Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Simon

M y master was in trouble, and everything within me wanted to help him in every way I could. But I hated stepping down from Victor's desk, having him remove the collar and restraints he'd given me as a symbol of what I was for him, and dressing in ordinary clothes so that we could rejoin the rest of the world. It felt like I was abandoning a part of myself, a part that I'd just discovered and wanted to embrace with everything I had, to resume a place that had never worked for me.

"I'm sorry to make things so uncomfortable for you," Victor said, his brow creased, as he helped me into my shirt. "I know this wasn't what you were looking for from this fantasy."

He must have seen me eyeing my restraints longingly as they rested on the desktop. He turned and looked at them, and his suit jacket, which had been discarded there when I went to dress.

"Maybe this will help," he said, grabbing the jacket and draping it over my shoulders so I could slip it on. He also retrieved the collar and restraints and tucked them into the jacket pockets. The collar was too big, so he kept that and slipped it into the inner pocket of his own jacket.

I loved the fact that my master held my collar, even if I didn't like that it meant we were breaking our play for a while.

We left the office and headed down to jump in Victor's SUV. It was still relatively early in the morning, and as we pulled out into the streets of Norwalk, we were met by ordinary morning rush-hour traffic.

"Do you mind leaving your car here in Norwalk?" Victor asked as he headed to the highway that would take us to Barrington. "I can drop you off and you can follow me, or just head home."

"No," I said, probably with too much enthusiasm. "You're my master, and I'm staying with you."

Anyone else might have reacted awkwardly to those words, but Victor smiled briefly and reached a hand to rest on my knee for a moment.

That simple touch reassured me and settled me. I could feel Victor's emotions behind it, his possessiveness and pride in me. I shouldn't have, but I reached for the threads of the bond forming between us and held onto them, like doing so would strengthen the bond. It was way too early for things like bonding, but I couldn't help it.

The hours-long ride into Barrington was filled with Victor explaining more about the operations of Victory Holdings and his uncle's behavior over the last few years, but there was a bigger issue I could feel hanging between us.

"I can't imagine why my uncle is so doggedly determined to throw his weight around," Victor said as we finally approached the city. "He's nearing eighty. He should be focused on retirement right now."

"Eighty? Really?" I hadn't thought he was that old, but that could have been part of the reason he was pushing so hard to prove that he was still relevant.

"He was just about to hit forty when he had Vivien," Victor explained. "He'd always said he didn't have the time of day for omegas. He saw them as occasional, necessary toys meant to satisfy his bodily urges."

He sent me a guilty sideways look. I immediately sensed that Victor had felt the same way about omegas in the past as well.

I was confident those beliefs were in his past, though. Bonds didn't happen unless there was real care and affection between the partners. And besides, I had enough of a feeling of Victor now to know he was good at heart, even if, as I gathered from a lot of things, he had had a wayward youth. A lot of wealthy young alphas did.

"My Aunt Rebecca was beautiful and twenty years younger than him," Victor went on. "She was sweet and biddable, and Uncle Vincent swore he was in love with her. I guess he was, since he married her, but that sure changed in a hurry."

"Changed?" I asked.

Victor blew out a breath through his nose, giving me the sense I'd ripped open an old wound.

"Uncle Vincent was annoyed that she gave birth to a female beta instead of the male alpha he wanted. Aunt Rebecca felt his disappointment keenly, even though they never bonded. Uncle Vincent immediately pushed her aside. For a year or so, he went on a mission to get a male alpha child with whatever omega in heat he could find. It didn't happen, Aunt Rebecca's heart was broken. When her next heat came around, Uncle Vincent refused to take it, but he wouldn't let any other alpha take it either."

"He forced her to go through heat without an alpha?" My jaw dropped. I couldn't imagine the cruelty of that.

Victor's face hardened. "She made it to the second day before the madness of a denied heat got the best of her. She slit her wrists with a kitchen knife."

I gaped, feeling absolutely awful for Aunt Rebecca. It made me hate Vincent Woodbury even more.

"I was born a few summers after that," Victor went on. "My father was Uncle Vincent's brother. Both my parents were betas, and when they actually managed to produce an alpha son, Uncle Vincent was furious. He swept in immediately and claimed me as his own."

"He didn't!" I gasped, horrified by that, too.

Victor nodded once. "He waited until I was five, mind you, and until it was absolutely certain I was an alpha. The odds of two betas producing an alpha, or an omega, offspring is less than fifty percent. Uncle Vincent claimed I would be wasted on two betas, so he took it upon himself to raise me from school age on."

Victor was silent for a moment. I could feel the bitterness and the hurt of a child who had probably been torn from a loving family and forced into a cold life of harsh expectations rippling from him.

"I communicated with my parents and saw them more than Uncle Vincent knew," Victor went on. "The servants made sure of it."

"Are your parents still alive?" I asked cautiously.

Victor shook his head. "No. Mom died of cancer when I was twenty-five. Dad sort of just faded away after that, though he only passed about three years ago."

"I'm so sorry," I said, touching Victor's knee the way he'd touched mine earlier.

