"You're going to work," she snapped. "I will be fine. You said you need to investigate a coupleleads at the gym and at the office. I can handle myself today, Mac." He made a noncommittal noise and slid a stack of buttermilk pancakes in front of her.

Violet looked down. He had put fresh strawberries along the side of the pancakes, and cut them so they looked like rosebuds, using their green tops as a frame of greenery. Humor struggled with her attempt to make a serious point. "You are seriously cute," she informed him.

He smiled. "Same goes, sugar." He feathered his hand across her cheek, and she pressed into his touch.

Mac didn't have the heart, or perhaps the bravery, to tell her he'd never seen her look so appealing, sitting there at his table in just his shirt, looking ill as a hornet. But he could see in her face she needed him to back off. And though he didn't want to be more than ten feet from her today, he understood how important it was not to crowd at a time like this. "Can't blame a big male chauvinist pig for wanting to protect you." She snorted. "It wouldn't matter if I was a female bodybuilder, you'd want to protect me, keep me out of danger. You were seething with it when you walked into the emergency room yesterday, like you wanted to shake me for daring to have a job that took me out of the kitchen and the bedroom."

His jaw flexed, and some of that anger swelled to the surface. "Well, I did want to shake you. I don't want you in danger, ever." His hand closed over hers. "Look at you.

You weigh nothing, you're like a miniature doll."

"A doll that can bring you to your knees and make you beg," she reminded him with a challenging fire in her eyes.

"Want to try arm wrestling?"

"I'd win, because I'd order you to let me win." His grin was quick. "That's what you think, sugar. And you don't strike me as the cheating kind."

"I'll stay right here," she promised. "I'll even make you dinner, use my formidable culinary skills. Popcorn and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We can rent a movie, and I can moan occasionally to get sympathy from you. And I have Boscoe." He had gotten up early and retrieved her beagle, so now the short-legged hound was beneath the table, responding to her ear fondling with a happy grin.

He hesitated, and she saw the truth of it. "You're going out tonight, on assignment.

I'll meet you at The Zone, then."

"This isn't your case, Violet."

"You said yourself, being with a Mistress will get you better access to the other players there. Now that I know that, we can do better mixing and mingling, give you that choice." She caught her fingers in his shirt, drew him close. "Besides which, you're mine, and I don't want anyone else touching what's mine. Understand?" He brushed his lips over hers. Pleased to see the spark back in her eyes, he cursed the fact he had to get back to work, especially since his cock responded as eagerly as Boscoe to the sharp command.

"Yes, Mistress." He gave her a deeper kiss, enjoyed the way her hand curled into his shirt, dug in. It was difficult to break the contact, raise his head. "But you can take the night off. I am scoping out the gym angle today. That's why I may be late. I'm going to hit a couple of them this evening, during the prime times. Why don't you go see your Mom for a few hours? You talked to her last night, but I'm sure she'd want to see you, and you said she's only an hour away."

She looked at him, hard. "You're not lying to me."

"No, I'm not," he said firmly. "And I never will." Though if he told the total truth, he didn't want her even the short distance away at her mother's. He wanted her tucked safe and sound into his house tonight, watching old movies and waiting for him to come home. Ruefully, he realized she was right about him. When it came to his woman, his Mistress, he was a sexist pig.

* * * * *

"Top Form is a workout club owned and run by two of your Mistresses, Tamara and Kiera Whitmeyer. Five of the female Doms from The Zone have memberships there." Consuela handed him the printout. "Two more, Lisbeth Holmes and Marguerite Perruquet, had a temporary guest membership. One of the male Doms, Tyler Winterman, also has a membership there, if that's relevant. However, only one of your vics had a membership, and it was only a temporary guest membership he used once.

The hunch's got a good feel to it, but there's not a strong evidence connection." Mac studied the paper. "She could have staked out the parking lot at the workout clubs of the others rather than getting a membership. Even followed them to a bar to make the contact. It's going to be one of these. I can feel it."

"Well, make it come together soon," Consuela glanced over at the pin-up board.

"I'm getting real tired of the visuals around this place.

"Now this is of particular interest," she pulled out a sheet. "This Marguerite Perruquet had a brother kill himself at age fourteen. The investigating officer said he picked up some serious undercurrents at the house. If he had to guess, he would have said the boy had been sexually molested by the father. Never could prove anything, though. From what we got from The Zone staff, Marguerite prefers younger men."

