Chapter 4

four

“They will be curious about you,”Mark says later that night as we take the elevator up to the central hall of the club.

“Who?”

“Everyone” is the reply as the elevator comes to a stop and the doors open.

I’m doubtful as I follow Mark down a glass-walled corridor. After spending the day in the back seat of a car and standing outside two different doors—one of them at an office for a company that sells weighted blankets of all things—I’m already settling into being a nearly inanimate shadow, and I find the idea of being the subject of anyone’s curiosity faintly ludicrous.

I suppose if they knew who my father was, there might be the tiniest flicker of interest—at least for any DC natives familiar with the minor leadership in the American military, or for any international guests who might benefit from leveraging such a connection.

Even though he can’t see my frown, Mark seems to know which way my thoughts are tending and says over his shoulder, “I suppose I should have asked this earlier, but would you like to work here under a pseudonym? On account of your father?”

I think a moment. “No, sir.”

I’m not famous, and in the world of generals, my father barely ranks as anyone of note. And if Mark can stride around his club with everyone knowing he used to work for the CIA and that his twin sister currently does—well, I can handle the tiny chance that someone might connect Tristan Thomas to General Ricker Thomas.

“As you wish,” Mark replies, and then we walk through a secure door to the titanic central hall at the heart of the club. The ceiling, a few stories above, is a pitched tent of glass and steel. During the day, it gave the space the feeling of a cathedral. At night, it’s a canopy of purple-streaked clouds and whichever stars are bright enough to burn through the city’s glow. It stretches over the space as if to say, yes, night children, the time for sinning is now.

And sinning they are, dancing, drinking, probably more, judging from the amount of skin I see. I flick my eyes quickly over the crowd on the floor, seeing nothing dangerous, and then return my attention to the balconies. Above us are two more levels and then a floor with windows overlooking the space—the upper story of the club, where Mark lives. Our own balcony is made up of nooks, some filled with chairs and some with leather-upholstered booths.

I follow Mark to the largest one, in the center of the balcony, with an unobstructed view of the stage and a black leather armchair surrounded by other chairs, these armless. By some sort of architectural genius, the nook is not nearly as loud as the hall itself. When I take my place at the back, several paces behind Mark’s armchair, I can hear Goran’s genial tones in my earpiece clear as day.

“Well, kid? What do you think?”

“It’s busy, sir,” I say, using our new stationary position to more carefully take in the room and the club’s guests.

“Yeah, and it’s only a Tuesday. Just wait until the weekend.”

“I can’t imagine.”

I really can’t. The place seems full to bursting now. It must be a zoo then. A nightmare to continually assess risk in. I think of the parades and rallies I had to work in Carpathia while doing diplomatic escorts, and anxiety flicks hotly across the skin of my nape.

“Don’t worry about it,” replies Goran easily. “Club duty will be a piece of cake because no one is suicidal enough to take on Mark Trevena on his home turf. It’s mostly just reminding the people wasting his time that he’s invulnerable.”

“Wasting his time?”

“You’ll see,” Goran says, and then the line clicks off.

Dinah, the club manager, joins us soon after, wearing not the tailored pantsuit I saw her in earlier but a strapless leather jumpsuit, tight and corseted, baring her gleaming shoulders. When she sits next to Mark, I hear Mark say, “Well?”

“He’s mollified for now,” Dinah says. With the nook the way that it is, I can hear them easily, even while standing behind them. “But we need to tread carefully. If he’s recognized?.?.?.?”

“I’m aware of what he’s risking. We’ve given him every allowance Lyonesse can offer. Does he think he needs more privacy than the president of the United States?”

The president of the United States?.?.?.? I’m glad no one is looking at me just now because I’m certain my expression is betraying my shock. I think about how long Lyonesse has been open, and then I have to wonder which president came here—the late President Maxen Colchester, who died in a Carpathian terrorist attack two years ago, or the current president, Embry Moore, who married Colchester’s widow.

From behind them, I can only see Dinah’s hand lift, palm upwards, as if in a shrug. “He seems to think so.”

Their conversation is cut short when they’re joined by three more people—Andrea the treasurer, still wearing what she was wearing earlier today, and a suited man I don’t recognize with dark olive skin and long hair leading a shirtless man on a leash. He sits next to Mark, greeting the others, while the leashed man sinks to a graceful kneeling position next to his chair.

