Echo of Redemption

by Roxy Harte

Is there salvation in truth?

Kitten is pregnant and torn between the idea of being both mommy and sex slave. With the help of her master, Lord Fyre, she makes the hardest decision of all...infuriating Garret, her second master. This revisits the question: can one woman truly serve two masters?

Lord Fyre is torn between blood and ménage. When his twin brother arrives shot and strung out, Fyre’s world of bdsm suddenly collides with his past. Disappearing with his twin seems the only answer. But how can the ménage survive if he isn’t there to hold it together?

Garrett faces uncertainty, knowing he has lost control of Kitten. He knows he must embrace his inner-Dom, known as Lord Ice, if he is ever to come out of the shadow of Lord Fyre and gain full control of Kitten. But is another man the answer?

The bonds of love and commitment is further tested when Lord Fyre pulls his lovers into his dark and dangerous world of intrigue in this fourth installment of the Chronicles of Surrender series.

Content Warning: BDSM

A naked man lies restrained in the middle of our dining room table, not such an unusual circumstance for any particular night but an odd fact given Master is operating on him. Removing bullets to be exact. The man on the table I only just discovered is my lover Thomas’s twin. Almost two years I’ve known him and never once did he believe the information was relevant.

I’m peeved.

As much because there are now blood stains on the wood floors as because I feel I know nothing about the two men I call Master.

“Shouldn’t we call nine-one-one?”

Did I ask that?
God. Oh God
.
Thomas’s brother is bleeding from more holes in his body than I can count.
This isn’t good. This really isn’t good.
Though if the strength of the man’s curses is any indication, he’s going to be just fine. But what about the rest of us? Has he led danger straight to our door?

A scream fills the air and Thomas pushes his brother’s shoulders back down onto the table, even though a dozen straps restrain him. “Hang on, Nikos. He’s almost finished.”

Nikos
. His brother has a name.

Echo of Redemption
978-1-61650-149-5
Copyright © 2010, Roxy Harte
Edited by Pamela Tyner
Book design by Brian Hunter
Cover Art by Renee Rocco
First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: May, 2010

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated

For Mom and Dad, I miss you every moment of every day.

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed but my soul.”

Judy Garland

Kitten

San Francisco
,
CA

January 21

Sitting cross-legged on the sofa, a man on my left, a man on my right, I have no idea who to look at, so I stare straight ahead. Garrett. Thomas.
My men
.
Known to me as Master and Lord Fyre. Our ménage is still intact. I sigh heavily and both men squeeze a hand. I hadn’t noticed before that they are each holding one of my hands. Across the room, I can see their faces reflected in the darkened floor to ceiling bank of windows, framing the inky night sky. I try to read their expressions, but it is impossible. They aren’t looking at me. They are staring at each other, increasing tension already so thick in the room I could choke on it. I wait for the war to begin imminently. All because I’m pregnant. No, that isn’t the
all
.

I tried to tell Thomas first and considered not telling Master. Ever.

Master saw it as me choosing Thomas over him, but I wasn’t. I was choosing the ménage over a baby.
Bloody hell, this is impossible
.
It certainly doesn’t help that Garrett believes the child is Thomas’s. Every parent wants to see a bit of themselves in their child’s face. Garrett will never have that opportunity. He will look at this child and see Thomas. Every. Single. Time. I am an idiot. I am surprised he is even
here
.

Without meaning to, my gaze focuses on the reflected image of Thomas, and I try to imagine him as a child. The thought makes me smirk as I visualize his face beardless, his eyes and mouth younger…younger still. I imagine his long dark hair as short dark curls. Bright pink, pudgy cheeks. I snort, the face I have conjured in my mind could be boy or girl. A beautiful child. Their reflected faces are suddenly looking at me, both demanding answers to unasked questions. I force myself to look at neither and both.

I am not choosing sides!

This child could as easily be Garrett’s. An equally beautiful child.

It is hopeless. I love both men.

I can’t help remembering the night Master collared me, the same night he bought me at auction. We stood in a storeroom and he was explaining the rules of the member’s only area of Lewd Larry’s, his BDSM nightclub. Feline. Canine. Pet play. It all seemed so foreign, but then the collar closed around my neck and he commanded me to meow.

“Merroww.” I’d done the best imitation I was capable of doing of Monet, my luxurious Maine-Coon cat, and suddenly
everything
fell in place for me. I was collared, owned, but I could also be a more base being than my mundane-human counterpart could ever be. Animals have no morality. Animals have no sin. I cried, unashamed, and became Kitten in that moment. Garrett Lawrence had claimed my heart the instant he became
Master
.

But feeling that way, I also feel if Master owns my heart, Lord Fyre owns my soul. I felt it the first time our eyes locked, even though at the time I was comparing him to the one most evil. I felt it then, I still feel it now, every time he looks at me, he sees my darkest needs…and I know his.

I am no longer collared, a matching brand on each of our left arms makes us each others. In the beginning, our ménage was perfect. We took turns playing with each other but as time has marched on, I think Master has become jealous of the time I spend with Lord Fyre.

I don’t understand jealousy.

