Fifteen The sun was beginning to paint the sky orange when Fenny called a halt. They had made good time, more than making up for the delay that Toy had caused, but running in the dark, even for them, was asking for trouble, and Moira, at least, would need sleep. She pulled them further back into the woods, until they were as far from the roads on either side as they could manage, and arranged her bags atop a boulder. “You menfolk can get a shelter set up, and Moira and I will handle dinner.” She held out a hand to Toy. “Give me a couple carrots and potatoes?” He blinked at her, but chanted a quick Working, dropping a handful of root vegetables and a spring of bay into her hands. “Thank you.” She set the foodstuffs aside and began digging for her cookware. When she looked up, mess kit in hand, he was still looking at her. “What is it?” “You’re going to punish me.” It wasn’t a question so much as a certainty. “For following orders? That would be stupid. Go set up a shelter.” He went, his tail curled between his legs, and Fenny settled back into dinner preparations. “Moira, you can start a fire, right?” She didn’t bother to ask if the girl knew how to do so safely. She was a creature of the woods; it went without saying. “Of course.” The girl looked at the mess kit. “That’s not much of a meal.” “I was thinking of adding some meat,” she answered dryly. “We are in the woods, after all.” “Oh! Okay.” She bit her lip. “I could call something here…” Fenn stifled the mental image of Moira sitting on the ground, surrounded by small woodland creatures answering her call, then coolly slitting their throats and butchering them for the stew pot. “It’s all right. I’ll take a quick run. Stay here with Nathaniel and get a little cookfire going, please.” She waited for the witch to nod her understanding, and then took off into the woods. This wasn’t running, wasn’t the smooth near-flight of travel. This was something else entirely, the slow prowl for food, moving quietly enough to not spook her prey, slipping through the underbrush, nose twitching as she sought out something tasty, something fat and slow and delicious. She caught the spoor of a deer but bypassed it, images of Moira as a doe too fresh in her mind. There were only four of them, anyway. She caught two big rabbits in one quick pounce, and carried them back to the camp, barely resisting the urge to eat them as she went. They had transformed the place while she was gone into a true camp; another boulder-shelter, this one big enough for all of them, loomed where there’d been a smallish rock before. All of Fenn’s bags had been dragged inside, and the bedding had been lain out and, it seemed, encouraged into a softer, denser nest. A tidy campfire burned near the mouth of the cave and, over it, Moira had set up the tripod and started a pot of stew boiling happily. Nathaniel sat by the fire, seeming to meditate; Toy stood nearby, swaying on his feet. She dropped to the ground and quickly butchered the rabbits, noting that Moira could watch with no apparent squeamishness, and even produced a second pan to brown the meat in before Fenn was done skinning. “You have an entire house in those bags,” she commented, as if she cooked over an open fire every day. “I move a lot,” Fenn answered. “So everything is portable. Toy, sit down before you fall down. Here, ready for the meat?” It was almost homey, if you ignored the stricken look on the boy’s face. He was still frightened, still expecting punishment. Had Jinani – or her patrons – played games with him, promising him it would be okay and then beating him later? Had mind games like that been necessary to break him? She chopped the meat into the pan, saving out a piece to eat, and studied her captive. There was so very little left of the Hunter who had attacked her and her children, back when the boys were still toddling, still vulnerable. She could see the lines of him, the shape of a cheekbone, the length of the limbs, but everything else had been stripped away. He almost was a child again, an abused one at that. “Come here.” He glanced nervously at the fire, then at her face, and moved jerkily, like a marionette missing half its strings. Not really trying to fight it, she didn’t think, just too terrified to go along willingly. What the hell had SilverRope done to him? As gently as his fear-stiffened body would allow, she captured his wrists behind his back and pulled him face-down over her lap. “What…?” Moira frowned. Nathaniel looked up from his meditation to put in his two cents. “Now is not the time for playing around.” She glared at both of them. “You’d better explain to them,” she told the boy across her legs. “Explain?” He twisted to look up at her, worrying at the already-bloody spot on his lower lip with his teeth. “Why were you more afraid when I told you I wasn’t going to punish you?” “Oh.” He looked up at Moira, then back down at the ground. “It’s worse,” he mumbled, “when you don’t know when it’s coming. Waiting for it to fall.” “But she said she wouldn’t punish you! And you didn’t do anything wrong! It’s her fault for giving bad orders, if anything!” He flinched, and shook his head slowly. “She had to punish me. I did something wrong.” His face turned towards the fire, and he fell quiet. “That’s not fair!” “Slavery rarely is,” Fenny sighed. “Now stop making him wait longer.” Glowering, the little witch fell silent. Fenn turned to Nathaniel, but he seemed to have decided not to interfere; he watched silently instead. “The next time you think your read on an order might annoy me,” she admonished the boy across her knees, “you might want to think about talking it over with me first.” “Okay?” he whispered. His fear was an overwhelming stink, bad enough that she wondered if he’d pissed his pants. She pulled them off, not just to check, but to bare his ass, drawing a muffled squeak from Moira. His pants were dry, his ass smooth and perfect under the whip of a tail, which he curled to one side, the tip shoving itself under his thigh. “Ready?” “Yes,” he lied. His whole body tensed. She thought about the Hunter that had grabbed her youngest son by the back of the neck and nearly choked him. She thought about the look of startled panic when Jinani had first threaded her chains through the holes in his wrists. Fifteen years. And an Ellehemaei body could heal almost anything. Her hand slapped down on his bare bottom, not nearly as hard as she could, the claws carefully lifted out of the way. Once, twice – she heard him begin to count and swallow it. She felt him jerk with every strike. She watched his hands curl into fists as she kept going. And she felt the moment he relaxed. She stopped then, at ten, and patted him lightly. He looked up at her, his expression one big question mark, and she patted him again, this time on the shoulder. “Put your pants on.” She tried for gentle, and seemed to succeed. His fear-stink had faded, at least, even if he was still looking at her quizzically. “We’re done,” she reassured him, “and you’re making Moira blush.” He nodded, and hurriedly tugged his pants back up. With another nervous glance her way, he slid off her lap and flopped bonelessly to the ground between her and Moira. Moira, who was looking at her rather strangely, yet again. “What?” she grumped. “I have two sons. Two teenage sons who happen to be Wild Ones. Do you think I’ve never had to spank someone?” “How can you expect him to grow a spine,” she complained, “if you punish him for doing what you told him to?” Fenn rolled her eyes. She should be used to the witch’s aggressive innocence by now. Flustered anyway, she filled bowls with soup and passed them out before answering: Nathaniel, then herself, then Moira, then Toy. Both men nodded as if it was their due; Moira just looked rebellious and confused. “Spines take time,” she said slowly, “and, considering that he started as a Nedetakaei, should be undertaken with caution. Kindness and consistency take less time, and are less dangerous.” “You’re calling spanking him a kindness?” Toy wasn’t eating yet, but he was following their conversation with a kind of dull curiosity. She pressed the bowl into his hands, avoiding Moira’s question again. “You should eat,” she told him; “I bet it’s been a long time since you’ve Worked that much.” He nodded, murmured something incoherent, and brought the spoon to his mouth slowly. Fenn turned back to the witch, out of delaying tactics. “Yeah, I do. And I hope you never have to find out why.” Want more online fiction? Check out Web Fiction Guide!		Updates on the first and third Sunday of each month
	Copyright © 2009 Lyn Thorne-Alder. All rights reserved.