In Control (3 page)

"I have a townhouse you may rent. I'm no longer in it, and it's furnished."

Seth's voice broke into Zach's musings, the offer slapping him back to more important issues than a slave's bouncy ass. Reality quickly squelched a brief flare of hope. "I doubt I could afford it. My paycheck isn't what it used to be these days. 'Ouch' comes to mind."

The other man picked up a peppermint candy from a tabletop dish. "I'm sure we could work something out."

Hope returned. "Where is it?"

"Downtown. Nice district. Close to the light rail and buses up the ass if you have no car."

This was ideal! If only... "You sure?"

The few minutes spent unwrapping the candy before Seth slipped it into his mouth were obviously spent in thought. Then, he said, "Ooh-rah," and held out his hand to be shaken.

Pleasure zinged along his nerves. Finally, after months of pain, physical therapy, and sitting like a gimp in his brother's spare bedroom, things were looking up. He shook Seth's hand with enthusiasm, their agreement confirmed. "Damn, that's good of you."

The slave returned carrying a tumbler filled with amber liquid. "Your single malt scotch, Master."

"Good girl." Seth accepted the glass and took a sip.

The slave-in-training looked at Zach with large, pretty eyes. "May I get you something from the bar, Master?"

Something long dormant in his soul stirred at the address. A silk-draped girl hadn't called him "Master" in long time. It felt good. Damn good.

He shook his head in answer. "Not necessary. I'll attack the buffet soon so I'll get my own." He glanced over and saw his brother headed toward an empty table with an over-full plate.
Fuck, I should've brought something to the potluck.

"There are some expectations," Seth said, continuing their conversation.

Zach refocused on him. "Such as?"

"You'll be expected to treat it honorably. Like it's your barracks, not like it's a motel."

He nodded and offered a smile. "You gonna check on it?" He chuckled. "Monthly inspections? A quarter bounced off the bedspread and white gloves?"

Seth's chuckle joined his, even as the man moved into his personal bubble just like a drill sergeant would and gave a threatening bark, "You're damn right I will."

Another laugh roared across the warehouse floor, this one from Zach. He spent a bit of time caught in laughter's fit before managing to locate enough air to offer up a salute and a wheezed, "Aye-aye, Sarg."

Her Master summoned the blonde. Zach watched her walk away. She accompanied Mike over to where Jeremy sat alone at a table and joined him. His brother bloomed. That was the only word he could find to describe what happened.

Zach knew Jeremy had felt excised and expunged from the community for a while now. Mike's choice of settling down at that table offered reassurance, telling everyone Jeremy was welcome, trusted, and valued. That simple act seemed to open necessary floodgates, and others came to the table. At a motion from Mike, slaves flocked around them.

"You'll want to join them, no doubt," said Seth, who had also watched the drama. "It's been hard for your brother. He could use the support."

"Not just yet. First..." Zach brought his gaze back to Seth as a burning began in the pits of his guts. "Who did this to him? Where is she?"

Unlike many, Seth didn't flinch from Zach's stare. "She is not here. Hasn't been seen since the flare-up."

Zach ran his eyes along the flock of slaves clustered around the table like finely plumed birds. "Damn."

"You want to meet her?"

He glanced over his shoulder at the other man. "Do I want to meet the bitch who broke my brother's wallet and fucked his self-esteem? Hell, yeah, I do."

Seth tipped his head to one side, as if in thought. He then selected another candy from the dish and unwrapped it with deliberation. "There is a question of consent involving the financial submission."

"What?" Zach straightened. His knee protested, which only pissed him off. "I hardly think my brother--"

A sudden silence fell like an inverse thunderclap. Everyone, with the exception of Zach and Seth, was staring at the entrance, looking shocked and uneasy. Curious, Zach followed their line of vision to the warehouse door. A woman stood there, one wrapped in leather and attitude. She stared back at the watchers, her expression one of contempt.

"Out of hiding she comes," said Seth. "Your target, devil dog. Annabel."

Zach tasted her name on a whisper.

That's right, bitches. I'm back.