Garrett has private play dates with Lord Fyre, and I don’t get all moody and sullen. If anything I’m happy for them both because there is a difference in both of them after a scene, one that is hard to explain but I know is a good thing for them because they are so relaxed and happy. Besides, it gives me free time to myself.

As much as I enjoy being doted on and constantly with my men, a moment alone can be very nice.

I’m not sure when things changed.

I used to look forward to Sunday’s Margaritas, Movies, and Mayhem and the relaxed Mondays with Master that followed. More and more often he is working on Mondays, leaving me alone, which makes me long for Tuesday, my day to play with Lord Fyre, which usually leaves me wrung out for days. We’ve never discussed why things are different or how we feel about how things are turning out.

And now this baby.
Holy fuck
.
It isn’t Garrett’s. I didn’t know that he was infertile when I didn’t tell him about the baby right away. I was under the assumption it could be either man’s equally. I wasn’t really concerned or even interested in knowing which. That wasn’t why I didn’t want to talk to Garrett about it. I was afraid of the repercussion. I was afraid of losing the unconventional, kinky life I live.

I like being Master’s
Kitten
. I really like being Lord Fyre’s
Sophia
.

I like being the CEO of
The Darkness
, an alternative lifestyle daily tabloid, and a full partner at Lewd Larry’s.

I don’t know if I am going to like being
Mommy
.

I fear that I am not very maternal. The thought of nursing makes me ill. I cannot even imagine what else goes with motherhood. At my father’s parish, I used to feel sorry for the women being pulled in a dozen different directions by their small children, leaving them no time for self-care. They would drop into the pew like lead weights, obviously relieved they were being given an hour’s reprieve, their children in someone else’s capable hands. I wasn’t that someone, though I tried once, putting in my time at the nursery. Crying, screaming, snot-nosed, poop-covered babies were not my forte.

“Oh God, I can’t do this.” I look away, avoiding Master’s gaze, wondering if I spoke out loud. If I did, he doesn’t acknowledge my words. I close my eyes, fear wrapping around me.
I cannot have this baby
.
I would be a terrible mother.

Our gazes meet in the glass. Mine and Thomas’s. He is worried, his face tight with it. As I watch his reflection, I see the slightest easing of tension around his lips, not quite a smile, but enough of a change that I begin to feel that
we
are going to be all right.

I still won’t meet Master’s gaze, not even in the reflecting surface of the window. Avoidance? Maybe. Fear? Probably. My arm is freshly scarred from the brand uniting us as a ménage. I won’t give it up.

Thomas squeezes my hand. “Relax.”

“How can I?”

“It’s only a baby, not the end of the world.”

“It feels like the end of
my
world.”

I realize immediately my mistake and that it was the wrong thing to say when Master stands and walks to the window we’ve all been watching each other in. Thomas and I both watch Garrett. He is standing with his back to us, stiff as a board. It is hard to believe we will ever be able to fix any of this.

I finally manage to look Thomas in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He kisses me. “Whatever for?”

I gesture chaotically with my hands between us and Garrett. “Isn’t it obvious?”

He pulls me closer, maneuvering me into his lap. “This is growing pains. Every relationship has them.”

I whisper, “You aren’t worried?”

“We’ll be fine.”

I know we, Thomas and I, will be fine, but will the ménage survive this? I don’t ask. He kisses my eyelids closed just as he does when a scene is about to begin. “Relax.”

His command is magic, like a drug, medicating me into a peaceful place. I keep my eyes closed, remembering our first encounter, letting it play out in my mind. He’d kissed my eyelids closed, then covered them with a leather blindfold. I was terrified, my back against a wall and I’d had nowhere to go.

No, that isn’t how it had happened at all. He’d produced the blindfold and lifted the leather to my lips. Just before I’d kissed it the thought went through my head:
shouldn’t we discuss this?
Limits and safe words and scene parameters?
But then I’d kissed the leather, giving him permission to start the scene. My mind had snapped, I’d felt it give, just a little, not like I was going to be insane or enlightened from the event, but snapped enough to know I was free to experience whatever came. It was a slow brain orgasm, a profound epiphany, as every ounce of resistance slid away. Then he’d kissed my eyelids closed and whispered close to my ear as the blindfold covered my eyes. “You know I won’t hurt you. You trust me to keep you safe. Don’t you, Celia?”

He’d waited for an affirmative response, but I hadn’t been able to manage it because I hadn’t known it to be the truth. He’d wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, raising gooseflesh, raising expectations of pain, but yielded only a gentle massage.

“I can’t go any further if I don’t have your complete trust, Celia.”

I’d snapped, “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking? I’d never been so disrespectful to
anyone
. Had I somehow been begging him to refuse me? Or had I been trying to bring out his worst? His response had been to laugh, a deep rumbling, fully amused laugh. “That you are. I had forgotten how full of spunk you are.”

I’d thought, spunk? The notion was laughable. I was the opposite of spunky, whatever that was. I was the one who pleased everyone—I’d always been the good girl. Still, I’d mouthed off, “Look, this is just a test for me. I’m not here to have fun. I’m here to prove something—got it? So skip all the beginner Master-slave relationship bullshit and just tie me up or something!”