"She's symbolically punishing the brother?" Suarez raised a brow. "That seems fucked up."

"Unless she blames him for leaving her alone with the father, because maybe he turned to her after the boy died. I'm going to go sign up for a guest pass at Top Form this afternoon," Mac said. "I'm with Connie. I'd sure like to nail whoever our murderess is before I'm standing over more of her work. Here's another interesting coincidence." Mac pointed to the timeline. "Marguerite's guest membership coincides with the time frame in which Rodriguez was murdered, the one vic who did have a membership to Top Form."

"But no correlation on the others, though admittedly the gym that Turner belonged to doesn't keep any type of records on guest memberships." Consuela ran a hand over her tired features, reminding Mac that she'd been busting her ass on the research end of this case as many nights as he'd worked the field angle.

"You okay, Con?"

"Yeah." She studied the murder pictures. "You know, Mac, they didn't deserve to die like this, but I got to admit, I don't totally disagree with Suarez. It's a dangerous thing to give someone this much control over you. A guy has to have something wrong with him. It's like some type of weird Mommie Dearest complex. And don't even get me started on the women who like to be tied up. Hundreds of years to get men not to treat us like house pets, and you've got a bunch of idiot bitches begging to be tied up and beaten."

"I don't know, Connie," Suarez flashed her a grin from his desk. "I kind of like the idea of you in thigh high boots with a whip."

She shook her head. "Dominatrixes, my ass. Probably just feminists who get off on beating men the way we've been beaten down all these years. Still sick, but at least I can understand that better. It's the subs I don't understand." Because she was trying to understand the politics of it, and there were no politics to it, Mac knew. It was about trust and power exchanges, not political correctness.

Submission was the offered gift. In a way, it was not much different from marriage, two people submitting to one another's will, open to the give and take that led to unity, a complete opening of the heart to one another. Pain and relinquishing control could break down the walls even faster, make a person realize what it was he really needed, without all the fog that political baggage could bring into a relationship.

Consuela cocked a brow. "Mac, you with us?"

"Mmm."

"I think you've been immersed in this stuff way too much. Go out, go see a ball game. Hit on some gorgeous woman and have her blow you off."

"Classy," Mac chuckled, shaking his head. "How about you do the same, Con? Go home, have your husband go down on you a few times, if you can keep the kids out of the room long enough."

Suarez hooted with laughter. Mac snatched up his files and narrowly dodged the stapler Consuela slung his way. Grinning, he retreated to the conference room, enjoying the stream of creative Cuban epithets following him, and the more relaxed expression on his co-worker's face. A few moments later, he heard them return to debating the pros and cons of the S&M lifestyle and blocked it out, focusing on the information in front of him.

An hour later, he looked up to see Darla leaning in the doorway.

"I hear you're headed for the gym. You think you should take some backup?" He shook his head. "I'm just scoping it, see if I pick up a scent. I'll check in with you at nine, let you know if I'm hitting The Zone tonight, though I doubt it. Violet will be incommunicado today, but she should be back in the game in a day or so."

"Is she doing okay?"

He nodded. He wanted to say more, extract some further promises from Sergeant Rowe to keep Violet's identity secret, even if it cost him his life. No matter how he had accepted it, he could not tolerate the idea of her being exposed to the type of thinking he'd just heard, even though rationally he knew she was an adult and likely had heard it before. As he had, countless times. Like kids hidden in a closet, hearing what other kids really thought of them.

"You okay, Mac?" Darla was studying him and Mac deliberately relaxed his body, stood up and snagged his coat off the back of his chair.

"Yeah. I'm off to get a workout."

* * * * *

He had come at a busy time, as he intended, and he took some turns on the different machines, circulating, exchanging idle chatter, looking for familiar faces. One face he didn't particularly care to see was that of Jonathan Powell, but after making initial eye contact, the tall blonde turned his back on Mac, ignoring his presence with an expression of disdain.

Fine by Mac. As much as it would delight him if the cold-blooded prick was involved so he could cuff and incarcerate him, nothing about Jonathan matched their murderess's profile. There was no law against being an asshole.

"Well, well, look who's wandered into my den." Mac turned to see Kiera or Tamara, he wasn't sure which, working the weight bench.

