Learning to Blush (35 page)

But now the admiralty obviously didn’t want to arrange a rescue mission to one of the most deadly Frian planets—ironically the very same planet that Graham had met his wife on. “You don’t quite understand,” Graham said, leaning over. “I’m not asking for permission. I’m courteously informing you that we’re going and I’m taking my best men to do it.”

“We’re not going to allow any resources for this mission,” one of them replied after a long moment of looking very annoyed and very shocked. “And you have yet to be cleared by your doctor for duty.”

“I don’t need to be cleared.”

“It will take a week to get to that planet. Captain. They won't be alive that long. You know this. Why risk lives to rescue some corpses?”

Suddenly the door burst open and Jack marched in flanked closely by Michael, Tim and Tom Jonas. “Thanks for informing me that you were having a hearing about my finding, gentlemen. I can’t wait to return such a favor,” he said sardonically with his teeth gritted.

“This isn’t a hearing. We’re not going to send resources for a rescue mission with no hope to rescue. Corporal Masterson is a loss, Admiral, but you understand that we can’t waste resources—”

“We’re all going on leave,” the admiral informed them. He turned to Graham and Thorton. “Us three.”

“Us
six
,” Michael grumbled. When the admiral turned, obviously about to protest, Michael said, “Look, we took basic training. We’re not going to let our girls die in the hands of a bunch of lizards. No argument.”

“Absolutely not!” Graham snapped. “You’ll slow us down.”

“We’re
going
.” Michael turned to the admiralty. “And
fuck
you guys. If it comes out that any of you’ve been sitting on any intelligence for the last five days, I’m going to make a personal guarantee that I will make the biggest stink that has ever been known! I will shove my boot so far up your asses you’ll taste leather on your deathbed.”

There was a very immediate reaction of fear… From all of the admiralty.

Jack’s jaw ticked. Suddenly, he had a very bad feeling that his underlings were keeping something very important to themselves for a very long time. “Boys? Get the ship ready.”

“What do you think you’re doing, Admiral?” one of the admiralty asked, looking extremely confused. “You can’t just—”

“Yes, I can.”

“But if you go, then you need to get the emperor’s permission! He has to sign off on—” The Admiral turned to leave, flanked now by Graham and Thorton.

“Fuck protocol. The only thing I
have
to do is breathe and die,” Jack argued as he marched out. “I’m getting my daughter.”

Graham marched behind his father until he caught up. “The emperor’s going to have you shot,” he reminded his father, worried to bring him into this. “You can't do this without his blessing, Dad…” The head admiral had to set an example, he had to separate his personal interests for the interests of the federation… And he just told the federation to go fuck itself, essentially. His future was not looking very prosperous!

“I bet you anything that those bastards knew where she was all along and didn’t tell us. They just wanted her out of their hair now that they have her research,” he gritted in reply.

Thorton swallowed uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to this side of Jack—Jack the rule-breaker. “Graham and I should go alone,” he offered grudgingly.

Jack snorted. “You’re talking like you don’t think they’ll be alive when we get there. What did I tell you about losing faith?”

“Not to,” Thorton recited.

“Good boy. Get your big gun now.”

As soon as Thorton turned the corner, going to do just that, Peyton came to Graham’s side. “I heard Ellie and the redhead are stuck in Jazeel’s palace,” he offered, walking as if strolling calmly. “Now, if I was headed that way, doing an extraction mission or blowing up somethin', I sure would have asked someone that knew that place inside-out to come with me by now… Like someone who used to be Jazeel’s Prime Servant or somethin'…”

Graham smirked. “We just decided to go.”

“You decided to go before you even stepped into the admiralty, don’t give me that! You’ve known since
breakfast
.” Breakfast was at least two hours ago. The news of Ellie’s whereabouts was probably known throughout the galaxy by now, considering how fast news seemed to travel through the Swarii mothership.

“Beast—this is dangerous. I don’t want you to risk not seeing the birth of your firstborn child.”

“And I’m not going to risk you not seein’ yours! You’re not gonna to survive without me, I tell you what!” Peyton declared, swiping his hand through the air. “Besides, I saw
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
pass by two seconds ago like they were headin’ out somewhere. Now, I saw them in the shooting range, and it’s impressive that a lifetime of shooter-style video games was apparently not as big of a waste of time as I thought it would'a been—but you need someone with a brain that’s fueled by somethin’ other than porn, drugs, and Cheetos.”

