Echo of Redemption (5 page)

I have brought this pain upon myself by yielding to the temptation of Lord Fyre in the first place. If only I’d not succumbed. Would I change anything if I could go back in time? At what point would I choose?

Before the auction?

That would seem wisest. I’d never been a part of the BDSM fetish world before taking an undercover journalism assignment to discover what a slave auction was like. I never expected to be purchased by Garrett Lawrence, owner of the fetish fantasy nightclub
Lewd Larry’s
. If I had just avoided the temptation of that assignment, I could still be perfectly content as a very vanilla, very lonely reporter.

No, not that moment, I adore being Kitten, the treasured, pampered pet of Garrett Lawrence too much.

My only wish could be to have never met Lord Fyre or to have had the strength to avoid the temptation he represented. Though it took no more than our eyes meeting that first time for me to know he offered something I could never find with Garrett.

I didn’t know what
it
was but everything had changed in that moment. I knew I could never be complete without
it
. He’d awakened an all-consuming need inside me, ever since referred to as
my darkness
. If only Master could have met that need, if only I’d never asked Lord Fyre…if only I had avoided that temptation.

If I truly wanted the Bible to provide an answer, I would follow the advice in First Corinthians. I would flee this current trouble by breaking up the ménage. I would cling solely to Master. I look up into Garrett’s face. “You asked me once to marry you.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted a child and suburbia. You wanted
normal
and the idea terrified me.”

He steps away, turning his back to me. “And now your greatest fear is being realized. You’re pregnant.”

He starts down the hallway toward our bedroom and I follow him. A small voice in the back of my brain demands I leave him alone. I ignore it. “Yes, but I’m no longer quite so terrified of normal as I was before. I’m still not certain how kinky and mundane can exist under the same roof, but I’m willing to figure it out if you are.”

He stops in the doorway to the bedroom without entering and faces me. “What are you saying?”

“Ask me again.”

“The child you carry isn’t mine. Shouldn’t this conversation be with Thomas?”

I wrap my arms around his neck and this time he doesn’t hug me back. “I don’t want to be Thomas’s wife. I love you, Garrett Lawrence, I always have.”

Garrett laughs and it is cold and harsh. “We’re having this conversation because I’m the dependable one.”

“What?”

“I won’t disappear in the middle of the night, leaving you worried and alone, scared to death it might be the time I don’t return.”

Our gazes collide.
He’s right
.
“I won’t deny the obvious, but I also love you.”

“You love Thomas, too. You carry his child.”

I reach up to stroke his cheek but he pulls away, leaving me whispering to his back, “Marry me.”

I follow him through the master bedroom to the master bathroom where he strips and enters the shower. There is no command to join him or even an invite to stay in the room. I sit down on the covered commode and pout, burying my chin against my fists. I stare at my sock covered toes. The socks are red, another reminder of so much spilled blood last night. I pull them off and toss them into the wicker hamper.

We didn’t discuss it, meaning I wasn’t given permission because I didn’t ask, but I am dressed and ready…just in case we have to leave the penthouse in a hurry…just in case Thomas needs us.

Over the spray of the shower I hear Garrett say, “I don’t doubt you love me. That isn’t why I’m not going to marry you.”

My heart drops to the floor, feeling like a weight is holding it there. My stomach turns over and for the first time in two years I feel doubt. “Then why?”

“You don’t trust me.”

“How can you say that? I’m asking you to marry me.”

“You don’t trust me to bring your darkness.”

I slump, defeated, all the air leaving my lungs at once. He’s right. It’s why I left him to be mastered by Lord Fyre over a year ago. I wanted to embrace the deviant need singing in my veins, and I knew Garrett couldn’t take me to the brink of sanity and back. I knew he’d never walk the fine line of life and death with me. He wouldn’t hold my mortality in his grasp. And ever since I went to Lord Fyre and returned to Garrett there has been no mention of his wanting to bring my darkness. I know that there are people who pay him ungodly amounts of money to take them to the edge and back, but me, his property, he treats with kid gloves. Since becoming the ménage, I rely on Thomas to be
that
Master to me. That part is no secret. Garrett knows I dance a fine line of sanity with Thomas. Our play is dark and dangerous. I know he knows I love it. But with Garrett there is only pleasure and pain, no adrenaline rush. I’ve started to believe he isn’t capable of truly mastering me, although Thomas assures me he could as
Lord Ice
if he chose to.

