Master's Flame (19 page)

Michel sat at the tables flanking the headquarters stage, ready to critique the latest progress on
Cirque Élémental
. Jason sat to his left, marking out the order of performances. All his other directors were there, looking excited and nervous. Good, they ought to be. This was the point in the game where the acts needed to look polished, because they still had staging to complete. Set building, costumes, makeup to plan in its final form, not to mention programs and promotional campaigns.

Unfortunately, Michel wasn’t in a very good mood. He hadn’t slept well. He doubted Valentina had either, considering her beleaguered expression when he woke her, but routines had to be adhered to. He had knelt over her and buried himself in her throat while she remained restrained in the cuffs from the night before. “You wanted this,” he’d reminded her as she struggled beneath him.

Six more days.

“Michel?”

He turned to Jason. “Yes?”

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

He didn’t appreciate Jason’s bemused expression. “Apparently not.”

“We’re going to do the acts in order, including the interval skits, so you can give feedback on those too. The ones that are done, anyway.”

“Yes, fine.” He flicked a hand. Interval skits were the last thing on his mind, but he was impressed that Genevieve already had such things in hand. Well, she was one of the best Mistresses the Citadel had ever known.

The Citadel. He hadn’t been there in weeks. He assumed all was in order at the club or Jason and Sara would have told him. Strange though, that he hadn’t even thought about the Citadel lately, or his private room there...

“Not in the most attentive mood today, are you?”

“What?” Michel snapped at Jason. “Why do you keep talking when I’m obviously not listening?”

“Because these are notes you need to know. Do you want to reschedule this for some other day?”

“No, of course not.” Michel gave a big dramatic sigh, like it was everyone else’s fault his mind was stuck on Handel concertos and tears. It was only one person’s fault. Hers.

No, damn it. His.

He squared his shoulders and attended carefully to the rest of the questions and explanations from Genevieve, Jason, and his other directors. If he expected one hundred percent from others, he needed to give one hundred percent himself. At last the stage was set and the artists of
Élémental
began to show off their progress. Michel watched the acts with a critical eye. He expected technical excellence and precision at this point, but he also demanded something more, something best described as…heart.

Expressions, affectations, even the smallest hand gestures had to carry meaning in a Cirque act. He marked down which acts and skits had found this special “heart” and which hadn’t, and noted improvements that might be made. Valentina played a part in one of the skits, gesturing and emoting to the non-existent back rows as only a fourth-generation Italian circus princess could. While he watched his slave, Genevieve described the costume she envisioned for Valentina.

Michel, meanwhile, envisioned Valentina completely nude.

Attention. Control. One hundred percent.

Michel refocused on Valentina as a performer, not a sex slave. More acts followed, including Sara’s solo trapeze. Every time she took to the air, he thought she did it a little better. He could feel Jason shifting beside him; he leaned his way and whispered, “Your fiancée is something else.”

“Your daughter’s not bad either,” he said with a smile.

A complicated trampoline act came next. It took some time to set up, time they would have to minimize in the final production. He added that to his notes, then looked up to see Valentina’s hand-to-hand troupe taking the stage. In this case, anyway, there was no complex staging, no unwieldy equipment to move into place. There was only Valentina and four men who were strong enough to hold her over their heads and send her skyward, catching her every time.

He settled back as the act began. Showmanship certainly wasn’t a problem. She had that “heart” he wanted in abundance, and her intensity seemed to fuel her partners. The four young men had been great athletes in other acts. Now, working with Valentina, they had grown into performers. They were a pleasure to watch, strong and sure in their movements as they created formations and tossed and caught Valentina, then rolled into another section of the act. Valentina’s balance was a miracle, as was her confidence as she teetered on her partner’s palms. He stared at her, remembering the night before, remembering her tears, but now...now...

When the bobble happened it shocked him, because she’d lulled him and everyone else into believing her movements were effortless, her balance a foregone thing. Worse, the bobble was followed by a shriek and a pitch toward the earth that Andrew tried to halt by grasping her ankle and holding tight. Valentina’s head hit the stage so hard it bent sideways, almost to her shoulder. The dull sound of impact echoed in the mostly-empty theater. Someone screamed.

