Page 8 of Branding the Bat

"Good," Trevor said. He was behind Sero, circling the pole the way a cat circled a thing it was deciding whether to eat. His footsteps were soft on the floor, barefoot already, shirt off, just the low-slung black jeans. When he came around to Sero's front again, he was holding a flogger.

It was a serious instrument. Not the decorative kind sold at novelty shops. This was leather, well-used, the falls supple and heavy. Trevor let the ends trail over Sero's chest as he walked past, a whisper of sensation that made Sero's nipples tighten.

"Color?" Trevor asked.

"Green."

"I'm going to warm you up first. Ten across your back, then ten across your thighs. If something's wrong—"

"Lioness. Or the air horn. I know."

Trevor smiled. Not the arrogant grin. Something warmer. "Good boy."

The first strike landed across Sero's upper back, and it was—

Fine.

It was completely fine. A thud, a bloom of warmth, a sting that faded in seconds. Sero had felt worse bumping into the corner of his kitchen counter. The second strike was the same. By the fifth, he was starting to wonder if Trevor was going easy on him.

"Harder," Sero said.

Trevor paused. "You sure?"

"I can barely feel it. Hit me like you mean it."

There was a beat of silence. Then: "Color?"

"Green. Very, very green."

The sixth strike was different. Trevor put his shoulder into it, and the flogger landed with a crack that echoed off the walls. The pain was sharper, a bright line across Sero's back that radiated outward like a stone dropped in water. Better. Closer to something real. But still not enough. Still just sensation, interesting and warm, not the thing he'd heard other subs describe that pulled them under.

"More," Sero said.

Trevor stepped in front of him. His eyes were different, wider, brighter, with a focus that bordered on clinical. He was studying Sero's face with the intensity of someone reading a difficult text.

"You're not performing," Trevor said.

"I'm not. I can handle more."

"Most people would be gasping by now. Two of the guys I played with on Halloween were crying at five."

Sero met his gaze steadily. "I'm not most people. I'm a bat."

Trevor's surprise gave way to delight, avid and undisguised, the look of a person who'd been handed a puzzle they hadn't known existed. He went to the duffle bag.

"Okay," Trevor said, crouching beside it. "Let's see what you're actually made of."

What happened next was methodical and extraordinary.

Trevor abandoned the flogger. He produced a single-tail whip, shorter, nastier, requiring more precision, and used it with an accuracy that Sero found almost beautiful. Each strike landed exactly where Trevor intended, building patterns across Sero's back and thighs with the deliberation of a painter working on a canvas. The pain escalated in increments, each one a step deeper than the last. Sero tracked his own responses with something like academic interest: sting, then heat, then a deeper ache that settled into his muscles and stayed.

At twenty strokes, he was hard. Fully, achingly hard, his cock stiff against his stomach without a single touch. Somewhere between fifteen and eighteen, the pain had crossed a wire with something else in his body, and now every strike of the whip sent heat pooling low in his belly and throbbing between his legs. His hips jerked forward on the next lash, chasing contact that wasn't there.

"Now that's interesting," Trevor murmured. He'd come around to Sero's front and was looking at his cock, flushed dark, leaking at the tip, with the expression of a scientist who'd just confirmed a hypothesis. His tongue swept across his lower lip, quick and unconscious. "Aroused from the pain alone."

"Apparently." Sero's voice came out wrecked. "Is that normal?"

Trevor smiled. Not the arrogant grin. The real one, rare and unguarded. "For a bat with your tolerance? I have no idea. I've never had one of you before." Trevor ran his fingertips over the marks on Sero's chest, light, mapping touches that traced each welt. Sero's stomach muscles contracted under his hand. "Your skin marks beautifully. And your body doesn't react the way other shifters' do. No swelling. Minimal redness given how hard I hit you. You just... absorb it." His thumb brushed over Sero's nipple, and Sero bit down on a groan. Trevor noticed. He did it again, slower.