I blink a moment. Despite the fetish clothing on the dance floor tonight—and the nonzero amount of nudity—this is the first time I’ve seen someone explicitly?.?.?.?submitting. Even after all the research I had to do to get through Mark’s consent forms, it’s jarring to see a grown adult, a man tall and layered with muscle, allowing himself to be led around like a dog.

After eight years in the army, and the four before it at West Point, the very idea is taboo. Strength and pride—they run as rigidly through my concept of masculinity as wrought iron, as sharp as barbed wire.

And yet I think of the army. Of standing at attention, of marching in straight lines. Of the sweet relief of being told where to go and what to do there, even if it was only dropping to the ground and busting out push-ups until our arms gave out.

I shake it off.

It’s entirely different.

But as Goran’s predicted time-wasters begin coming to the nook, I find my eyes returning to the kneeling man over and over again. To the broad frame held in perfect docility, the muscled limbs quiescent, his head bowed with long hair covering his face like a curtain. He’s larger than the man who leashed him; he could easily stand up and wrench the handle of the leash from his partner’s hand. But he never does. There’s no tension in his frame, no stiffness in his shoulders as his partner reaches over to stroke his head. On the contrary, the minute the suited man does so, the kneeling man melts pliantly into him.

If he were a cat, he’d be purring.

Watching it makes me feel?.?.?.? It’s the wrongness—it’s the wrongness of it that’s making me restless inside my own skin; it’s the transgression. This isn’t the mutual exchange of bodies, not the slow and tender reciprocity I know is good and healthy to want. This is control.

This is shame.

And why is this man letting it happen? Rubbing his face against his Dominant’s leg, tilting his face up for the idle kisses dropped there?

I ignore the hook in my stomach, try to ignore them. The person sitting across from Mark at the moment wants a new private room, and Dinah and Andrea are listening intently. From what I can see of Mark’s sprawled legs and tapping fingers on the arm of the chair, he is not.

Next, there’s someone who’s furious that their ex-wife is still a member of the club. After them is someone who’d like to do a vampire glove demonstration next month, and then after that is someone whose appointment is spent bitching about the space exploration bill about to pass Congress, as if NASA funding were under Mark’s control.

Mark’s legs are spread and his head is tilted to the side for all of it, the picture of someone in the throes of professional boredom. I can’t see his face, but I can imagine the inscrutable expression on it. The one that gives nothing, promises nothing, and yet still makes you try for more.

Only one visitor does Mark straighten up for, a woman with creamy skin and black hair waved over one eye. She looks to be in her forties, with a thin but lovely mouth and sky-colored eyes. Lady Anguish was what Mark called her when she first sat across from him, a nom de kink as it were. And even with the scant knowledge of BDSM that I have, I know she is a Dominant. I can see it in her posture, the assured way she speaks without raising her voice or leaning forward, trusting that everyone else will come to her to be heard.

She wants to invest in Lyonesse, wants a share of ownership in exchange for helping the club expand to Los Angeles and London. She makes a good case, and Mark listens attentively, nodding and asking her questions, and then finally promising her a meeting later in the month.

After she leaves, Dinah says, “That was a mistake.”

Mark leans back in his chair. “You think so?”

“I know so. You can’t possibly be thinking of splitting ownership.”

“You think I’ll open myself up to a takeover.”

“With Anguish? Yes, Mark, I do. We barely know her, and the only thing we do know is that she’s hungry.”

Mark’s voice is musing when he speaks. “Hunger isn’t always a bad thing.”

“Speaking of hunger,” says the man next to Mark. I gleaned earlier that his name is Arjun, and that the man kneeling next to him is Evander. “Where did you find this wonderful specimen of a bodyguard?”

As one, Arjun, Dinah, and Andrea look back at me. Mark doesn’t, and neither does Evander, who remains still and relaxed on his knees.

“My sister’s wedding,” Mark finally replies, and everyone laughs like this is a joke.

“And will he be available to attend to others?” asks Andrea.

Attend to?.?.?.

I flush as I take in her meaning, and stare straight ahead, trying to pretend like I didn’t hear.

“Tristan is here only for me, I’m afraid,” Mark replies, crossing his feet at the ankles. “Strictly look but don’t touch as far as you’re concerned.” His voice is mild, but there’s something firm underneath the mildness. Steely, even.