One step at a time. Get through
this
…

My head is spinning, heart racing, palms sweating…and my inner darkness is absolutely screaming bloody murder inside my head.
I can’t give up Lord Fyre!
“What does that have to do with me being your wife? How can that mean anything at all when I am talking about raising a child with you?”

He leaves the shower, a towel already wrapped around his waist. He is a commanding presence, tall, lithely muscular. Need strikes hot, low in my belly, and I realize how desperately I want him to make good on a long ago promise that I will someday meet his alter ego.

Still dripping, he strides into the bedroom leaving me alone in the bathroom.
So that’s it? That’s how he intends to leave this conversation? I don’t think so.

I follow him and find he is already under the covers. Not knowing what else to do, I sit on the edge of the bed and look at him. His eyes are open, but he isn’t looking at me. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I’m sorry about everything.”

“You should be.”

His sharp retort takes me by surprise.
Shit. I have really screwed up.

“I know you won’t possibly understand, but when I discovered I was pregnant, I was terrified. I panicked.”

He sits up, the covers pooling around his waist. He looks deep into my eyes. “
That
is a normal reaction to pregnancy. Keeping the fact from someone you love and who loves you back with every ounce of their being
is not
.”

“I just needed to think things through. I needed to get it clear in my head what I wanted to do about it before I told you
or
Thomas.”

“And yet still you went to him first because not knowing him as well as you think you do, you assumed he would be on your side if you chose an abortion. Whereas, you thought I would be selfish and demand you have a child you didn’t want based on a conversation we had a year ago? I wouldn’t do that to you. It’s your life. Your body. Your right to choose. If you came to me and told me you were pregnant and wanted an abortion, I would have found you the best doctor.” He strokes my cheek, and I wonder what he sees in my facial expression. Whatever it is, he softens his tone. “I would do anything for you.”

“I’m sorry I went to Thomas first.”

“Because he’s forcing you to have a child you don’t want?”

“No,” I whisper, wondering,
Maybe
. I’ve had weeks to think about this. Plenty of time to worry over every single scenario. How our relationship will be forced to change if I keep the baby. How I am afraid we will all be changed if I abort the baby. The one thing I never considered was that I would be completely wrong about their reactions. Thomas’s adamancy I not abort. Garrett’s insistence he will support me in any decision. I’d assumed the opposite. How could I be so wrong about them both? And how could I ever think I might be able to give up Lord Fyre…even if Garrett married me.

Nothing makes sense in my head. Nothing.

Beside me, Garrett is already drifting into sleep. I can tell by his shifting breathing pattern. How can he sleep? My mind is racing, worry gripping my guts, and he sleeps. Unfuckingbelievable. Angry and desperate, I close my eyes, trying to find some peace, some comfort.
God? Please hear this prayer. Let Thomas be safe. Let him come home to us soon. Amen.
I don’t know if God still hears my prayers, but I continue to pray. What else can I do? I know I should pray for his brother as well, but what would I pray? Heal him? Keep him alive? It seems cold but I can’t bring myself to. I fear him too much. I fear the danger he might bring into our lives.

This is why I wish Master was awake. I want to talk about this.

He is curled into himself, snoring softly. The fact that he is sleeping, not pacing the floors, irritates me even more. Standing, I pace for both of us. I feel so helpless.

I end up standing in front of a bureau looking at two jewelry boxes, one embroidered silk, one a roughly carved wood. I open the wooden box and look at Lord Fyre’s collar I wore before the branding. With a shuddered breath and shaking hand, I reach for it. Lifting it to my lips, I kiss it and find that I feel stronger just holding it.