Graham rolled his good eye around to Peyton. “Fair enough. What does your wife say about you coming with us?”

“She told me to come back with Ellie or don’t come back at all,” Peyton grinned. “And I wanna come back, Boss. So let’s get this done.”

Jack, who was still leading the way towards the weaponry, grunted with approval. “I tell ya what, Boy… You might only have five fingers, but you make up for it with the size of your nuts.”

Peyton exchanged a look with Graham, who was also surprised by his father’s comment, before saying. “Uh, thank you, Sir. But what matters more at this point are the size of my ass-stompin’ boots.”

* * *

Since Penny had hit Graham and Thorton with her car just after her birthday, she had come across plenty of times where she had found herself very nervous or anxious about what was going to come. That was all taking a backseat right now as she stood in the throne room of Jazeel the reptilian Frian prince, trying to keep from shaking uncontrollably as he stared at her with his narrow, yellow eyes like she was a piece of meat on a platter as she was dangled from the ceiling.

She remembered seeing some movies with BDSM scenes in it, and this seemed very similar. Not so much torture-chamber and more… well…
dungeon
. It was clear that Jazeel enjoyed watching this; especially as this man—who really acted more like Jazeel’s wife’s puppy dog—began to rip her clothes off. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because,
Fireflower,
” Jazeel said with disgust in his voice. Thorton used to call her that when he was making love to her; his tone filled with awe and respect. That was because Fireflowers were the Swarii equivalent of roses—beautiful, fragrant, and thorny as all hell. While the petals were soft as silk, the thorns were actually slightly poisonous. Thorton would sheer off the thorns before putting them on her pillow, but supposedly if he hadn’t, the thorns would shoot in a poison that would create an uncomfortable burning sensation. Frians apparently hated them; viewed them as weeds. “I’m tired of lies, and I’m tired of silence. I’ve noticed that when humans are uncomfortable, the truth starts to spill out.”

Well, her boobs were spilling out first. The Human Puppy popped one more button that sprung her boobs free, much to her mortification. Actually, no; she wasn’t mortified. She was
horrified
. She had no protection and certainly had no trust towards anyone else in the room. She had no idea how much she’d trusted Thorton before this very moment: she had been bare-bottomed over his knee, getting spanked raw, and she still hadn’t been as frightened as she was now. At least she knew, even if she hadn’t thought about it consciously, that Thorton had limits! Thorton would never actually
hurt her
.

She hadn't seen nor heard that Jazeel had any such limits. There was a whip in the corner, for god sakes—a real one, like the kind
pirates
used! And she had a horrible feeling that if she didn’t start saying something interesting, it was going to cut into her.

“You haven’t even asked questions yet!” she cried, fearing that Jazeel was dragging this out on purpose. She had remembered Ellie saying that for a Frian, Jazeel was extremely sexual when it came to humans. He was aroused by them, and he had chosen Lady Gahaal as his wife because she shared that ideology as well.

Puppy-Man pinched a nipple between his fingers that, while firm, were unnaturally smooth. He was a captivity-born human, she could tell that by the strange accent he’d use. Still, she wondered if he’d actually worked a day in his life, or if he was just serving as prime because he was Lady Gahaal’s favorite breeding stallion.

Jazeel continued not asking her questions.

“Ellie is just a gadget-maker. I work on programming. It’s no big deal!” Penny squeaked when the Puppy-Man turned and walked to get a nearby crop. Her eyes went as large as saucers.

“What is your relation to each other?” Jazeel asked as she watched Puppy-Man make a few practice swings, creating a ‘swishing’ noise through the air.

“We’re friends!” she lied.

“That’s not what I heard. I heard that she’s more than a gadget maker. She’s making something that could hurt us.”

“Kitchen gadgetry! It can hurt us all by making us fat, clogging our arteries!” Penny said, but it must have sounded suitably lame, because with a ‘swish-swack’, the crop came into instant contact with… her breast.