"Tamara," she supplied, with a knowing look. "Will you spot me, honey? I usually call one of those trainers over, preferably the one with the tightest ass, but since I have someone so willing to serve," she ran an appraising look over him, "with an absolutely superior ass, I'll take you."

"Sure," he said agreeably, moving behind her as she lay back on the bench. The position of course put her where she had a prime view of the bulge of his genitals in the tight exercise shorts and her gaze went pointedly to his face. "If we were somewhere else, say the locker area, I think I could make that come to attention. Interested in another round?"

"Flattered," he said, with an easy grin, though his insides were tight at her intense regard. Not necessarily with desire, though she was adept at stirring a man's lust, whether his mind was interested or not. Quite frankly, he found the pair of them terrifying. Violet would be amused at the thought, he knew, but a man had to be honest with himself.

"I see someone's got your heart as well as your cock on a short rein these days." She smiled herself, and it was a surprisingly pleasant and kind expression. It was an abrupt reminder that Kiera and Tamara, as scary as they could be, kept their intimidation within the rules. They didn't force their attentions where they were not requested, and they did not coerce any sub who said 'no'. They respected boundaries, and for the first time he understood why Violet was so interested in making him accept that idea.

"Well, good for you both, honey. You and Violet suit. Still, Kiera will be disappointed. Your display at Tyler's was...memorable. Eighty pounds, if you will." He loaded up the barbell, appreciating that was a good amount of weight for a woman to lift over her head. He stood at careful attention as she took it off the rack and began her reps. She was a finely made woman, and now that they'd established the lines, he felt at ease appreciating the ripe breasts, the soft brown skin, the tight concentration of the full lips, the light sheen of sweat on her working muscles. He found himself gravitating toward the mental image of a smaller more delicate form in the same position, that small mouth less than a foot from his aching balls. Amazingly, that image tightened his loins in a way that standing right over Tamara's lithe form and hearing her open invitation did not.

Regardless, he suspected Violet would be hard pressed to believe he was thinking of her if he got a hard-on right now. In fact, he figured she'd probably pistol whip him until his head caved in before he managed an explanation. He grinned at the thought and changed the direction of his thoughts, just to be safe.

"So where is your sister today?"

"Oh, she just went off shift. She was supposed to meet Marguerite for lunch at the Tea Room. Marguerite runs the place, and we're thinking of integrating a classy kind of coffee room here at the club. You know, for clients to enjoy after they have their workout, socialize some more. A kind of franchise of the Tea Room inside of our club.

She left a few minutes ago."

"You both work here?"

"She does. I'm actually the owner, she's the manager, so I can pretty much just show up, work out and handle the stockholders. She handles day-to-day stuff in the club. She likes to do that versus any of the aggressive sales stuff, and I hate being bogged down in maintenance and repair details and breaking people into the machines.

That's why she's going to see Marguerite. She's working out the details with her now that I've closed the deal."

"You're a good complement to each other, then."

"The joy of being twins." She nodded, and he helped her take it back up to the rack.

She sat up, considered him, gave him another sultry smile and a perusal so blatant it had some of the surrounding customers raising a brow or grinning.

"If you ever change your mind, hon, my sister and I'd love to sink our teeth into you. I suspect you're the meal of a lifetime."

"Again, I'm flattered," he inclined his head, "but I think it's fair to say...I'm off the market as long as my - "

He stumbled to a halt. He'd forgotten, and he never forgot. But he'd almost said it aloud, called Violet what his mind had accepted her as. His Mistress. Of heart, mind and soul. Just as she'd said from the very first she would become to him.

"...I'm otherwise involved."

Tamara rose, running her hand familiarly up his thigh, over his hip bone and to his waist. "Our loss, hon. Maybe Violet will share you with us again sometime." Then she left him, drawing the attention of every patron with her African queen looks and the lithe body displayed in the shimmering spandex.

"I hope not," he muttered.

It was getting easier to admit that now. He wanted to be committed to one Mistress, and her to him. While some interactive play was fine, he wanted the main event, the focus just to be with her. As long as he had Violet, he wouldn't care if he never saw the inside of a BDSM club again.

However, he had other issues to deal with at the moment. Kiera and Tamara worked as a team. Nothing about the crime scene suggested more than one player in the room with the vic at the time of death. He had written off Lisbeth right away. The woman was as frank and honest about herself as she was with her subs. She didn't have any demons in her closet and seemed to have little interest in a man young enough to be her son. There were the five female Doms with permanent memberships, but he was particularly interested in Marguerite Perruquet.

