I wasn’t really trying to be sneaky. Well, maybe a little. I didn’t have a lot of nighties, per se. I usually slept in an oversized T-shirt, but I had packed a somewhat see-through thin ivory cotton nightie that was like a soft, flowing poet’s shirt I thought looked pretty on me. Apparently, Paul thought it looked pretty on me too. His eyes lit up when he came into the room, looking all serious and seemingly determined to deliver a message on my ass.

​

“That’s not fair, Sunshine.” He came right up to me and traced the large scoop of the gathered neckline from my shoulders to my cleavage where two ribbons tied the top closed. “I’m trying to keep my focus as it is, and this is a dirty trick.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got,” I said. “I mean, aside from my T-shirts. But you said nightie.”

“I did.” He gave me a twisted grin. “Okay, Sunshine, so why are you being punished tonight?”

“Because you’re mean.”

He gave me a hard look. “Don’t be a smart ass.”

“Because I got into a fight with that bitch Ronin. But I’m pretty sure she pushed me first. And she was definitely in my way. She wouldn’t listen and she wouldn’t budge. And she—”

Paul put his hand around my neck. “Sunshine, you are not an ordinary bitch, do you understand?”

​

I just nodded as those shiny gold eyes burned through me.

​

“You are not just an ordinary mate of an ordinary Alpha either,” he said. “You are my mate. I am the Alpha who guards this wretched place, which is a whole hell of a lot more responsibility than most Alphas have to handle. It’s dangerous. We have many enemies and right now we have big problems to deal with. Keeping the peace isn’t going to be easy, and I don’t need you adding trouble to that. You also know you are something more than just my mate..which means you can’t just go around acting like a willful child and putting yourself in danger. Okay?”

I nodded.
“Say, yes, Alpha.” Paul caressed my cheek.

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Okay.” He took off his belt and laid it on the edge of the huge mattress at the center of the room, which took up a lot of the space even though the master bedroom in the house was as large as the living room. Paul led me by the hand to the edge of the bed and he sat down, placing me between his legs. Then he caressed my thighs as he moved his hands up under my nightie to stroke my rear. “I’m going to give you a warm-up, Sunshine, because this is going to hurt. But I know you heal quick, and I want the message to sink in. You will obey your Alpha. You will not get into street fights with random bitches, even if you are provoked. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

​

Paul folded me over his lap with my legs clamped between his and my breasts pressed against the mattress. Just being bent over his lap like this had my stomach in knots. I knew already his hand could hurt just as viciously as his belt, and he planned this to be a serious punishment. While I had agreed to it, I really wished he wouldn’t. He lifted the skirt of my nightie and slowly pulled down my panties, which was both humiliating and arousing at the same time. We still hadn’t come together, and his touch did all kinds of crazy things to me. My nails stretched out again, becoming claws, and I gripped the black silk bedspread with them. When the first swat came down, my whole body trembled from the impact. The pain seared through my muscles and I wanted to pull away, but Paul had me locked tight.

​

“That’s too hard!” I protested.

“Quiet,” Paul said, following up his warning with another equally hard smack. “You have earned this punishment and I already warned you it would hurt. I want you to avoid earning another. Understand?”

“No!” I whimpered, against the bedspread. “You will,” Paul assured me.
But I wasn’t buying it.

​

He started swatting me evenly from one cheek to the other, the sound of each clap intensifying the pain I felt on my sensitive flesh and making my wolf’s teeth come out.

​

“Stop!” I howled, and it was my wolf in were-form howling at that point, but Paul was more than up to the task of controlling my strength. He did not miss a beat in disciplining me, moving to the tender undercurve of my cheeks, then down to my upper thighs for a couple of swats that made me squirm and howl still louder. “Stop!” I cried out again, but Paul had built up a rhythm he didn’t seem to want to break. My backside was a strange combination of numb, aching, and on fire, depending on which bit was getting his attention at that moment.

​

My wolf wept and whimpered and still Paul kept going, slamming my rear with a hand that felt firm as a paddle. Each smack echoed between my ears loud enough to turn my vision red. I hadn’t experienced that before, but I supposed it was caused by my rage, and fury, and a distinct sense of helplessness. The message came through clearly: my Alpha could dominate my body in any state, and he fully intended to.

​

I had turned back to my human form and started sobbing as he continued. “Please, Paul!” I whimpered. “Please stop.”

​

“It’s Alpha,” he said, stroking and kneading my flaming cheeks. “And I’m just getting started. You need to know I’m never going to let you down. If anyone puts you in danger, hellfire will rain down on them. That includes you, Sunshine.”

​

Then Paul set me down on the bed, looking for something in the room. I barely tracked him because I was too busy crying into my arms. As the pulsing pain and heat continued flowing through my rear, a shameful arousal had taken over me. While I wanted Paul to stop, I also wanted him to hurt me more. I wanted him inside of me right that second, even though I knew it would be painful, and that I had no business being turned on by the punishment.

​

It was like he’d read my mind, because when Paul returned to stand by the mattress, the first thing he did was slip his fingers through my lower lips to stroke the moist folds and tease my clit. He put a finger inside me and reached my barrier.

“I can’t take this yet, Sunshine,” he said. “But you are sure making it hard for a man to hold back. If I’d known spankings would turn you on so intensely, I might have come up with more reasons to punish you sooner. I’m trying to teach you a lesson right now, baby. Do you know what that lesson is yet?”

“The Alpha always wins,” I said, sniffling.

“That’s right.” He swatted my butt, but it was much less a spank than it was a playful slap. Then he took my wrists and bound them together with a pair of leather cuffs padded in sheepskin, and connected them to a chain which hooked on the wall over the headboard.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Baby, you are going to fight me on this, believe me,” he said. “I’m just making sure you don’t hurt yourself.”