Victor shook his head. "I didn't make them proud, in the end. Uncle Vincent got his claws into me too early. I…I haven't always been the man I wanted to be."

He said all of that with his eyes focused tightly on the road ahead of us. I could feel the hurt and the shame of the life he'd once lived.

Surprisingly, he didn't try to hide that from me.

"I didn't know Hayden Kipling was your brother," he said, glancing to me as he looked to the right while turning at an intersection. "I can't imagine the pain his kidnapping must have caused you."

I smiled weakly at Victor. "Honestly, it was only a blip. Hayden managed to call me while he was in captivity, and I was able to help rescue him. The whole ordeal only lasted a few hours."

"Still," Victor said, making another turn that took us into the heart of Barrington. "I don't know how you can look me in the eye, knowing what happened, let alone…." He let his sentence go, his emotions a jumble.

"It wasn't you," I said simply. "The fact that you feel bad about it tells me you're a good person with a conscience."

Victor merely huffed ironically at that, then made another turn into a parking garage.

I didn't want my master to continue to feel guilty about something that wasn't really his fault, but there wasn't much I could do about that. I had the sense that Victor's sad childhood contributed to his views of the world now, that he'd probably embraced his uncle's ways at some point, but that the influence of his parents had stopped him from becoming the same sort of alpha as Vincent Woodbury. I actually felt sorrier for Vivien Woodbury, even though the jury was still out on whether she would be a help or a hindrance to what Victor was trying to do.

Trouble started as soon as we pulled around to the valet parking station and got out of the car. The valet on duty glanced warily at Victor, but took his keys.

"You're not going to confiscate my car, are you?" Victor joked with the young woman.

"No, sir," she said, albeit a little hesitantly, like that's exactly what she'd had orders to do. "I might just park it on the street, though, and then keep your keys with me."

Victor nodded in understanding. I would have been willing to bet the valet staff had been given orders not to let Victor park, but the valet seemed more loyal to Victor. That, at least, was a good sign.

The next sign of trouble came when Artemis met us at the door.

"Your security access codes have been deactivated," Artemis said instead of a greeting. "Get ready for resistance as we head upstairs."

"Understood," Victor said with a nod as he and Artemis fell into step together once we were inside the ground floor foyer. "Simon, walk between us. I don't want you to get lost."

"Yes, M?—"

I glanced worriedly to Artemis as I caught up and took my place between the two, big men. Every cell in my body wanted to embrace my slave role, even though we were so far outside of our play space, but every bit of shame and embarrassment for the things I craved came back to me and more. This wasn't the safe world of a fantasy, this was reality.

More than that, Artemis had seen me deep in my slave role. He'd seen me naked and hard and messy. And even though it hadn't actually been him, the extraordinarily vivid fantasy that Victor had shared me with Artemis was still hot in my mind.

Artemis either didn't notice or was purposefully not acknowledging any of that. "Vincent has called the board away from whatever they're doing and demanded that they come into the office for an emergency meeting," he said as he pushed the button on an elevator that stood separate from the larger bank of elevators at the opposite end of the foyer. "He's sent everyone a ton of false information, detailing your misdeeds."

"I saw it," Victor said, ushering me into the elevator when the doors opened, then hitting one of the top buttons.

The elevator did nothing at his touch. Artemis had to hit the button before it moved, which made me wonder if the elevator buttons were programmed to recognize fingerprints.

"How did you see all that?" Artemis asked. "I thought you'd been shut out of the system overnight."

Victor sent him a sideways smirk, but didn't say a word.

"I assumed everything those reports detailed is actually stuff Vincent himself has gotten up to," Artemis went on.

"You assume correctly," Victor said. "I still can't figure out what my uncle's ultimate aim is, but he's been lining these ducks up in a row for a long time now."

"Power," Artemis said with a shrug as the whooshing feeling of the elevator started to slow down. "Vincent is after power. It's what he's always been after. Just because that's not the shiny prize you crave doesn't mean it's not what motivates him."

Artemis peeked at me for a moment as he spoke. I couldn't decide if I liked the idea that I was the prize Victor wanted, or at least someone like me.

Then again, it did make sense in a warped way. Having a slave was a form of power. It was power over one person, and sexually objectifying them was control on an intimate and emotional level. Power over entire industries, maybe even governments, was a much colder, crueler form of enslaving everyone.

I could totally understand the appeal of wielding that much power over the lives of everyone in Barrington, the East Coast, and the entire country. It would give an evil person a sense of immense satisfaction, but it was one of the hollowest feelings I could think of.

Trouble hit us again as soon as the elevator doors opened, letting us out into what looked more like the lobby of a luxury spa than a business office. Everything was decorated in soothing tones of blue, white, and grey. Fresh flowers stood in massive urns in the corners of the lobby, and a beautiful beta woman who looked to be in her thirties sat behind a desk that was all curves and grace.

She wasn't smiling, however. As soon as she saw Victor stepping out of the elevator with Artemis, a look of alarm pinched her face.