He'd watched her pick up a twenty-something at The Zone the last night he was there. She kept the young man lapping sparkling tonic water out of a bowl at her foot like a pet dog while she talked to other Doms, occasionally slapping him on the ass with a sharp quirt she carried, tucked into a metal band on her forearm. But when she took him down to play in one of the rooms, that cruelty turned to dangerous gentility. She put him on a turnstile, raised it vertical, spun him upside down so he could eat her clit, then strapped a cock to his head and made him coordinate fucking her with it while he licked at the base of her pussy, nibbled her thighs. All the while she teased his cock, positioned at her eye level, with her mouth, her teeth, working him and threatening him, telling him he could not come until she did. By the end of two hours, she had made him come for her several times, in a variety of ways where she was alternately playful and vicious, loving and cruel, until Mac understood why she was a Mistress of great popularity at The Zone. A sub's only regret with her would be that she rarely chose the same man for more than one night.

Or maybe she did, but her pickups for longer term relationships didn't occur at The Zone, and those she hooked up with weren't ever going to be able to talk about it.

The early evening crowd thinned, and he went to the locker room before his lingering became suspicious. Police investigative work was ninety percent tedium, two percent clues and eight percent hunches. Of course, this case had been a little less tedious because of Violet. He'd cook her up a quiche tonight. He'd seen what was in her fridge and knew she lived on frozen food. Not anymore.

Once in street clothes and headed for his bike, he was annoyed to see he was parked diagonally from Powell's Lexus, and the arrogant dickhead was in the process of putting a gym bag in his trunk.

Mac passed him with a cold nod and the blonde shot him a baleful look as Mac picked up his helmet to straddle the Honda.

"You know what I don't get about you, Mac? You play the game all wrong."

"Not interested, Powell," he said briefly, fitted his key into the ignition.

"You don't get it, Mac. And I thought you would. It's obvious you don't like to give up power, but you resist it out front. I play the game in reverse. They think I'm all theirs, I give them everything they want until the end, indulge every whim, and then when they lose their hearts, I cut them loose. It's a power rush like you wouldn't believe. These Mistresses, they salivate all over you. You could choose any of them, but you get yourself tied up emotionally over a little inexperienced cunt like Violet. All you're really looking for is a ring in your nose. You're not fooling anyone."

"Powell, I'm not going to brawl with you like two kids in a school yard. Skip the goading insults and tell me what you want."

Powell stepped forward and, sensing trouble coming, Mac got off the bike to face him.

"You got me kicked out of The Zone. You're welcome to your opinion but not the right to interfere in my personal dealings."

"Wrong. Protecting a woman, even if she's not his own, is every man's business." Jonathan sneered. "If she'd chosen me, she'd be so twisted around my dick by now she might as well be on her knees sucking on it."

"You're an asshole, and what burns you is that Violet didn't choose you. She's beautiful, she has taste, and she knows trouble when she sees it. You don't need a Mistress. You need to be neutered."

He knew how to handle an idiot like Powell, so he was ready for the lunge, the swipe of Powell's fist, his keys clutched in them. But Mac was angry as well. Not enough to let it control him, but enough for him to take a split second to consider and then take great satisfaction in following up his block with a clip to Jonathan's jaw.

Powell sagged forward and Mac caught him. The sharp jab in his neck spun him around, and he was vaguely aware of Jonathan regaining his balance at his back as Kiera pulled the syringe out.

There was no time for anything. The helmet dropped from his fingers and his body fell into their hands. They effectively used his momentum to roll him into the open door of the van next to his bike. All over in five seconds, and likely not a person around to see it. Jesus Christ, he was in trouble.

* * * *

"Wake up, sweet thing. Wake up."

The soft crooning of the gentle voice was as melodious as a Motown lullaby, but it brought Mac back to consciousness like a cold spike shoved into his vitals. It took his mind a moment to catch up with the reaction, but the abrupt attempt to lunge to his feet got him nowhere.

He was in Tyler's dungeon, secured over the large spanking bench, stripped naked.