Jason vaulted over the table and ran to the stage, breaking through the concerned cluster of her partners. Michel stayed where he was, too petrified to draw breath.
No, no, no, no, no.

It was his fault. He’d kept her up late. He’d bound her for hours. If she was paralyzed now because of his selfish, over-rigid mastery… But she was moving. Her toes were moving, her legs were moving. She pushed everyone back and stood up. Michel forced his muscles to fire again, made himself stand and walk over to join them.

“No, it was my fault,” she said to Andrew. “It was my mistake.”

When she noticed him, she shrank back a little. “Please, Mr. Lemaitre, let me do it again. I can do that skill so easily.”

“You’re not doing anything until you’ve been checked out at a hospital.” His voice sounded a lot angrier than he meant it to be.

“But I can do it.”

“Then why did you fall?” he said, cutting her off. “What caused it? A waver in balance? A lack of concentration?”
A cage-bed, and cuffs, and Handel?

Jason held up a hand. “I think we should get her to a hospital before we start yelling about what she did wrong.”

Yelling? He hadn’t realized he was yelling. His heart pounded hard and fast and his shoulders ached with tension.

“I don’t need a hospital,” she said, moving her head from side to side. “As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”

“You could have a cracked vertebrae or a concussion.” Jason stilled her head between his hands, then felt over her scalp for the knot where she’d bumped it. Michel felt jealous that Jason touched her so tenderly, so gently. He wanted to push him away. “I’ll take her in,” said Jason, turning to him. “You should stay here and finish the critiques. Everyone was really excited to perform for you.”

Michel didn’t want to leave Valentina’s side. But Jason was right. There were performers who wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight without some feedback from him.

“Call me,” he said to Jason through gritted teeth. “Call me from the hospital.” He turned to Valentina. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

*** *** ***

Valentina endured a battery of tests at the hospital, scans and x-rays, and a lot of complicated questions that Jason translated into English for her. She felt tired, but not tired in a head-injury way. Just tired in an exhausted, frustrated way.

Stupid,
stupid
. Of all the stupid times to make a mistake.

If she wasn’t so tired from the night before she wouldn’t have fallen, not that she would ever tell her Master that. He had left her plenty of time to sleep...she just couldn’t drift off with her legs spread and her hands cuffed to the sides of her bed, and her pussy aching for relief.

When they laid a hot blanket over her and told her to rest, she closed her eyes and fell into a dream-addled sleep. In her dreams, she visited a shop hoping to find a gift her Master would like. She ended up buying a baby giraffe but then it wiggled too much for her to hold it, and managed to get away. She chased it for a while, fretting over what would become of a baby giraffe in Paris, and then a bear had risen up and roared at her,
How about me?

She realized the bear was offering itself as a gift and she led it down the road toward
Avenue Montaigne
, but then she noticed the bear was terribly angry. She realized there was no way she could control it and that it might hurt her Master. She decided to run away from the bear but in the course of doing so, she tripped over the baby giraffe. It had shrunk down to a toy size. When she picked it up, she felt annoyed that it was a toy and not a real giraffe at all—after all her worry. She stalked back to the shop where she’d bought it, intending to demand her money back, but then she heard her Master’s voice.

“If she can’t do the skill—”

“She can do the skill.” That was Jason’s voice. “She’s never fallen before today. You made her nervous.”

Valentina looked around the shop for her Master and Jason but the shop was fading along with her dream. She registered the warmth of the blanket and remembered that she was in the hospital. She peered through slitted eyes to find dusky, late afternoon sun filtering through the windows. Jason and her Master were there, conversing in low, sharp tones in the corner of the room.

“You’re harming her.” Jason’s voice again, very angry. “I couldn’t stand the way she cowered when you came over to talk to her. You’re making her skittish and hesitant. Weak.”

“I can do what I like to her. She’s mine.”

“For six more days.”

“Keeping track, are we?”