Annabel clung to the thought, using it like a suit of well-tempered armor. Across the warehouse, in the usual place, the community kennel clustered around a collection of tables. Normally, they gossiped and chatted amongst themselves--these days with her as a topic, no doubt--but right now they sat silent, eyes wide and mouths agape.

Her arrival had frozen the group's many conversations, bringing a shocked silence into that section of the dungeon in the same manner as the arrival of a skunk at a garden party. Sure, skunks weren't welcome--and neither was she--but a warm reception wasn't why she was here.

And she was damn well gonna stink up the place.

A dungeon monitor approached her, all smiles and ready to show her around. They'd shared laughter and casual chat many times in the past, but apparently he didn't recognize her. She cut off his approach with a wave of one hand. "No need, Andy."

The use of his name, and probably the sound of her voice, must have flipped a switch in his memory. He came to a stop, his own eyes widening. "Annabel?"

"I'll find my own way," she said and set off to where the Owner/property community was congregated. She couldn't help but acknowledge the prophetic words as she marched toward her enemies.

The leather in her corset creaked. Her boot heels cracked across the cement floor. Slaves shifted nervously in their seats as her direction became clear. A slashing glance from the corner of her eye located Jeremy. He sat beside Mike and pretended not to notice her, but the red wash of shame across his complexion told its own tale.

He should be ashamed. He would be more ashamed when her story was told.
Say one word to me and you'll wish you'd never met me, you lyin' piece of shit.

She stopped at the tables full of slaves and kicked an unoccupied chair away from the fourth one. Giving the women there a contemptuous glance, she sat, coincidentally right across from the biggest bitch in the kennel, and she wasn't referring to her size. No Ceci was a rancid piece of whispering lies and pretentiousness. She was the type who would toss anyone under the bus in a desperate attempt to prove her superior intellect...which all knew to be less than superior.

Venom incarnate. Unfortunately, the world was full those types.

But it was Kaydee who spoke first. In Annabel's opinion, she was another piece of walking sewage. This one loved to wield her bilingual skills. As if that was any proof to the quality and content of her character. That only meant she played people in more than one language.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Kaydee, with a sneer.

Annabel glared at the slave. Sure, she was pretty, with large, dark eyes and smooth, nutmeg-colored skin, but that attractiveness didn't go beyond the well-shaped ass she paraded throughout the community. She lied like a rug and fluttered her lashes at any unattached man in hope of a financial conquest. Unfortunately, most of the men here could only see that perky ass and not the viper she truly was.

Annabel leaned forward with deliberate care and gave the mouthy slut the cutting edge of her tongue. "I can go where I want these days and do whatever I want. Stay the fuck out of my business."

Ceci stepped in. "According to our community documents of behaviors and expectations, because you were kicked out of Jeremy's home--but have chosen to show up here wrapped in leather--doesn't make you anything other than a failed slave. Who are you to give any orders?"

That was Ceci. She had an archivist's knowledge of the community's Codes of Conduct, but that was all she had, all she was. That one existed as an extensive memory of words on a page with no social understanding of the philosophy beneath the writings. There was a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, but that stunted intellect couldn't grasp the concept.

"Before you say another word," Annabel replied with a snarl, "put your by-the-book memory to work and remind yourself what it means when a Master removes the collar of another Master's slave."

An audible gasp came from more than one girl at the table. The situation was unprecedented, but the by-laws of their community had made it possible, while still ensuring everyone remained in protocol. A Master could remove the collar of another Master's slave if it became necessary, thereby freeing the slave from consensual bondage. The once-but-no-longer-slave was to be then afforded all of the rights and respects given to any other non-slave within their community.

That is, if the protocols of their community were faithfully followed. And that always depended on the value a person placed on the vows given.

"Who...who released you?" Ceci hesitated over the question.

The fact of her freedom clearly horrified the bullies at the table. Annabel sat back into her chair and smiled her satisfaction. "Seth. You challenging his decision?"