Bolted securely to the floor, the bench didn't even quiver when he yanked against his bonds. His waist was on the edge of the bench, his knees pressed into the cold floor. An iron bar attached to a strap around his legs just above each knee held his thighs apart, wide enough that the position caused painful tension in his lower back, buttocks and thighs. He was hyperaware that the position made his cock and balls hang out free and accessible to anything anyone wanted to do to them.

Close to the juncture between testicle and leg, another strap had been buckled around each thigh. His wrists were cuffed and the rings on those cuffs clipped to the straps, so his arms were held immobile at his sides. He had no way to protect his skull from the single bullet he was sure the woman somewhere beyond his field of vision intended to put into it. His head was unsupported over the edge of the bench, his neck muscles groaning in protest.

"Would you like to hear my secrets, Mac? The ones you've been trying so hard to figure out?"

Her voice stayed whisper soft. He knew that type of voice, knew the ice that climbed up his spine from hearing it was not an overreaction.

"I'd rather have you turn me loose," he said mildly, "but since I suspect that's out of the question, go for it."

Blab all you want. Give me some time to think, figure out what chance I've got not to be vic number four.

"You try to play it down," she observed, "But I know how miserable you are. How miserable all of us are. But a Dom cannot escape the pain. She must face it, help her slaves find a release to it, ironically through the experience of physical pain. Do you know what the source of all of it is?"

Mac shook his head. "No."

Abruptly his back was on fire, as a lash came down on his back from somewhere behind him. Hooked with barbed tips, it took his flesh with it when it was yanked away.

"No, Mistress," she snapped.

Swearing through a haze of pain, Mac bared his teeth. "You're not my Mistress, bitch, so beat me to death, you won't hear it from my lips." He heard the movement of air as an arm was drawn back for another strike, but the blow did not come. Ten tense seconds passed before she spoke again, and this time her voice was laced with amusement.

"As we told Violet, you're a treasure. Jonathan, please put down the cat and go get the other item I wanted to use."

As Jonathan's footsteps retreated, Kiera's came closer, and then she was in his field of vision, standing before him. She wore a black unitard, no jewelry, her hair slicked back from her face, her boots laced securely to her thighs. Latex black gloves covered her hands up to her elbows. She took a seat on the couch, crossed her legs and laid an arm along the back, as if she had nothing but time, but her eyes had a singular intensity that felt like she was drilling holes in his head already.

"So where is your sister? Is she part of this unholy trinity?"

"Mac," she said, "you don't need to worry about being a cop. You're going to be dead shortly, and all that matters is you'll be free of pain, of having to hide who you are."

"I admit, Jonathan surprises me. You're not a tremendous surprise, all in all, but he is."

"Oh, there are even more startling things than that." Powell's footsteps returned.

Mac jerked away at the rough touch on his jaw, but it was a futile gesture. Jonathan merely wrenched back his head with enough force to sprain muscles and shoved the ball gag into Mac's mouth, strapping it tightly around his head.

Kiera watched them impassively, then waved Jonathan back. "Give him ten lashes, love, to focus him on what I'm about to tell him, and then I want you to go cuff your left hand and left foot on the St. Andrew's cross. I'll come finish binding you in a moment.

We want to be all ready to play when Mistress Violet gets here." That cold hand around his intestines tightened exponentially and Mac's lips lifted in a snarl he could not voice around the gag.

"Ten, Mistress? With the barb?"

"Yes. Don't worry, love. I told you, he likes pain. Violet will be fine with it." She looked down at Mac, the corner of her mouth curving. Those large dark eyes were trapped somewhere between lust and pain. Both characteristics obviously dwelled within her in such phenomenal quantities that it was like looking at a person with a demon inside her. The monster was far larger than the body housing it, so that it made every word she said seem distorted, every facial expression an obscene aberration. It was something Mac was sure Powell could not see. He could, because in his line of work, he had seen it up close and personal. A person so far gone in death, blood and their own pain that there was nothing that could save them.

"I told Jonathan how you and I used to play together, and that you enjoyed kidnap scenarios," she said evenly. "I asked Tyler to leave Violet a message this morning, before he went out of town on his book tour, asking her to meet me here this evening for a very special surprise for her. Tyler's very generous with his dungeon for those he trusts, and Tamara and I have used it often. Jonathan rather hates you, so he wasn't keen on helping fulfill one of your fantasies at first. Then I told him you didn't really have any set boundaries, though I'd discovered there are certain things you truly dislike. So my gift to Jonathan for helping was going to be letting him fuck you in the ass. Jonathan's not really into men, but he does have an appreciation for the things that can cut someone's ego down to size, and I personally will enjoy seeing you suffer a bit.