“Damn right, I’m keeping track.”

A soft, feminine voice interrupted their spat. “Daddy, Jason. You’re waking her up.”

Both the men glanced over at her, frowning. They started to argue again, this time in whispered French.

Valentina looked at the woman beside her bed. Sara, Mr. Lemaitre’s daughter. She was only a few years younger than Valentina, and universally loved. She didn’t look a lot like her father, being half-Asian, but she shared his piercing blue eyes.

“How are you feeling?” Sara asked. “Any headache?”

Valentina considered a moment and shook her head. “No. I only fell asleep because I was so tired. I had a...a long night.”

Sara looked uncomfortable. Valentina flushed. She and Sara hadn’t really hit it off, and being her dad’s slave only made things worse. Valentina tried a friendly smile, then nodded over toward the two men. “Please, do you know what they’re fighting about?”

“I don’t speak French that well, but I’m sure they’re fighting about you.”

Valentina pressed her fingers against her eyes. “Mr. Lemaitre is so angry with me. I drive him crazy and now I’ve messed up my act.”

Sara tilted her head, her guarded expression transforming to something a bit more sympathetic. “Everyone makes mistakes. He knows that. I’m sure he’s not angry.”

As if to dispute Sara’s words, her Master’s voice rose along with Jason’s, in sharp, bit-off tones.

Sara looked back at her. “Okay, yes, he sounds pretty angry, but not about your act. He’s angry because... Well. I think he’s angry because he loves you and he’s not quite sure what to do about it.”

Valentina stared at her. “What? He doesn’t love me.”

“I know my father, okay? He’s definitely falling in love with you, if he’s not there already. Believe me, I find this as awkward as you, but I want him to be happy and I think you make him happy in some weird, torturous way.”

Her Master turned away from Jason with a French expletive Valentina recognized. There wasn’t the smallest hint of love or even affection as he stalked over to her bedside.

“I hate being in hospitals,” he said, scowling down at her. “I hate looking at my performers in hospital beds.”

Valentina pulled the blanket up a little and scowled back at him. “I’m fine. I said so at the theater but you made me come here anyway. The doctor said there was nothing wrong with me, not even a strained muscle.”

“Yes, by some act of God. I’ve never seen such an ugly fall.”

“If Andrew hadn’t grabbed my ankle—”

“Andrew has been set straight on that account. As for you, I don’t want you to do the act anymore.”

All her breath left her. She turned toward Jason, taking in his irritated expression. Tears gathered in her eyes, tears of disbelief and pain. “Are you...are you serious?”

“I am completely serious. I don’t want you to do the act anymore, but Mr. Beck has convinced me otherwise. Fortunately for you, he has more faith in you than I have.”

“Michel.” Jason’s voice floated between them, a warning.

“When you sign on to do an act,” her Master said, his face reddening, “you are signing on to do it perfectly every single time. When you create an act that’s too difficult to perform—”

“I fell during an easy part,” she interjected. “It was only an accident.”

“There can be no more accidents. No one else has accidents.”

“Well, sometimes they do,” came Sara’s quiet voice.

He lifted his eyes to hers. “Whose side are you on,
ma fille
?”

“Your side, daddy,” she said with surprising steel in her voice.

The doctor came in and Valentina let out a sigh of relief that the uncomfortable conversation had been interrupted. The doctor checked Valentina one last time, gave her a clean bill of health, and handed over discharge papers. “Tonight, you rest,” he said in English, pointing at her. “Absolutely no activity. Call if any headache or pain.”

She looked sideways at her glowering Master. His frown deepened and he looked away.

*** *** ***

Her Master left her alone for one night to recuperate. Valentina spent it locked in her cage, ignored and despondent over failing him. If she could take that bobble back, she would. Horrible, careless loss of concentration, and now both her Master and her boss were displeased. She tore pages out of her sketchbook and shredded them into little pieces just to have something to do. She had plenty of pages left, after all, and not much time before her indentured servitude ended.

She’d never realized how busy he kept her until he had to let her rest.