To Command and Collar [Masters of the Shadowlands 6] (31 page)

* * * *

Sunday afternoon, Kim sat beside the hospital bed and watched Master R’s face as he slept. His color had improved, and the frown had disappeared from his forehead. The nurse had given him a gown this morning, and again, he’d tossed it at the foot of the bed. But this way, Kim could see the bandages on his bare chest. The white gauze showed only a few red splotches rather than being blood-soaked.

She grinned. He’d be growly when he woke and realized the pain meds had knocked him into sleeping again. And he’d blame her, since she’d gotten good at detecting when he was hurting, and cajoling him into using the button. A shame she didn’t have the nerve to push it herself like Master Z would.

Earlier she’d sent Gabi and Marcus home since her so very polite master wouldn’t let himself fall asleep if he had visitors. Obviously he didn’t consider her company. The thought set up a glow inside her. And he slept better if he was holding her hand. She’d pulled away a few times, and he’d awoken within a minute. Some sort of dom radar, maybe.

She slept better beside him too. After returning to the room full of women, she’d spent a sleepless night and sneaked back here before dawn. Master R had been reading. She’d pulled up a chair and rested her head beside his hand…just for a second…and had woken up a couple of hours later when Cullen and Andrea arrived. He’d been sleeping too, his fingers tangled in her hair.

God, she loved him.
He’d risked his life for hers.
“Run,”
he’d said and taken on everyone to let her get away. He could have let Lord Greville have her, but he wouldn’t. Not her master.

Master
. Dammit. Every time she thought about staying—if he even wanted her to stay— the word bubbled up inside her with its sweet, terrifying sound.
Master
. And she was a slave.
Only he’d said she wasn’t. Submissive. She still didn’t want him to take her decisions away, to control her.
Why didn’t I ever ask him what he wanted from a…person? A lover
? Would he be happy with her love and what she would give him? How much of her, of her life and her soul, would he demand?
They’d lived like Master/slave, but that was to get her ready for the slavers. And yeah, she’d begged for him to continue as her master. He had. She’d knelt at his feet. He’d fed her from his hand, even during the briefing.
She scowled. Surely she’d just needed that extra week of security because of her kidnapping.
He didn’t seem to think so.
Could she be happy living the lifestyle?
God, I don’t know
. She stared at him. When he looked at her in a certain way, she’d do anything. His voice could take her anywhere.
He had powerful hands, gentle and unyielding, the same as he was himself, compassionate with a solid core of…honor. Like her mother would say,
“This man has character.”
She could lean on him; he’d keep her safe. How could she leave?
“Here, Mamá.” A female voice with a light Spanish accent.
Kim turned as two women entered the room. One older and slightly stooped in a floral dress. Her face was wrinkled with age, hands gnarled with arthritis, and she possessed the dignity of someone who’d worked all her life.
The other was around Kim’s age, an attractive woman with a sturdy, big-boned body in jeans and a loose top. She appeared familiar… Black hair, chocolate brown eyes, Hispanic coloring, and Master R’s strong jaw in feminine form.
“Are you Mas—Raoul’s family?” Kim asked, flushing at her wayward tongue.
The older woman hadn’t seen her, her gaze only on Master R, and she jumped. As the two women turned toward Kim, horror filled their faces.
What? Then she remembered her banged-up face. “Sorry about the—”
“We shouldn’t have come,” the younger one interrupted and walked out of the room.
What the heck was that about? “Wait,” Kim said. The older one hesitated, and Master R awoke.
“Mamá,” he said, his voice more of a rasp than smooth. “What are you doing here?”
The old woman took a step forward, wringing her hands. “The hospital called. I am listed as your family.”
How could a mother be so stiff with her son? With Master R, who was never cold with his friends?
“Ah. I’m sorry, Mamá. I didn’t realize you were—” He broke off, his jaw tightening. “Mamá, this is Kim. Kimberly, my mother, Anna Sandoval.”
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Sandoval asked Kim.
“I’m fine, thank you.” Why didn’t she ask Master R how he was? No one could miss the bulky bandages taped to his ribs. This was too awkward. Kim squeezed Master R’s hand. “I’m going to get some coffee. I’ll be back in a bit.”
She stepped out of the room and came face-to-face with the other woman.
“Uh, hi.” God, no two strangers looked that much alike. “Are you his sister?” Kim asked.
When the woman’s mouth tightened, she looked so much like Master R that Kim almost laughed.
“Yes, I’m Lucia. Are you his slave?”
What the
—Kim felt the flush run up into her face. “Ah, not really. I’m Kim.”
“He is my brother, but I cannot let him…” The woman straightened her shoulders. “Maybe you think it’s all fun, but it’s not. It isn’t safe to be with him. He’ll hurt you, beat you so badly you cannot walk. Don’t stay with him.”
“
What?
”
His sister nodded, her mouth tight. “He likes to hurt women. To make them scream. To keep them as slaves and not let them leave.”
His mother walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. She’d obviously heard the last part of the sentence. Tears filled her eyes. She nodded.
Kim stared. The two women believed that garbage. A shiver ran through her as her own nagging fears stepped into the light. Not Master R. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“It’s true,” his mother said. She looked at her daughter helplessly.
“His wife,” Lucia said. “They broke up so suddenly. Got a divorce.”
The mother touched her lips. “Raoul would not talk about it.”
“Alicia told me”—Lucia nodded at her mother—“showed us both what he had done to her. She had welts and bruises and bleeding places all over her body. Her wrists were ripped from being chained to a wall.” Her gaze fell on Kim’s wrists, which bore the light abrasions from the rope Master R had used on the sailboat.
“What they did, was…something they both wanted,” Kim said, trying to think of Master R hurting someone so badly. His wife. “It’s called consensual.”
“No,” his mother said sharply. “No consent. Alicia said she screamed and begged, and he wouldn’t let her go. He made her his slave, and she didn’t want that. She hated him.”
“When she got free, she ran away. Divorced him,” Lucia said. “She lives somewhere else now.”
His mother turned her face toward the wall and whispered, “Alicia said he let others…have her. Abuse her. I love him, but I cannot act as if he is my son.”
“No—”
“He admitted it. Leave him while he’s here in the hospital,” Lucia urged.
His mother touched the bruise on Kim’s cheek and shook her head. The two women walked away, the younger supporting the older.
“No,” Kim whispered. “He didn’t. He couldn’t.”