He really is like a Dom in sub clothing, a sort of twisted one, but an interesting specimen altogether." A fond look came into her eyes at something Mac was glad he could not see. "Look at him. He's getting hard, just thinking about it. Jonathan, do my bidding."

"With pleasure, Mistress."

Mac sunk his teeth into the heavy rubber of the gag as the metal barb tips struck his back, jerked off more flesh.

Kiera watched him, her face detached. She was in a place where she was seeing things that weren't visible to the rest of them, Mac knew, and it did not seem to bring her any joy, just a grim purpose that boded ill for all of them.

"I can lash you so you'll feel the pain, but it won't draw blood. Jonathan has less experience at that. You'll just have to live with the scarring, at least for a short time." She blinked once.

A second and third strike fell, and Mac felt the pain jolt through his body like electrical current. His shoulder began to itch, as blood made its way down his back over his bicep, getting slowed in the hair on his arms.

"Very few can take it without screaming, but I know you can. Violet is going to be so impressed with your stamina."

The last stroke fell a few moments later, when all of them had merged into one vibrating field of pain on his back. Just as he released his breath, an eleventh came, striking across his ass, a barb catching his scrotum. His incisors sank down, slicing through the hard rubber, the reaction singing up through his gums and jaw.

"Jonathan, that was very naughty. Go cuff yourself."

"Yes, Mistress. My apologies, Mistress." Jonathan snickered.

The pain was unbelievable, worse than being shot, and for this there was no adrenaline kick in, nothing but throbbing, tearing agony.

"Now that you're paying attention, I'm going to tell you my secrets," she said, rising. She squatted down next to Mac and stroked her hand over his hair with her long fingers, following his cheekbone with her nail, pressing down a little hard, watching him as she traced the soft skin just below the vulnerable right eye. Mac kept his gaze steady on hers.

There was no fear now, only fury. He wouldn't give her fear, which meant he couldn't think about Violet getting here. He had to resolve this before then, one way or another.

"You know I like to mix potions. That cat was tipped in a very special mixture I make to punish my baddest boys. It's an alcohol base, mixed with a derivative of crushed nettle juice. Highly irritating, isn't it? It will keep hurting this badly all the way up to the last moment."

She brought her head down closer, so she could speak softly, where Jonathan could not hear. "I don't like to make my subs suffer just for the sake of pain. I draw their pain from them and then I release them with that one shot to the head. You're going to know it's coming, but I didn't want it that way. I don't want to hurt you except in ways that will give you release, focus you on what's important." She glanced toward Jonathan, now cuffed and waiting for her to finish restraining him, make him as helpless as Mac.

"But him I intend to shoot between the eyes. Give him a full minute to see it coming, because he's a heartless bastard. Justice can be almost as invigorating as mercy killings, hmm?"

She smiled, feathering his hair off his forehead, as if she were stroking a puppy.

"Lord, you are magnificent, you know that? I don't know what it is about you. I suppose you're thinking, Tyler will know who did this. Yes. Yes, he will. So I suppose I'll have to wait for him to come home and take care of that, just as I'll take care of Violet. I'm thinking I'll make it look like one of those 'sad, perverted life' stories. Erotica writer, living on the fringe of society, of reality, plays sick sex games with friends, offs them before he offs himself. And oh." She put her fingers to her lips, her eyes widening.

"One of them is Tampa's finest, a homicide detective who was working undercover to find the S&M killer, and got too close because, he too, sadly, was part of that sick S/M scene. I'm sure that will result in a full departmental investigation, because how could we allow our fine police force to be infiltrated by such a sexual deviant?" She stroked her finger down the line of his throat, her voice softening. "For you see, that's the problem. We all know what we are, but the world will never accept us. Would you like to hear a sad story?"

I'd like to put you out of your misery before Violet gets here, he thought grimly. How long did he have? Ten minutes? Five? An hour? If Violet had gone downstate to visit her mother, she might not get back until late afternoon, early evening, and then it was ninety minutes to Tyler's from Tampa. He tried not to think what Kiera could do to him in that amount of time, since she'd managed to inflict some serious damage in less than thirty seconds, but it would give him more time to plot a way to stop her before Violet got here. Or maybe Violet wouldn't come. Maybe she'd left a message on his machine that she'd decided to stay overnight at her mom's, or was running late.

