Free Master's Flame by Annabel Joseph Page A

vulnerable, composed of tender orifices. Women were designed to be invaded.
    His organ stirred at the thought, not yet erect, but heading there. Was it the chains? The fear in her eyes? The voyeurs around them, studying their every move? Then someone stepped in his way, one of the more experienced Masters.
    “
Monsieur
, forgive me for interrupting.”
    Michel stared at the man. He would never have entered a scene in progress, except in an emergency. “What is it?”
    “There’s something going on in one of the other rooms. It’s...causing a stir.” Another man stood behind him, also a respected Citadel player.
    Michel blew out a breath. “I don’t want to be bothered. Have someone else handle it.” Of course, Valentina would be involved. Who else would create such chaos that they would come here and interrupt him?
    Something flickered in the glance between the two men before they turned to go. Something telling. With a curse, Michel turned from his pretty, trembling victim and strode across the hall after them, toward the last of the back rooms.
    He heard Valentina’s screams first, shrill, wild shrieks that made his hair stand on end. He threw open the door with a bang. People scuttled out before he could even take stock of what he was seeing. A pair of men wielding whips, marking their victim. Too many welts, some of them bleeding. Manacles. Red curls pulled up in a messy twist. A knife in another man’s hands, and a noose around the slim column of the woman’s neck.
    Valentina’s neck.
    Michel cursed in French, because it was the first language that came to his lips, and then in English because the men were Americans, part of a high wire act. They dropped their whips and scattered back as he crossed to Valentina and lifted her with an arm around her waist. The blood on her back and thighs smeared warm against his skin. He ripped the noose off her neck with a shudder. Damn them. If she’d passed out during their onslaught...even lost her balance for a moment...
    She collapsed against him, moaning, weak, and sub-spacey. A quick inspection assured him the worst of her injuries were the angry cuts on her back. He was furious with her, but this was Valentina, who was crazy. Her tormentors should have known better. He turned to the two men who’d been throwing the whips.
    “What in holy fuck possessed you to play this game with her? A noose?”
    “She a-asked us,” one of them stammered. “She said she wanted to play hard. She wanted it.”
    “And you said yes?” Michel tightened his grip around her waist. “We have rules here, even in the back rooms. Safe, sane, consensual.”
    The men looked at each other, then gestured to the third man holding a knife. “If she fell, we would have cut the rope.”
    Michel eyed the weapon, then snarled at the asshole holding it. “What good it would have done, once she snapped or injured her neck?”
    “She asked us to do this,” repeated the first guy. “It was consensual.”
    “But not safe or sane,” he barked. “Get out, all of you. You’re banned for one year from the Citadel. Go.”
    The last man hesitated before he left, gesturing toward Valentina. “Is she going to be okay?”
    “I’ll deal with her,” Michel said. “Get out of the Citadel before I have you dragged out with a fucking noose around your neck.”
    “It was my idea,” Valentina protested weakly. “Don’t be angry at them.”
    “I’ll be angry at them as much as I like, and angry at you.” He looked down at her in despair. What was he to do with this woman? How was he to control her erratic behavior? “How much did you drink?” he asked, shaking her from her subspace stupor. “Answer me.”
    “Nothing. Half a drink.”
    “Then why? Why would you participate in such a scene?”
    “Because I wanted to,” she yelled, trying to struggle away. “I wanted to feel something. Something horrible. Something bad.”
    “Why?” he shook her again so her teeth rattled together.
    “You