* * * *

Raoul closed his eyes, grief filling him faster than the returning pain.
Mamá
. He hadn’t seen her in almost three years. She’d come because he was hurt, but had taken one look at Kimberly and known he was still in the lifestyle.

Raoul tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, the taste of bitterness familiar.

Why hadn’t Alicia settled for being unfaithful? That had been enough of a blow. A horrible one—coming home early to find his wife tied to a sawhorse bench, covered in welts and stripes, her brother-in-law fucking her in the ass.

Raoul had taken a step forward, thinking Randolph had whipped her, was raping her—he’d kill the man. But he heard Alicia demanding for more pain, for him to fuck her harder.
He hadn’t killed either of them. Maybe he should have. He’d filed for divorce…and in revenge, she’d told Mamá about her son, the dom. The
master
. Raoul had tried to explain the BDSM lifestyle to Mamá. All she saw was that her son was a pervert. Sick. An abuser.
Raoul sighed, his throat tight. Her eyes used to light up when he came home. She’d scold him in Spanish for being so long away. Now her gaze held revulsion.
The phone on the bedside table rang, and Raoul grunted in pain as he stretched to answer it. “Sandoval.”
“Hey, buddy.” Cullen’s hearty voice blasted through the phone. “Galen sent me to pick up Kim’s mom at the airport. We’re downstairs. Can you tell Kim she has company?”
Her mother. “Is she a good woman? Able to care for her daughter?” Raoul asked slowly, trying not to let his growing loss show in his voice.
He didn’t succeed, for Cullen’s voice turned cautious. “Seems to be. She’s been in tears half the time and furious at the slavers the rest. Good thing none of them are within her reach. Reminds me of Jessica. And your Kim.”
“Bueno.” Blackness welled inside him, until the air itself seemed to darken. The time had come. “Bring her to the waiting room at the end of my hallway. I will meet you there.”
Kimberly should not remain with him longer. She needed to heal, and once she did, he doubted he’d ever see her again. To step back into a D/s relationship would be more than she could tolerate, no matter how brave she was.
And she was so very courageous. She’d tried to protect him, had crawled into a cage to save him, had killed a man.
Last night, in his lightless room, she’d sat on the foot of his bed, and the hall light had haloed her small figure as if her soul had turned luminous. Her spirit, despite all the hurt, remained beautiful and giving.
But she’d given enough. He swallowed the tightness in his throat away. The next meeting would play out as it should, and then it would all be over. As would the dreams he hadn’t realized he’d held.
Foolish Sandoval
. She’d made no secret of the fact that she didn’t want a Master/slave relationship or to be a full-time submissive. Even if she hadn’t lived through what she had, she still wouldn’t have wanted it.
Yes, before the auction, she’d asked him to continue as her master, but she’d only needed someone to cling to.
He scowled. Yet she’d been happy with him. Content. Fulfilled. He hadn’t imagined that. He should give her a choice.
First, he’d meet her mother. Make sure his gatita would be cared for if she went home. He glanced at the IV bag and started undoing the tape holding the needle in his arm.

