, in her case, and in a manner that he didn't necessarily welcome.

The thought of her as a helpless girl-child with no one looking after her made an unwanted lump form in his throat as he turned to put the cat away, then took her down.

It surprised her when he rubbed her wrists and ankles as if worrying about chafing them when her backside and her tits looked like war zones, but it felt better than she wanted it to, the cuffs having dug quite a bit into her skin merely because of the weight that they had been carrying.

Zerk put her on his big bed, on her side, which was likely to hurt less, although it didn't last long. She immediately tried to get away—however limply—but he solved that issue quickly by binding her to the bed again, this time, with the much more substantial leather cuffs wrapped around the bedposts and frame with actual chains.

She wasn't going anywhere any time soon, although she did keep the lower half of her body twisted, so that she was lying on her hip and not her rump or thighs. He was good—none of the stripes she was wearing had landed on skin that he hadn't intended it should.

And as soon as she did that, she felt her arousal—which seemed ever present around him, no matter what he did to her—return as if her backside and front, too wasn't throbbing painfully! So much so that there was a great gush between her legs, and she knew she was leaking down onto the bedclothes from every possible direction. Luckily, she was merely adding to the embarrassingly large puddle she'd started.

Of course, intellectually, she attributed it to what he had left within her. It certainly wasn't because she wanted him in any way, the mo-fo!

She ignored the way her hips thrust forward and back, all on their own, and in the obscenest of ways that she couldn't seem to stop, and how even the pain she was enduring—on his account—seemed to make her just that much more restless and needy. She felt empty and lonely and small and scared and unable to help herself change any of it. All things she hadn't felt in a very long time, things she'd carefully designed her life to avoid ever feeling again!

When he returned from taking a shower, wishing desperately that he'd let her take one, too, but not about to ask, he sniffed the air, making her blush with shame without having to make much effort.

"Oh, dear, you are most definitely in heat, my girl," he said, drying himself off with a towel while she remained on the bed, her back to him, hips gyrating enticingly.

He had long since been ready for her, and her punishment had only added to the blinding need he had for her. He hadn't thought that he would feel that way quite so soon, but he already wanted to knot himself to her again and never, ever allow her to detach from him, no matter how impractical that reality would be.

His face set with desire. He knew what he wanted—what he hadn't allowed either of them to experience yet.

He wanted to make her come. He loved the delightful dichotomy of her being a soldier who had vowed to follow him into Hell—and had done very nearly that on occasion—and yet still being so sexually innocent that he was absolutely certain she had never had an orgasm. He didn't question why he knew that—it was an Alpha's instinct about his omega. She was so pristine and yet he knew she had killed men single handedly—hell, he'd seen her do it this afternoon!

Zerk knew that she had to flat out want him dead, too, and he didn't even think it was because that would sever their bond. He didn't think she knew that little tidbit of information. But her mind, which he was going to have to dominate just as thoroughly, or perhaps even more so, wanted her to be anywhere he wasn't.

But then, she might well change her attitude if he were to introduce her to that which he had no doubt at all she had the capacity to experience. And which he had always adored doing to a woman, especially one that was his. Moia, in particular, although, as in this situation, it had started out as "to" with her, also, but she'd fallen much more easily into her role than this one would. He was quite certain about that. She was going to fight him every inch of the way. He practically licked his lips in anticipation of that challenge.

Naked and dry, Zerk stretched his long length out behind her, reaching out to pull her to him just as the little minx tried to move herself away from him, as if in anticipation of what he was going to do.

She began to fight him tooth and nail—as well as she could—until he said one resolute word.

"Cat."

She settled down so quickly at that, he began to chuckle.

"I think I've found your name."

"No," she said flatly, refusing to look at him, even as he rearranged her cuffs such that her wrists were together, anchored in the middle of the top of the bed.

Of course, she promptly turned onto her side, away from him, not that he let her get very far.

"Why not? You spit like a cat, you hiss like a cat, you contort your body like one, and you're definitely in heat like a female cat."

"What are you talking about? The cat is a whip."

"A cat is also an animal."

She scoffed, not thinking that he might take offense, but he didn't.

"You've never heard of them?"

