Duck! (Avian Shifters Book 1) (12 page)

He wasn’t running away, he was…Raynard’s eyes narrowed as he studied Ori’s expression more carefully. He was…holding himself together by the skin of his teeth, fighting against his instincts and somehow forcing himself to accept his master’s desertion of him.

“Upon what grounds do you think you’re being dismissed?” The words were even harsher than all those that had gone before.

Ori frowned slightly. His whole body trembled as he took a shaky breath. “The cabinet, sir. I know it’s not the… I…”

Raynard stared at Ori, completely speechless. It obviously didn’t occur to the boy that his master could be worried about the damage to something far more important to him than any bit of furniture.

Some of Raynard’s anger drained away—or at least found a new direction. If that’s what Ori believed, it was because that’s what he’d been taught to believe—at the nest, at those foster homes. A fledgling couldn’t be blamed for that.

Raynard turned his chair to the side. “Come here.”

From the look on Ori’s face, anyone would have thought Raynard had asked his submissive to crawl over broken glass to reach him. Yet, Ori still obeyed the command. He walked very slowly around to stand before Raynard.

At any other time, Raynard had no doubt that Ori would have immediately dropped to his knees, the way he always did when Raynard called him to that side of the desk. Right then, he didn’t. Raynard had to look pointedly at the floor by his feet before Ori finally lowered himself.

The moment his knees hit the floor, Ori’s hand went to his collar. He turned it around so the buckle faced Raynard. Even now, he was trying to serve—even if it meant helping Raynard take back the mark he’d given him.

Raynard tucked his knuckle under Ori’s chin as he realised exactly why he had struggled to circle the desk. “Is that really what you’ve been taught to expect from me, fledgling?”

Ori frowned as if he didn’t understand the question. “I know you’ve been very tolerant of my clumsiness, sir. I can’t blame you for finally losing patience and—”

Raynard covered Ori’s lips with his palm. “That’s enough.” He caught hold of the tag on Ori’s collar with his free hand. “When I gave you this what did I tell you it means?” He took away his hand to permit an answer.

“That I belonged to you, sir.”

“You’re still wearing it. Correct your tenses,” Raynard snapped.

The collar moved around Ori’s throat as he swallowed. “That I
belong
to you, sir.”

“And do you think a good master would disown a man on a whim?”

Ori shook his head.

“Do you really think I’d disown you over an accident?”

“You said…” Ori frowned and looked away as if the memory of the words was too painful for him to echo.

“That your behaviour today was unacceptable,” Raynard finished for him, refusing to flinch away from the statement. “It was. That doesn’t mean you’ll be disowned—it means your behaviour will be corrected.”

Ori looked up at him. Raynard watched as Ori’s expression turned from uncertainty, to hope, to relief. He nodded, a jerky little motion that promised acceptance of anything and everything that might entail.

“What do you think that means?” Raynard asked, not about to take anything for granted right then.

“A punishment, sir.”

Raynard leaned back in his chair, taking his touch away from Ori. The duckling didn’t falter without his master’s hand under his chin to steady him. The strength seemed to have poured back into him with the simple knowledge that his collar wasn’t under threat.

“You’ve been punished before?”

Ori nodded again, a far more certain gesture now.

“At the nest?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

Ori looked down for a moment, then back up to him. “The whip, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“Sometimes they spoke about extra duties as a punishment, sir.”

“You disagreed?”

“I was there to work, sir,” Ori said, an uncertain frown lurking around his eyes.

And they both knew he wasn’t afraid of hard work. “Anything else?” Raynard prompted.

Ori seemed to think carefully about the subject. “It wasn’t always a whip, sir—sometimes it was a crop or a paddle.”

“But always a physical punishment?” Raynard pushed.

Ori nodded. “Yes, sir.” As if he had no idea there could be any other sort.

Raynard knew then what had to happen next. It was time Ori learnt exactly how different a punishment could be when it was delivered by an avian who truly understood what dominance and submission meant.

Taking a thick pad of lined paper out of his desk drawer, Raynard set it on the desktop. Pen in hand, he stared at the blank page.

He could sense Ori’s eyes on him, feel the confusion pouring off Ori as he tried to work out what was going on. The boy still had so much to learn about the difference between serving at the nest and serving one man—between being a servant and a submissive.

Raynard tapped the end of his pen against the desk. No doubt he had a lot to learn himself—about how to care for a submissive who he had no intention of ever releasing from his protection—a man he cared about as well as one he owned.

It only took Raynard a few seconds to scrawl the words across the top of the page once he’d decided what they were to be. Turning in his seat, he handed the pad to Ori.

“One thousand.”

Ori took the pad from him. His right hand appeared uninjured by his fall. Raynard offered him the pen. He took that as well.

“Lines…?”

Raynard didn’t bother to agree with a statement of the obvious. Ori looked from the paper, to him, and back again.

“I…”

Their eyes met. Raynard raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, sir.” Ori just sounded more confused than ever. He was silent for a few seconds.

“You may use that table.” Raynard pointed to the other side of the study.

“Yes, sir.” Ori continued to kneel there, staring at the papers in his hand.

“Start now.”

“Yes, sir.” He still didn’t move. A full minute passed before he rose to his feet. He took a few steps away before turning back to Raynard. “Just this, sir?”

“Just that,” he agreed, somehow still managing to sound insanely calm.

“Yes, sir.”

Ori sat down at the table on the other side of the room. Raynard looked back to his own desk. There seemed very little for him to do but get on with some work. There was certainly enough of it crammed into his briefcase. He automatically reached for it.

