Free Savages Recruit by Loki Renard

laughable plan. “Not the brightest idea you've ever had.”
    Fuck it, Zora thought to herself. She may as well tell him what she thought of him. “You're a bully,” she said. “You only hit me because you can.”
    “No,” he shook his head. “I hit you because you need it.”
    “That's insane,” Zora argued. “Nobody needs to be hit.”
    “You do. You don't understand that you can't always get your way. You don't understand how important it is you do what you're told when you're told. There won't always be time to argue. In some matters, hesitation means death.”
    “Not for me though,” Zora persisted. “I just do math. Who cares how I behave?”
    “I do,” Savage said heavily.
    “And we're back to square one. You hit me because you like hitting me.”
    “If I hit you because I liked hitting you, I'd be spanking you right now,” Savage said, his voice low.
    Zora caught the hint of a warning, but it only served to confuse her. She couldn't work out what she was doing wrong, if anything. She fell into silence as they traveled along fresh roads. Her bottom stung and twinged periodically, reminding her over and over again what he had done to her. “I just don't understand,” she said softly.
    “You don't need to understand, you just need to obey.” The sentence sounded like a line right out of the hard ass training manual, and Zora wasn't buying it for a moment.
    “When are you going to tell me what's going on?”
    Savage sighed, his voice strained like that of a parent who has been asked a myriad of times if they were there yet. “Soon.”
    “Not fair,” Zora pouted, burying her head in her crossed arms. He wanted her for something. He wanted her for something so bad he'd broken laws to get her and now he was telling her she had no right to know what it was. She didn't believe his promises to tell her at some point in the future. He was keeping secrets, and those secrets couldn't be good.
    She closed her eyes, but even with her eyes closed she could feel his presence close by. He was solid, unyielding. A total mystery in many respects. She knew very little about him. He wasn't married, she could deduce that from the fact that he didn't wear a wedding ring. Did he have a partner? It seemed unlikely given the amount of time he spent working. Surely he was too handsome to be single though, women usually swooned for the military type, especially one who could be courteous and charming when he wanted to be. Catching herself at the beginning of a dangerously soppy spiral of thought, Zora berated herself silently. It didn't matter how attractive he was, he certainly wasn't interested in her. He'd seen her half naked more often than her last boyfriend had and he was completely indifferent to her apart from when she displeased him in some way.
    Her mind drifted back to the evening he'd used the tawse on her, when she had been too upset to stand or speak he had held her gently and spoken to her with some small trace of affection. The mere memory of the moment made her feel warm all over. It had been such a fleeting moment though, and he had left her to her fear and misery afterward as usual. No, she couldn't start to think he cared, it was too obvious that he did not. She had no-one. She was utterly alone. Thinking that Savage was interested in her in any way other than a useful tool was just wishful dreaming.
    “I know this is confusing and frightening.” His voice broke into her mental tirade. “But I'm going to do my damnedest to keep you safe, do you understand? Even from yourself.”
    Zora's eyes fluttered open. “Keep me safe? Am I in danger?”
    The look on Savage's face was conflicted. “I was going to wait to tell you this until you'd learned to trust me more, but it doesn't change anything one way or another and at this rate I'll be thrashing you until kingdom come.”
    “Okay,” Zora said, scrambling up into a half sitting position. “Tell me.”
    His eyes were dark and serious as he looked