Christ, Nighthorse. Focus. Powell's out of the picture, so figure out a way to overpower her.

While hogtied to a bench bolted to the floor. Good trick.

"Tamara tried to tell me from the beginning. You see, she knew when we were twelve what she was. I was her first submissive. I delighted in pleasing her, whether it was eating her pussy under the sheets at night, or doing her homework, or giving her my share of Halloween candy. I could sit at her feet for hours just for the pleasure of her touch on my hair. But she trained me to be a Mistress with her, to understand what it was to release people's emotions through pain, enjoy the sensuality of that, the give and take. When to hold the reins tight, when to let a sub have his head and when to put it to good use." Her lips curved. "One of them came to be quite dear to me. Long after Tamara was bored with him. She didn't really approve of us playing separately, so I had to hide my times with him. It made it even more exciting." Her eyes grew darker and Mac watched the changes in inflection, learning everything he could about her changes in mood and what they meant.

"But I wanted more. For the first time in my life. I wanted to wake up with a man around me in the morning. Silly, wasn't it? Totally impossible for people like us. T told me, over and over, but sometimes the heart just doesn't listen, does it?

"I told him what I wanted, and he said he couldn't. That he loved me, but eventually he was going to have to give up the scene and settle down with someone vanilla, that there was no way he could live his life like this forever and get where he wanted in his career. I lost my pride. I told him I could do that, would do that for him.

He cried, told me that 'together we'd always want to play the game.' I could see how much it hurt him, what we could never have but wanted so much. It tore me to pieces.

"It was inevitable that she found out about him, of course. I'm a Mistress, but I'm her sub, and your Mistress always knows everything you're thinking. You and Violet aren't there yet, but you would have been, you already sensed it coming. I broke down and told Tamara everything, the pain was so awful, his rejection.

"She loves me, has always looked after me, so she pretended she was me, went to his parents, told them what he was. Of course, it was his worst nightmare. Or so he always said it would be."

Her expression shifted, became dreamy, the closest to tranquility Mac had yet seen reflected in her face. "Tamara called me, told me to come over to his apartment, that she needed to show me something." She turned those soft brown eyes to him again. "You remember Bambi, the original book by Felix Salten, not the Disney whitewashed version? When the stag comes to get Bambi, to show him Man, with a capital 'M', lying dead on the forest floor, shot in a hunting accident? And Bambi is so afraid to get close, because the idea of Man was larger than life to him, something beyond his understanding. I was afraid like that when I walked into the room, smelled the blood. I was so afraid, because he was an extension of who I am, and if it had become too much for him, it would become too much for me. I was doomed. But Tamara made me come look at him, look at his face.

"He had shot himself, and was lying on the bed, curled up as if sleeping. There were thin tracks dried on his cheeks, and the side of his head was all blood. But the amazing thing was his face. His expression. It was so peaceful, so...released at last. It was then I understood, something I don't think even Tamara understood as much I did at that moment. All of them are looking for that release, all of them who are dedicating so much energy to hiding what they are, keeping it separate from the vanilla world. I can help. What is a sub but a person who wants to return to the bosom of an All-Powerful Mistress or Master, be watched over and cared for? Sometimes, I wish it was me. I imagine it is me, and I can be like them, at peace. But I'm a Mistress, and it's up to me to take care of a sub, help them find pleasure through pain, release through death. It follows and fits, don't you see?

"'There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.' Just as Bambi said. I am the 'Other' who can make things right for people like my love, my Thomas. We're all afraid to embrace death, even when we know it's the best thing for us. I could have helped him, so he never had to experience that awful moment with his parents. I could have released him and revealed his truth to them, so they would at last know, as he always wanted them to, but not be around to see their rejection or pain from it. He didn't have to suffer, none of you do.

"Struggle all you want, love," she noted the tensing of his muscles. "Those are lag bolts, holding that into an oak floor with a solid sub-flooring beneath. Tyler entertains all sorts of guests here, drives them near insane, so he's made it strong. You'd have to be Superman to get that loose."

