Free The Storyspinner by Becky Wallace Page A

the law requires, he will receive four times as many for his abuse.”
    She turned to Rafi, her eyes wet, belying her steady voice. “Do you deny these charges?”
    “No.” His voice was low and flat. “I admit to the crime and accept the Punishment.”
    The duchess nodded. “Would anyone speak for you?”
    “I will, Mother.” Dom stood, fidgeting nervously. “Rafi—I mean, Lord Rafael—stumbled upon a poacher on our land and tried to stop him from killing a deer, but we didn’t know the poacher was a girl. Johanna didn’t look . . .” Dom’s voice trailed off as he studied the girl from head to foot. “Sorry, but you didn’t look like that.”
    “Only fools hunt in dresses, Lord Dominic,” Johanna said. “And I was not poaching.”
    “That fact has been established.” Lady DeSilva raised her eyebrows at Snout who nodded his confirmation. “Did Lord Rafael attempt to capture this alleged poacher and bring him—or her—to justice?”
    “He did grab her, but she was sort of slippery—”
    “Just say no, Dom.” Rafi shifted his weight impatiently. He didn’t need to be reminded when he should have stopped punching, when capture turned to assault, when he let his temper override his good sense.
    “If there is no other testimony,” Lady DeSilva said, searching the faces of her audience, “then we shall move to the Punishment.”
    No one spoke, as Rafi expected, and he began unlacing his collar with certain fingers. He tugged the linen from his back and handed the cloth to his mother, who folded it into a neat square.
    Captain Alouette jerked on the rope and tightened the metal-studded manacles around each of Rafi’s wrists. “Tight enough?”
    There was no condemnation, no judgment, no disappointment on his face. Alouette was an excellent soldier and an honorable man. Someone Rafi’s father had respected and trusted.
    Rafi nodded and felt the rope go taut, pulling his arms over his head and stretching his frame to its full length. “I’m ready.”
    The captain cracked his knuckles and went to work.

Chapter 19

    Johanna
    Johanna felt ill. Her stomach swirled, her palms sweated, her throat burned, but none of those ailments were related to her injuries. Dom and Lady DeSilva were going to let a giant-of-a-man beat the conceited lordling. And he intended to take it.
    She’d visited all the lands, studied in the libraries, and learned to accept many odd customs, some good, some bad, some disturbing, but this . . . this was brutal.
    Lord Rafael stared at her with fire in his eyes, but his face remained calm as he handed his shirt to the duchess. He went willingly to his Punishment and shook the hand of the colossal Punisher like a trader in the marketplace.
    His body bore a few scars, one arrow-straight slash above his hip bone and another across his left bicep, but otherwise it was unblemished and well defined. The corners of his chest muscles and the ridges of his abdomen stood out in shadowed relief as his arms were yanked above his head.
    Not a perfect body, Johanna thought. She’d seen true perfection when she’d trained with the acrobats, their bodies thickly muscled in every imaginable location, but there was something poetic in Rafi’s lean form.
    The first punch took her by surprise. The Punisher exploded into motion like a Skylighter’s rocket, blasting into Rafi’s lower back. The breath whooshed out of his lungs, but his face showed no emotion. The second came to the right side of his rib cage, the third to the space above his navel.
    Johanna cringed, her body reacting to the blows Rafi so pointedly ignored. Instead of grunting or mumbling or asking for mercy as the fourth, fifth, and sixth punches fell, his eyes stayed locked on hers, eyebrows peaked as if asking, You see this? It’s your fault.
    It wasn’t until the tenth strike, a cracking blow against his ribs that the pain finally registered on his face. His mouth dropped open and he closed his eyes for one long