* * * *

Kim sat on a chair in the cafeteria, watching the torrents of rain outside the hospital, listening to the bone-shaking thunder. Thunderstorms, waves… No matter what stupid things humans did, the universe continued. The tides rose and fell; storms rolled in off the ocean; the sun came up every morning.

Life went on.
What about my life
? Galen said she could go home now.
Home
. She frowned as lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, and a few seconds later,

thunder rumbled.

Go back to Savannah? To what was familiar. Away from slavers and FBI and kidnapped women. Homesickness surged in her, pushing her like the gusts of wind outside. She needed to return to her own life, her work, her duplex, her friends. Her mom.

Time to go home. But…Master R? The thought of leaving him made her chest ache as if the lightning had hit it. She pushed to her feet and headed back to his room.
Could she bear to not see him anymore? To never again feel his hand on her head, or kneel at his feet, or hear the warm pleasure in his voice when she anticipated his needs. But then other memories oozed up, nauseating her: the Overseer stomping on her foot, Lord Greville whipping her until blood ran down her legs, the cage trapping her.
She froze in the center of the hall and concentrated on breathing.
I can’t go through that again
. Master R’s mother said he was an abuser…but he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. But Mrs. Sandoval was so sure.
What am I going to do?
She stopped in his doorway.
He looked exhausted. Pale. Hurting. Had he tried to get up to use the bathroom? Stubborn dom. “I think you need to push the button for your pain medication,” she said sternly.
He glanced at the IV, his expression odd. Then he looked at her. His gaze was intent, as if memorizing her face, lingering on the puffy bruise on her left cheek, the tender split in her lip. His mouth tightened. “I did not care for you very well, did I?”
“I’m alive. Not a slave. We took down a slave ring.” The expressionless look on his face sent warnings shooting through her in small unsettling flashes. “What’s wrong, Ma—Raoul?”
His muscles tensed, as if she’d hit him. He looked at her with a shadowed gaze. “Nothing is wrong. You have a visitor.”
“Who? More cops?”
“Not this time.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “They’re done with us—at least until they start the legal maneuvering.” He lifted his hand as if to touch her. “You can go home now.”
“I can?” He was sending her away. The realization felt like a blow, crueler than the Overseer’s fist into her ribs, solid enough to force her a step back.
He hesitated, and then asked slowly, “What do want to do, Kimberly?”
A surge of hope shivered through her body. He was giving her the choice. She wouldn’t have to leave him.
Only she wanted to go home. Didn’t she?
No, I love him.
But was that enough? She wasn’t any blind romantic child. Love didn’t mean a person could live with someone or that the other person was trustworthy. Didn’t guarantee happiness. She knew she couldn’t stay—it wouldn’t work—yet the thought that he wouldn’t be there to hold her in the night, to greet her in the morning with heavy-lidded eyes as he rolled on top of her and pinned her hands over her head…
“I…” Her heart slowly split into two pieces.
His eyes closed, and his jaw tightened. “Your mother is here, sumis—Kimberly.”
“Mom?”
“Sí. She’s in the waiting room down the hall.”
Mom
. Kim stared at Raoul, hearing his mother’s words. Thinking of her own. Her mother had loved her father in the beginning—she’d said so—and he’d loved her. But that hadn’t mattered. He’d ground her into the dirt with his demands. Made her a slave.
I don’t want to be that kind of a person. I’m not like my mother
. Aside from sex, she’d never wanted to be subservient to a man. She’d only done it to trap the slavers, not to…to stay.
I have a life
. “I need to go home.”
The brown eyes watching her seemed to darken.
“Yes, I think you do,” he said, no doubt in his voice. Dominant. Master.
Her flare of anger was welcome. She stiffened her spine—
look, I still have a spine
— walked over to the bed, and held out her hand. “Thank you for…everything.” For the tenderness and firmness, for the understanding and the sex and the…love. She wanted to say more, but her throat closed, preventing words and tears.
His head bowed as he took her hand, kissed her fingers, and opened his hand. Releasing her. “
Adios
, gatita.”
The words echoed over and over as she walked away.