"They're just a fairble. Something people make up about the Before Time. Warm, cuddly, furry things that rumble or bork. I don't think they ever existed."

Having long since become a source of food rather than companionship until they were pretty much wiped out of existence, pets were about as rare as she was—although perhaps she was even more so, since she had been such a late bloomer. Zerk wasn't surprised that she didn't believe they were real. He made a mental note to show her some pictures of them in one of his many books. Not that he had a lot of nature stuff, but he had some. His tastes tended to run to history—military history, in particular—but he'd read anything he could get his hands on. His men knew that there was a reward in it for bringing him books, the majority of which he donated to the city's small but growing library. But as pseudo-governor, he got first pick before they went there.

"They did exist. I'll prove it to you sometime, and from what I've read, you're very much like one, believe me. I think that's what I'll call you, in fact, since it'll help me keep you in line at the same time."

"No! I don't want to be called after an implement I hate!"

He grinned. "Sounds perfect to me."

"No!"

Instead of getting angry, he merely asked, "You would prefer I keep calling you chiquita and little one and little girl?" already knowing the answer and already knowing that he was going to continue to call her those things, to help remind her of just who she was now.

She sighed. "Cat, it is."

His laugh—all warm and deep as it poured over her—was entirely too pleasant for her sanity, especially right now, when she was feeling more vulnerable than she ever had in her adult life. And there he was, just waiting to take advantage of that vulnerability, in the most basic manner possible—which was exactly what he proceeded to do.

The hips that she moved away from him every time he pulled her to him were brought back one last time before he reached down to cup her between her legs, his fingers becoming immediately drenched, which only heightened his sense of purpose. And then he began to feel her trembling in his arms as if she was terrified, wondering if she was afraid of him after he'd punished her so severely.

But he'd misinterpreted her movements entirely, and it only took him a moment to realize what it was. She was trying to deny her own needs, to keep her body under the strict control of her mind, rather than giving in to its demands. Unfortunately for her, he was firmly in her body's corner.

Something he hadn't done with her yet—that he'd forgotten about until this minute, actually—came back to him, and he began to purr at her from deep within his chest.

Her body stiffened against him as if he had just lashed her again, and her plaintive tone bore that out. "Ohhhh, pleaasseee, don't!!!" she whispered in a way that sounded like a dejected wail, despite how soft it was.

"Shh-shh-shhh. Stop fighting me, but more than that, stop fighting yourself—your true nature, Cat. Considering how you've lived until now, it can't have been what you expected from your life, but submitting yourself to me, your Alpha—in all things, but most particularly, this—is what you were born to do. Certainly, much more than what you have been doing."

That didn't seem to help her in the least. She only became more frantic, but he continued speaking—and trilling—because he believed very deeply in what he was saying.

"I will always keep you safe. No more having to risk your life—to fight for your life." Indeed, that idea sent a bone deep chill through him, much like the one he'd felt when he'd realized she'd fled from him. "Your every need will be met. You will always have enough food, a clean and a safe place to live, and you will want for nothing. Eventually, you'll have children, which I doubt was a possibility you'd even considered before."

Cat didn't want to stop fighting, and, because she was cunning and crafty, she had rarely gone to bed hungry since she was a child. She had quarters that weren't much smaller than his, she had been surprised to note, but then she hadn't accumulated much in her life and they were as sparsely decorated as his were. Having had a horrible childhood, she didn't care about having children in the least. And she most certainly didn't intend to submit to him. Ever. So none of what he was saying was of any particular interest to her.

But she didn't have much choice about any of it, it seemed, and fighting him—even though she lost at every turn—was much easier than fighting herself. There was much less shame and guilt in losing to him. Losing herself to him…that concept was just devastating to her, and she had a feeling that she was on the verge of it, especially every time he touched her like this. When he wanted to breed her, she could literally smell the intent on him, even if he wasn't actually forcing her into the act at that particular moment. She was sure he'd get around to it, eventually.

At the moment, apparently, he preferred to torment her, and the more time she spent with him, the less she was able to resist doing exactly what he was suggesting she do—the more she wanted to surrender herself to him utterly and completely.

Cat had a feeling that what he was planning would only make things just that much harder for her.

And she was proven horrifyingly, mortifyingly and shamefully right.