I stare at the back of his chair. Is it possessiveness? He doesn’t want to share me because I’m his? Or is it because he knows that I’m only here as a bodyguard and not to attend to anyone?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Arjun’s wide smile. “But not as far as you’re concerned, eh, Mark?”

“We all know about Mark and his bodyguards,” Andrea says.

There’s a knowingness in her cool tone that digs at my control. I keep my eyes ahead, my face neutral. Bodyguards are meant to be invisible, barely there, and I’ll be damned if I fail at it my first day here.

I remind myself that I heard far worse before I’d even had my morning coffee in the army—and my fellow soldiers had been a lot more creative and disgusting when it came to sex-themed insults. In the army, even the good-natured ribbing was enough to strip the paint off a building, much less what came when someone was actually trying to get under your skin.

I can handle people insinuating I’m some sort of?.?.?.? companion .?.?.?for Mark. My job isn’t to prove them wrong; it’s to keep him safe.

“Never fear, Tristan,” my boss says now as he stands up and buttons his suit jacket. “Your virtue will remain intact.”

At that, I fight a blush. He can’t possibly know that I’m still a virgin. He’s making a joke, using a turn of phrase.

It means nothing, and even if it did, it’s not like?.?.?.? It doesn’t change anything.

“Maybe Mark’s brought that little blond back to him,” Andrea says. There’s something pointed in her voice, and Mark doesn’t miss it.

“Yes, maybe,” he says. There’s something equally sharp in his voice now, sharper even, and Andrea looks away. Something about the blond is a point of contention between them. I wonder if the blond is a woman and then shake off the twinge the thought brings. Even if the blond is a woman, that doesn’t mean Mark only likes women. And anyway, it has nothing to do with me.

“What Mark does with his submissives is his business,” Dinah says, and Andrea gives a tight smile.

“I never said otherwise.”

“Good night, all,” Mark says before this exchange can go any further, and then he looks at me. “Tristan?”

I follow him as he turns and leaves the hall—a hall which has gotten more raucous and indecent as the hours crept by—and survey the people dancing, crawling, writhing in each other’s laps as we walk to the doors leading out. It will take some getting used to, assessing a place like Lyonesse for threats rather than a city street or a mountain village, but the challenge is a little thrilling. Very different kinds of dangers await here.

I think of Arjun’s long fingers sifting idly through Evander’s hair.

When we get to the elevators, Mark stops. “I can see myself up,” he says.

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you think of tonight?”

I hesitate. I think Mark is the kind of man who appreciates an honest answer, but I still want to be diplomatic. “It was different,” I finally reply.

“Of course,” he says with something like a smile. And then, with his eyes a brilliant blue in the light of the glass hallway, he says, “There will be worse than Evander kneeling on the floor, you know.”

I don’t ask how he knows watching Evander made me uncomfortable. Either he looked at me without me noticing or he’s guessing and seeing what his words draw out. At any rate, the safest answer seems to be “Yes, sir.”

He watches me, and I see an infinitesimal flex in his jaw, like there’s something he wants to say but is deciding against it. “I only ask that you keep an open mind,” he says. “You strike me as a romantic person. There’s romance here too, in letting go. In surrender.”

He turns to face the elevators, his profile suntanned and hewn against the blue and black glass of the hallway beyond. “I was in the army too,” he adds. “I can guess what you might think about Evander. I can even guess how you might feel if you saw a woman kneeling next to Arjun tonight, looking delicate and helpless.”

I haven’t thought of that, but the minute he speaks, I feel a wave of protectiveness, of worry for this imaginary woman. It’s one thing to read about dominance and submission online, but when it’s happening in front of you, when the reality of the coercion is right there .?.?.

“I promise that no one at Lyonesse, aside from me, needs a knight in shining armor,” Mark goes on. “Everyone else is winning a game they’ve chosen to play, no matter how it might look. Everyone here—whether they’re being caned or electrocuted or simply fucked into next week—is here because they want to be.” He presses the elevator button and then looks at me. “An open mind, that’s all I ask.”

“Yes, sir.”

The elevator chimes and the doors open. “And Tristan?”

“Yes?”

“Good work today.” Mark smiles and steps into the elevator.

The unexpected praise lights me up.

I’m glowing the entire way back to the farmhouse.