The briefcase wasn’t in its usual place at the side of his desk. For a few seconds, Raynard stared at the empty patch of floor, with just as much confusion as Ori had stared at his stack of lined paper.

Of course, his briefcase would be in the hallway where he’d left it. Shaking his head at himself, Raynard went to retrieve it.

Ori looked up as he walked past, but he didn’t speak. When he saw Raynard carry the briefcase back into the room, he bowed his head guiltily over his work, as if there had been some occasion between Raynard arriving home and that moment when he should have found time to move it for him.

Settling himself at his desk, Raynard calmly worked his way through the first file—mostly. There were just a couple of occasions when he found his attention wandering across to the big mahogany table on the other side of the room.

If Ori found Raynard’s presence as distracting as Raynard found the fledgling’s, Raynard never caught him at it. Whenever his gaze strayed toward Ori, the boy’s head was bowed industriously over his work, his hand making steady progress across, and gradually down, the page.

Ori held his injured arm absentmindedly cradled to his chest as he wrote. He was still pale, his skin barely distinguishable from the bandage, but Raynard doubted he’d remain that way for long. After the tumble he’d taken, he’d probably be black, blue, and lots of other interesting colours by the next morning.

He could have been killed.

Raynard swallowed down the bitter taste the thought left in the back of his throat.

He could have been killed.

Raynard mentally rolled his eyes at himself. Ori was right there, and he was fine. He was being kept right there, making a start on his punishment, when it would have been far more logical for him to finish clearing up after the accident, principally because it allowed Raynard to keep him safe and within sight while he gave his own panic time to fade.

Ori was fine.

Except, he could have been killed.

Pushing his first file into one of the trays on his desk, Raynard reached for his mobile phone. Ori had obviously had a very eventful day. There were certain routine duties that hadn’t been performed as a result. It was lucky then, that Raynard still remembered all the take-away numbers that had been his very good friends before the duckling joined his household.

Order placed, Raynard looked across the room. Ori’s head was still bowed over the papers, but his hand wasn’t moving. Raynard watched him for a few moments, but Ori remained frozen in place.

“Do you have something to say, Ori?”

He licked his lips before he attempted to speak. “Shall I get dressed so I’ll be ready to answer the door, sir?”

“No.” The idea of Ori’s body being covered up, of Raynard not being able to see with his own eyes that there weren’t any truly serious injuries on him, sent a chill down Raynard’s spine and lent a snap to the word.

Ori made no comment as he resumed his lines.

The doorbell rang some twenty minutes later. Raynard left the room. When he came back, take away bag in hand, Ori glanced up.

“Shall I fetch…?” He trailed off and closed his eyes as if he couldn’t force himself to go on.

Stopping next to the table, Raynard held out his hand.

Ori looked down at the lines he’d written. The first page was full, as was a second. A third page had just been started. “I haven’t finished the thousand, sir.”

“Hardly surprising in this length of time.” Raynard continued to hold out his hand.

Ori eventually surrendered the pages to him.

“Fetch a tray from the kitchen.”

Relief poured off Ori. He scurried from the room as if afraid his master might change his mind. Raynard set the bag down on the coffee table and took a seat on the little sofa that occupied one corner of the room. He’d barely had time to set the take away cartons on the table before Ori had returned with his tray.

Either his arm wasn’t hurting him, or he was used to working through pain. Whichever it was, being allowed to provide Raynard with some kind of service seemed to have settled his nerves somewhat.

The tray was set for one. Raynard watched Ori kneel down and lay everything neatly on the coffee table before him. He was curious to see what his fledgling might do next. With the last item set in place, Ori rose. He looked toward the table where he’d been writing out his lines.

Raynard pointedly dropped a cushion where Ori had knelt on the carpet a moment before. Ori hesitated but lowered himself without needing Raynard to issue a verbal command.

Even then, Ori didn’t think he was going to be fed. Raynard could see it in his eyes.

Opening one of the boxes, Raynard ate a forkful of food. Ori made no comment. Raynard stabbed the fork back into the box and speared another mouthful. This time, Raynard offered the fork to Ori’s lips.

Ori pulled back slightly. He looked toward the table where he’d worked. “I haven’t finished, sir.”

“The lines will keep you busy for several days. I don’t intend to starve you in the meantime.” He nudged the fork against Ori’s lips.

Slowly, Ori opened his mouth and took the food from his master’s fork. A blush rose to his cheeks as he looked down at the things he’d brought up from the kitchen and seemed to realise he’d miscalculated.

“Shall I—?”

“Stay where you are.”

Raynard offered him another forkful. There was something curiously pleasing about watching the fledgling practically eat out of his hand. Raynard picked up the next mouthful of food with his bare fingers. That made an even more pleasing picture, and Ori blushing over it was hardly going to put him off—especially not when it suited Ori so well.

The colour didn’t fade from Ori cheeks as the meal continued. Not when Raynard held his glass to Ori’s lips for him to share his drink, or when he offered him his dessert, every mouthful of it lapped from the palm of Raynard’s hand. It made him look wonderfully healthy and alive. And how much of his embarrassment was down to the fact Raynard fed him by hand, and how much was due to the realisation that he was getting turned on by his master feeding him that way, was debatable anyway. As naked as he was, there was little Ori could do to conceal his cock as it stiffened and rose.

Raynard had always had a vague awareness that Ori would probably like being fussed over a little. It had never occurred to him that Ori would be turned on by it. Raynard hadn’t realised that he’d find it so pleasant a way to pass the time either.

As the food gradually disappeared from the coffee table, Raynard felt himself relax. Ori was fine. If he was in danger of anything at all, it was spontaneous submissive combustion due to Raynard’s teasing.