The Mistress

Luckily Marie-Laure seemed intent on toying with her first, toying with her and Søren and all of them. That took time and with enough time anything could happen. Marie-Laure clearly underestimated the people she’d chosen to f**k with. It had always amused her, when out on the town with Kingsley, how the two of them intimidated the innocents they’d mingled with. Kingsley Edge—King of Kink, King of the Underground—his bedroom exploits were the stuff of legend. That he openly admitted to a love of both men and women, of sex, of kink, of the darkest sorts of pleasure—blood-play, knife-play and, his personal favorite, rape-play—engendered fear in the hearts of the outsiders they encountered. The word play clearly didn’t register with them. That Kingsley was kinky was the least of their worries. That Kingsley was an ex-spy and assassin who had spent his twenties killing enemies of the French government. Now that should make them nervous.

Oh, and on top of that, Søren, the man who loved her more than anyone else had ever loved her and would ever love her, was an unapologetic sadist who’d once hammered nails through the testicles of a Dominant at the Eighth Circle, a man who’d ignored his submissive lover’s safe word and pleas for mercy and had beaten the boy unconscious. Nora smiled at the memory. After all, she’d passed Søren the nails while Kingsley had held the man down. They’d offered the Dominant two choices—King’s justice or the courts. He’d picked King’s justice and soon regretted it.

Marie-Laure would regret it, too, eventually. Hopefully Nora would live long enough to see that.

As visions of bloody retributions danced through her head, Nora ignored the quiet voice in the back of her head that warned her Søren would do nothing that put her life at risk. A rescue mission with doors kicked opened and guns blazing would only end up getting them all killed. Even now she heard the creak of hardwood outside the door—one of Marie-Laure’s boys standing guard, ready to mow her down if she somehow managed to untie herself.

Worth a shot, anyway.

Nora twisted her arms slowly as she tried to get the feel of the ropes, the knots. She’d done her fair share of Shibari in her days as a pro. She loved it, especially for clients who’d paid for three- and four-hour sessions. Putting a client in a reverse shrimp tie could take an hour in itself. So she knew knots and she knew rope, and she knew there was no way in hell she would be able to wriggle her way out of these. He’d tied her wrists and her forearms. She’d have to dislocate her own shoulders to get to the knots.

Still, a little dislocated shoulder never killed anyone. Bullets, however, killed lots of people.

As Nora started to pull against the rope, the door opened.

She froze in place as Andrei stared at her. She didn’t like the look on his face—one of utter disdain—but it was better than the alternative. At least she didn’t see any violent or lascivious intent in his eyes. “May I help you?” Nora asked as Fat Man continued to stare at her in mute contempt.

“She wants you for breakfast.”

“Is she a cannibal, too?”

“Probably,” he said as he came to the bed and began untying Nora. Once her hands and legs were free, he nodded toward the bathroom. “One minute. Make it good.”

She ran for the bathroom and pissed like a racehorse. She knew Doms and subs who played around with bathroom control. Thankfully Søren’s kinks focused on a far narrower swath of tortures. Although every now and then he got a bit demonic with her while playing at the club. In the middle of a scene, she’d admitted to a desperate need to pee. He’d kicked a metal bucket into the middle of the room and said, “Go.”

Andrei had given her one minute so she didn’t waste it. While in the bathroom she looked around wildly, trying to find anything that she could use. Nothing. Jack-fucking-nothing unless she thought she could smother a man to death with a bath towel.

“Better?” he asked when she emerged.

“My bladder thanks you.”

“Don’t thank me. She doesn’t want you pissing on yourself again.”

“She seems kind of sensitive,” Nora said as Andrei the Fat Man grabbed her by the arm and led her into the hall, his large gun strapped to his side. Briefly Nora regretted refusing Kingsley’s offers to teach her to shoot. Søren had instilled his Jesuit’s pacifism in her at too young an age. That and a preteen crush on MacGyver had pretty much ruined any appeal guns might have held for her once. Kingsley taught her long ago that the main rule of self-defense was “Don’t do anything stupid.” Trying to steal a gun from a giant mercenary when she didn’t even know how to take the safety off easily qualified as stupid. Fatally stupid.

Fat Man led her into the breakfast room where Marie-Laure sat at the table in her gown and robe, looking for all the world like a damned duchess at tea. Marie-Laure said nothing to her, didn’t even glance at her as she picked up her cup of tea and sipped from it. Fat Man pushed Nora down to the floor and stood behind her. Nora waited in silence and made a surreptitious sweep of the room. When she’d been here for Søren’s father’s funeral, the family had gathered here for breakfast. Nora had been only seventeen then but she knew enough to keep her mouth shut and her head down and disappear into the background so no one would wonder who she was, what she was doing here. When anyone asked, she’d said she was a friend of Claire’s, Søren’s sixteen-year-old half sister from his father’s second marriage. It wasn’t entirely a lie. She and Claire had gotten along beautifully. And “friend of Claire’s” sounded a hell of a lot better than “my priest who’s in love with me brought me here so he could tell me all his secrets.” Discretion had proved the better part of valor then. She decided it was the better part of valor again today.