I look at my reflection in the mirror over the bureau and with some difficulty attach the collar.
I am his.
No matter what. No matter the sacrifice or the danger. A sob jerks from my chest as I realize I would have never been able to go through with marrying Garrett even if he’d accepted the proposal.

It doesn’t matter how smart walking away from Thomas would be. I can’t do it.

Reaching for the embroidered box, I take out the golden circlet Garrett placed around my neck in the storeroom the night of the auction. The ruby glitters and winks at me.
I am Master’s.
I close the metal around my neck, the jewel dangling between my collar bones.

With both collars securely around my neck, I feel better.

The baby chooses this instant to announce its presence. I feel it, tiny flutters low in my belly. The softest, most surreal tap I’ve ever felt.
Tap, tap. I’m here,
M
ommy. I’m here.

“Oh God.” The flutter happens again, and I press my hands over the place where I felt the movement.
Oh God. I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I even considered abortion. Forgive me.

“What’s wrong?” Garrett sits up in the bed, concern tightening his face.

“The baby
moved
.”

“You aren’t far enough along.”

His doubt and quick dismissal strikes me hard because when I was four months pregnant, Lionell and my father insisted I abort the baby. I tried to change their minds. I tried to convince them I was feeling it move. My father argued it was gas; Lionell argued that it was my imagination. I wish I hadn’t been so young, so weak.
God damn them both!
I close my eyes, hoping to feel the baby move again.

“Kitten, come to bed.”

Tap, tap.

“I felt it!” I shriek, turning on him, angry he doesn’t believe me. Angry at myself for loving two men so much that I would consider not having a baby. I’m seething, the emotion sudden and irrational. I want to hit him but leave the room to keep from doing so, shouting, “God damn it!” and “Fuck you!” over my shoulder.

I can leave if I want to.
I
want to
.

Running barefoot, I get as far as the parking garage.

“Kitten!” Garrett stops me from across an acre of concrete, my hand poised to open the car door. Thomas’s 911 Turbo. I could have chosen Garrett’s Cabriolet but I haven’t driven it since the night I used it to follow Thomas to a soccer field in suburbia…and that night was…disastrous. And wonderful.

“Kneel!” Garrett shouts, and it is a command broking no refusal.

I am still looking at my hand, I haven’t moved, my actions frozen by his voice. I have a choice to make. I can feel it. I don’t know what the choice is but there is definitely a decision to be made. Garrett is near enough to touch now, but I don’t reach out to him and he doesn’t reach out to me. Does he know the answer? No, he can’t, because it isn’t his answer to give—but does he know the question? I don’t even know the question.

Choose.

“What? Choose what?” I ask the question out loud. I must have because the question rings in my head.
What? What? What?

Garrett is waiting. He pulled on sweats, leaving his chest and feet bare to chase after me, his hair is still damp from the shower, but somehow, even stripped down, his presence is more commanding than it has been during the entire last year. At least with me. I’ve watched his control of others, and it is a beautiful thing to see. Refined. Elegant. The opposite of Lord Fyre’s raw, potent sensuality.

I love them both, please don’t let that be the choice.

Opening my eyes, I kneel. My jean covered knees press against cool, unyielding concrete and something inside of me breaks. Tears well up and fall as I bend forward to press my forehead to the tops of his bare feet. I kiss his toes.
I don’t want to choose!
The voice inside my head is screaming but I stay silent, holding back sobs that threaten to rip me in two.
My men or my baby, is that the choice?

“Where did you think to go, Kitten?”

I don’t answer because I don’t know where I planned to go to. I only know I was compelled to react.

God. Please. You wouldn’t be so cruel. I chose two men before. My father. My lover. I murdered my baby for them. I. Will. Not. Do. That. Again.

“Why would you leave?”

I swallow hard, feeling the rub of Lord Fyre’s choker collar. It is uncomfortable most of the time, whereas Master’s gold circlet is a comfort, the metal warmed by my skin soothing, the teasing tickle of the charm reminding. Tears and snot drip onto his pale skin. “I was angry.”

He squats and pets the back of my head. “You’ve been angry before.”