As one, everyone there glanced to the left. Annabel followed their gaze and saw Seth sharing a table with a man she didn't know and his newest trainee. As if becoming aware of the watching eyes, he looked up and over. The ice-fire blue of his regard lashed the kennel, but lingered for a long moment on Annabel. Then, as if unconcerned by the scrutiny, he returned to his meal and his guest.

And Annabel returned her attention to the slaves.

She smiled. They did not.

Seth's action of making eye contact with her, then turning away reinforced the claim her presentation as no-longer-a-slave was allowed and accepted. Of course, by all rights and freedoms of a woman in the state of Oregon, Annabel was no one's property, but she'd pledged her adherence to their intentional community and sworn obedience to its norms and expectations. In the dungeon, vanilla rules did not apply. Annabel wore no visitor's badge. She was in her element--those bitches be damned--and she was ready to ensure the piper was paid in full.

She put the slaves through their paces with malice. They were to obey and to smile when addressed, no matter the words or demands by the uncollared. Pleading gazes leapt from girls to their respective masters, who paid the situation no mind. The expectations of a slave's conduct were carved in stone. Slaves demonstrated grace and poise, despite whatever goads and abuses came their way. Hell would be paid if they broke protocol.

Early on she dismissed some slaves from the situation. They were ones who hadn't victimized Annabel, and they fled the tables gratefully. The others, the ones she knew as vicious, backstabbing snakes...oh, they paid the price.

A small voice whispered in the back of her mind, telling her that she had now become the abuser instead of the abused. But the river of vitriol uncorked inside of her couldn't be dammed. It spewed from her like a river that had burst its banks. She delighted in watching Ceci and Kaydee's faces reddening with temper and humiliation.

How does it feel to be on the receiving end, bitches?

A shadow fell across the table at the same moment a look of relief blossomed across the slaves' faces. Annabel glanced over and saw Mike. The First Knight was here to defend his community from abuse.

Crap.

"Welcome to the Quarterly Dungeon Romp," said Mike, as though he didn't recognize her. Which, of course, was impossible, but Mike's expression revealed nothing beyond impersonal civility. "We appreciate your interest in our chosen lifestyle, but abuse of the slaves by outsiders is not permitted."

Someone tittered. She couldn't be sure, but it sounded like Kaydee. No surprise there. Kaydee was the type to kick a person when she was down.
Wasn't that what I was doing?

Trapped by Mike's stern gaze of frozen green, she could only watch as he frowned toward the table, a hard glance of rebuke that silenced the ill-mannered slave, then returned his attention to her.

"We welcome guests, of course," he said. "Please feel free to join us at the head table. There we'll answer all questions regarding our philosophy."

The head table? Where Seth sat? Or was it where Jeremy sat since Mike had joined him? Either way, there was no chance in hell she was going to sit around a table with either of them, while Mike expounded on their chosen philosophy. Had he lost his mind?

"You're kidding, right?" Annabel's couldn't find the breath to do more than breathe the question.

"No?"

She reached for her bravado. "Not only no, but hell, no. Your choice of company leaves a shitload to be desired."

"I see," said Mike. "Then I assume your reason for being among us is to denigrate our community and our chosen lifestyle. That's not allowed."

He made a one-handed gesture of invitation to someone behind her. Muffin stepped into her view, all bearish and red-haired. He wore a T-shirt of neon yellow emblazoned with the words DUNGEON MASTER. A sinking feeling hollowed her stomach. Her own thoughts came back to haunt her: in the dungeon, vanilla rules did not apply. And a Dungeon Master had the final word in any conflict.

"Please escort the lady to the leather community," Mike said to Muffin. "Apparently, she got lost and ended up here."

Muffin extended his ham-like hand. "C'mon, Annabel. You know the rules."

Left with no other choice, she pushed herself away from the table and followed Muffin as he left the Owner/property area and headed toward the section of the dungeon populated by folks in the leather lifestyle. Yes, Muffin knew her, as Andy did, from her past visits here, but the leather on her body must have given people the idea she'd switched kinks.

Was such a thing possible? Wasn't sexuality hard-wired?