She rose, went to Jonathan. Mac shouted around the gag, tried in some way to communicate to Powell the fatal mistake he was about to make, fought the chains, the bench, shoving off with his knees, his thigh muscles straining. Powell glanced over at him, then his attention was caught by his Mistress as she fondled him. He had stripped down, so now he was as naked as Mac. Being naked in the same room with Powell was a nauseating experience all by itself, but as Mac strained at his bonds, the lingering aftereffects of the drug they had given him only made him dizzier.

Kiera cuffed Jonathan's right hand, locking it to the cross, bent and did the same to his right foot, completing the process of making him helpless.

She came back to Mac, freed his gag with a rough jerk. "You can tell Jonathan what it is you wanted to say, now that I've gotten you all nicely trussed."

"You might as well kill us both and be done with it," Mac spat out blood, regretting that he just missed her boot. "Violet isn't coming."

"Of course she's coming. I expected her here already."

"Violet was involved in a car accident early in the week. She went to visit her mother today."

Kiera stared at him a long moment and Mac pulled his lips back in a feral grin.

"Really messes up your plans, doesn't it?"

"You're lying," she said flatly, though there was a seed of doubt in her eyes. "If that was true, you wouldn't have told me, to buy you more time."

"Unless I'm just sick of listening to your babbling rationalizations of why it's okay to murder people in cold blood." Mac weighed his options and made his choice. Kiera wasn't going to believe anything except what would take her by surprise. "Violet is a cop, like me, Kiera. She shot someone in the line of duty this week. You'd have heard about it on the news. Remember, the highway driver killed by a state trooper? That trooper was Violet. She got a flesh wound and she's on desk duty all week. Tyler probably didn't know she wasn't back at work yet."

"Liar!" She seized the cat and Mac ducked his face automatically, protecting himself as she brought it down. It caught his ear, shoulder, the back of his neck, one cheek bone.

The smell of his own blood, the burning pain of his back, all of it was adding to the nausea. If I'm going to die, let's get on with it before I have to throw up on myself.

"Why won't you understand that I'm trying to help you, release you from your pain? The hiding?"

"Because I accept who I am, Kiera," Mac snapped. "Unlike you and your dead boyfriend, I realized a long time ago that being a sub is just part of who I am. An important part, but not all of it. I enjoy serving a Mistress's pleasure, as much as I enjoy being a cop, or watching a Buccaneers game, or spending a day out in the Gulf on my boat. Being a sub doesn't make me less of a man. And to Violet, it makes me more of one, more of what she wants.

"All you're doing is making excuses. You're killing because you can't stand your own pain. Your sister fucked up your head early and you're acting out. It's not about you playing God, it's about the kill. Just seeing my blood is starting to make you shake. I can see it."

"What the hell is going on?" Jonathan demanded.

"Well, welcome to the party at last," Mac said derisively. "She's going to shoot us both in the head and make it look like Tyler did it. I'm a homicide cop and I've been tracking her. She's killed three other guys this past six weeks the same way. She'll call your parents after she does it, to make sure your nearest and dearest know what you are." He raised a brow, blinked against the blood running down into his eye. "Do you want my mother's phone number? Oh, sorry, that will mess you up further, because my mother died some time ago."

Thank God, because this would kill her.

"Shut up!" Kiera struck out again. This time her aim was wild, hitting him a glancing blow on the shoulder. She dropped it, turned to a cabinet and pulled out her gun, a polished nine millimeter, a Walther P99. A neat little gun to make a neat hole in his head. Mac forced himself to keep his eyes open as she jammed the barrel against his temple, her trembling finger on the trigger.

"Jesus Christ," Powell yanked against his bonds. "Jesus. I don't want any part of this. Kiera, Mistress..."

"Oh, do shut up." Kiera turned the pistol toward him.

"No," Mac snapped, with enough thunderous force to snatch her attention back to him. "Why kill him first? He's not going to tell anyone about you, a self-centered bastard like him. You want him to suffer, remember? Then he should live." She hesitated, uncertain, and the gun turned back toward Mac. "I should just kill you," she said slowly, "You're the one who needs release. You're too angry. I can feel how much pain you're in."

Most of it from that damn cat, he thought dryly. "Do it," he urged, his eyes glittering, focused on her, focused on the gun. "Do it and let him go."

"Mackenzie." A voice came down to them from the top of the stairs. "You know better than to give a Mistress orders. I've taught you better than that."