Free Lie to Me by Gracen Miller Page B

to the crowd, and positioned herself so Jeb wouldn’t have the added guilt of that. Boos surfaced around them as Jeb strapped her to a wooden X—how fitting given her status as a Xeno and an X-Diplomat. After securing her wrists, he had her spread her legs, which caused a moment of alarm because she couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the position. He lifted her pant legs so he could bind her ankles to the apparatus.
    Testing the restraints, she tugged her arms against the bindings cutting into her wrists. The tight ties must be for her own good, but the way he’d bound her, along with the pinching rope, unsettled her.
    He cut her shirt off, exposing her back. Her hair had already been braided, so he pushed that over her shoulder and out of his way. Next he slashed off her pants, and that succeeded in escalating her apprehension. With only her panties and bra maintaining her vanity, she was rendered vulnerable, exposed in a way that bought her a shit ton of alarm.
    Part and parcel of the repercussions of my actions .
    But what was the point in spreading her legs and baring her from the waist down? Further humiliation?
    I’d do it all over again .
    People were tired of being devalued because of their birth status. Tired of being a disposable commodity because the government only valued spooners and their wealth. Born a dreg, always a dreg. Dragging oneself out of that crevice was next to impossible. The only ones who received favor were Xenos, and they lost their freedom for their gain.
    “I’d go easy on you if I could.”
    Kella glanced at Jeb, his expression troubled. She nodded that she understood. Electrical lashes prevented the punisher from holding back.
    Jeb startled her when he doused her with water. Oh, shit, Regent Jones meant business with her torture. She’d never seen them employ water with the electrical lashes before.
    “Mack Ellason,” the smug tone of Regent Jones’s voice slithered down her spine. God, she hated him so much and couldn’t wait to cripple him. She wished he’d choke on his hypocrisy, but he deserved to suffer a long time. “Your punishment is twenty electrical lashes for interfering in my business.” The crowd gasped over the harsh sentence and proceeded to scream obscenities. “You may proceed, Jeb.”
    The glee in his voice sickened her. He enjoyed the suffering of others, always had.
    As soon as the X-Ds can manage it, he’s going dow —
    Kella gasped when the first lash struck diagonally across her back. In protest of the severity of the hit, her spine arched, driving her belly into the wood she was bound to, possibly acquiring a splinter or two. She’d definitely underestimated the suffering of the penalty handed down. Streaks of pain sizzled along her skin several long seconds after the blow. The second one took her breath. Unprepared, the third came immediately on the heels of the second, causing her entire body to jerk uncontrollably. She bit her tongue to halt the scream ripping upward from her lungs with the fourth, and tasted blood.
    I’ll never make it to twenty. She panted, tears rolling down her cheeks.
    The fifth resulted in the edges of her vision darkening. Her nerve endings stung like a million needles pricked her skin. Or a billion bumblebees dive-bombed her. Or maybe a trillion paper cuts. She couldn’t decide which would hurt the most.
    The sixth landed low on her waist, just above her butt and curled around to bite into her hip. The worst part followed, her uncontrollable shimmying and the stinging that radiated along her skin, like she was connected to a live current. Restraints became too much, her bra and panties chafed her raw skin. Even the tears on her cheeks supplied too much sensation to her over-sensitized skin.
    Kella shuddered in her fetters like a person she’d seen in a movie who’d been tortured with electricity.
    Finally, the brutal quivering in her nerve endings ceased, and she could breathe once more. The next lick came to the