"Mr. Woodbury," she said, standing, but staying behind the desk, like she was using it as a shield. "You're not allowed in here."

"Thank you, Brenda, I know," Victor said, sounding far more gracious than just about anyone else I could imagine in that situation. "I'm here to see my uncle."

"He isn't…you're not allowed to be here," Brenda replied, her cheeks pinking.

"I think we both know the truth," Victor said, stepping toward a small side corridor.

He might have meant that they both knew the truth about him not being allowed in the office, or about whether Vincent Woodbury was in his office, but he probably also meant the bigger picture about what was going on.

Around the corner, the corridor stretched along what I guessed was the entire length of the building. To the right were several doors, some open and some closed, that led to offices with views of the city from on high. Through one of those doors I caught a glimpse of a large, beautifully appointed office with amazing, floor-to-ceiling windows. To our left was a board room with all glass walls. A long, oval table filled up the center of the room, which had a serious fishbowl feel to it.

The boardroom wasn't empty. Five men in suits, at least four of them alphas, and probably the fifth one as well, though he was smaller, sat around one end of the table, having some sort of debate.

One of them glanced in our direction. When he spotted Victor, his expression widened into a smile…that had my skin crawling.

Victor frowned and tried to pick up our pace as we headed to what I assumed was his uncle's office at the end of the corridor, but the alpha who had smiled at him got up from the boardroom table and headed for the door. Unfortunately for us, the door was farther ahead of us along the hall, and as soon as the alpha, and the others, stepped out into the hall, they blocked our way.

"Hey, Victor," the alpha said, grinning at Victor like they were friends playing some sort of prank on each other. "Nice day we're having, isn't it?"

"Are you part of this, Eddie?" Victor demanded without greeting.

The alpha, Eddie, laughed and crossed his arms. "Part of everything catching up with you at last? No," he said.

His laughter was an attempt to sound relaxed, I was certain, but the way he crossed his arms told me he was anything but relaxed.

"I don't know how you got in here, but you have some nerve returning to the scene of the crime," one of the other alphas said.

"Camron," Victor turned to him. "You know I don't have a damn thing to do with whatever my uncle is up to."

"So you're not the one who orchestrated the takeover of Lupia Industries?" Camron asked. "Or who spent those profits on a week-long yacht party and seedy spectacle involving a dozen omega prostitutes?"

Victor went hot and tense beside me. I could feel his shame the same way I could smell the increase in his rugged, alpha scent as he started to sweat.

"That was a long time ago," he said tightly, his hand flinching slightly toward me.

I could only imagine what sort of debauchery Victor had gotten up to in the past. He'd told me clearly that he wasn't proud of who he once was. And to be honest, the idea of a week-long yacht party as Victor's slave tickled all those dark desires in me that I still wasn't entirely comfortable with.

As if sensing that, Eddie turned his smarmy look on me. "I see you've found yourself another sweet plaything. I didn't think it was Bring Your Slave to Work Day, but then again, the playbook is out the window today."

"Mr. Kipling is part of my legal counsel," Victor said in steely tones.

I immediately wished he hadn't. I absolutely didn't mind being identified to these people as his slave, as bizarre and wrong as it would have seemed to the rest of the world. It was my name I wished he hadn't used.

"Kipling?" another of the alphas asked. "As in Hayden Kipling?"

Victor tensed again, realizing the mistake he'd made.

"Let's save the introductions for later," he said, fighting to maintain a businesslike stance. "My uncle is trying to force me out of Victory Holdings with lies and slanders, and I want to know why."

"I'm surprised you even care," Eddie said, still studying me in a way that had my skin crawling. "Business has never mattered when you've had something to play with." He glanced to Victor. "I've got an idea. Why don't I call up the agency and have them send a sweet plaything over for me. We can have a little party tonight. I've got some Heat Lightning pills left over from last time. We can do swapsies again as they beg to be fucked."

"No," Victor said, cutting Eddie off before he could say more. "I don't do that kind of party anymore."

He glanced briefly at me, like I would be shocked that he'd done something as violating as forcing omegas into heat, then swapping partners in the middle. Omegas had an instinctive revulsion to being fucked by more than one alpha during their heats.

But at this point, especially considering a part of me would have loved and hated and loved for Victor to share me during my heat, nothing that my master had once done or wanted could be any sort of a deal breaker.

Victor clearly didn't feel that way. "I'm here to see my uncle," he said, shifting me slightly behind him as he marched forward, forcing the other alphas to back out of the way.

Artemis fell in behind me, protecting me from the others, who were definitely interested in knowing more about me, at least. I didn't feel protected, though. I felt like I was in more danger than I'd ever been in before, with too many sets of hungry eyes staring at me as we walked to the end of the hall.

Worse still, when we reached the massive, luxurious office that took up one entire corner of the building, it was empty.

"He's probably hiding somewhere," Victor said, rubbing a hand over his face as he turned a circle in the corner office. "I bet he's?—"

That was as far as he got before three bulky alphas in security uniforms dashed into the doorway and one of them barked, "Stop right there!"