She tried to rip her hands out of the cuffs that she was hanging by. The pain was startling enough to make her see white for a second. “I’m not lying!” she lied. “I’m not lying, I’m not! I’m not!” Another ‘swish swack’ rang through the air. “Aack!”

“Who is the father of my pet’s whelp?” Jazeel asked.

Penny was still winded by Ellie being pregnant at all. “I don’t know his name!” More lies. She didn’t know if Jazeel would recognize Graham’s name. She didn’t know if it was a secret. What she did know was that as far as the Swarii federation news network was concerned, Graham was a celebrity. He was a
hero.
People were curious about him, and his name was mentioned a lot… Nearly as often as his own father’s name was mentioned on the news, and he was one of the most powerful people in the galaxy! “He keeps Ellie locked up like a slave, making kitchen tools, singing like a parakeet with bare feet and…”

“Prime? She needs a few more whacks,” Jazeel said evenly.

“No, no, no!” Whacking suddenly stung her everywhere—her breasts, her nipples, her stomach, and then the prime began to peel off her skirt and leggings. That was an ominous concept! “Oh, please, please! I don’t know anything! I swear I don’t know anything!” she began to pant.

“You know, she has a sweet, youthful look about her, my love,” Gahaal finally murmured as she put her scaly hand on Jazeel’s knee. “She might start to tweet like a bird with a good dose of ginger up her bottom.”

Anything ‘up her bottom’ didn’t sound particularly good. Penny started stuttering nervously. “I… I… I’ll admit everything! When I was two, I broke my cousin’s toy train but I blamed it on my brother! When I was five I pushed Johnny Danvers off his bike and stole it for four days and he was too embarrassed to tell on me! When I was six I shaved the neighbor’s cat! A little later I shaved my brother’s head when he was sleeping and then blamed it on my OTHER brother. And then when I was seven—”

She figured she might as well confess her life in-order. At this point, it might at least take all day. But Gahaal’s Puppy-Man had already gone to a sideboard in the room and picked up a bulbous piece of ginger root into his hands and was beginning to peel the sides of it.

He came to her back about the time she had made her confessions up through age-eight, and she felt him spread her cheeks and work his thick finger into her spread-wide bottom before inching it into her bottom hole.

“Eeek! Please, I’ll tell you everything! I can’t take this! I can’t!” Tears were already beginning to fall down her cheeks, but to her disdain, Jazeel and his wife just gave her reptilian smiles as her rectum was loosened by a finger before it was replaced by a very cold piece of ginger. Slowly, he twisted it until its rounded head entered her bottom with a small ‘pop’. She immediately clenched even before he started twisting it within her.

Suddenly she felt the burning in her bottom begin to climb. She took a steady, shaky breath in.

“You like that, don’t you, you little whore?” the Puppy-Man said. He hadn’t spoken until now, but she wished he hadn’t started. His voice was a raspy, deep growl. It’s what she imagined a demon would sound like. He twisted it some more and pushed the ginger deeper within her. “I’m gonna fuck this ass until you can’t walk for a month. You wait. They’ll order me to. I’m not the gentle type, either. I’m gonna make you scream and squirm as I pound my meat into you…”

Wow. That was uncalled-for and unexpected. If you’d have asked her five minutes ago if she could be in a worse situation, she would have said no. Suddenly, this man was making everything worse. “Fuck you, Asshole!” she hissed, and turned her neck to spit in the Prime’s face. She was rewarded with a firm slap across the face.

“Prime, you have my permission to deal with that sort of disrespect!” Gahaal’s voice was an excited murmur, and she shifted excitedly in her seat.

Penny shook slightly as he turned. She was sure that he was going to go for the whip, but instead he came back with the cane. Only the cane? That didn’t seem so bad—if the English could take it, then so could she!

The cane set against her bottom as he lined up, and then after a couple of aiming taps, he came back and she heard a ‘crack’! Followed by her own scream.

Another few taps came, and she clenched her bottom tight, and then gasped at the burning pain from the ginger and then relaxed and –CRACK!—the cane came down again.

Her knees buckled and then she tried to grip at her hand restraints again. “Thorton! Thorton!” she began to cry. It didn’t make any sense, but she was beginning to beg to her husband—the one that would die before he would stand by and let her be treated or talked to like this. “Thorton, help me! Help me!”