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  “Master Cole?”

  His assistant stood just inside his office door, gawking at him, apparently enjoying the view as he began to button his shirt. Not surprising, since she was also one of the subs he’d hired. “Yes, Kara?”

  She held up a note. “Your father just sent you this message on the secure line. He said it was urgent and I should give it to you right away.”

  Frowning, for drama was not Alan’s forte, Cole took the message, cursing as he read the first few lines:

  Cole, I just learned that Dax Petrone was shipped out on the same transporter as your sister. Even though she has her friend Amber with her, I am concerned, as this man has caused Ciel so much trouble. Please do what you can.

  He dropped the note on his desk and bolted out the door, not bothering to finish buttoning his shirt, hoping he wasn’t too late. Apparently the arrangement Dax had made to avoid either prison or transportation had fallen through, and if so, Dax was going to be furious, ready to take out his frustration on everyone around him, particularly Ciel and Amber.

  Fuck. The transporter ships that brought exiles here had nothing in the way of security for anyone but the pilots. Cade gunned the hovercraft and made for the transporter docks.

  * * * * *

  Amber lay bound hand and foot on the cold, hard metal floor of the transporter’s austere rear cabin, alone except for Master Dax. When she saw the sizzling branding iron, she understood what he meant to do, why he had dragged her away from the main cabin and the rest of the exiles. The iron glowed an eerie blue-red before her eyes, held steady by the smiling satyr who had it in his grasp.

  “You will pay with agonizing pain for having had me sent into exile, slave.”

  “No. Please, Master Dax, do not.” Amber struggled through the haze of a stupor induced by too much pain, too much fucking. If Ciel had been there, she’d have kept Master Dax from hurting her this way, but she wasn’t. Her friend had been sleeping in the main cabin when Dax had dragged her in here. As Dax brought the iron closer, Amber tried to recall the safe word. Slowly, the iron descended then disappeared from her range of vision.

  “No. God, no.” The stench of her skin burning practically blotted out the agony of being branded. She barely recognized the sound of her own flesh sizzling as Dax held the red-hot brand on her left ass cheek.

  He put pressure on the red-hot brand as though he intended to burn all her flesh away. “This is but the first of many marks I will give you. Learn to love them. I won’t stop until I’ve marked every inch of your body for your treachery.”

  He raised the branding iron and held it in the flame once more, watching as it regained the heat it had poured into Amber’s flesh.

  The transporter shuddered, then lurched forward.

  The star commander’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Take your seats and prepare for landing. We are experiencing turbulence on our approach.”

  Amber screamed, suddenly remembering the safe word Ciel had given her long ago and shared with Dax. “Turbulence.”

  “You have no safe word now. None. You have, however, earned a brief reprieve, for it seems we’re about to land on Obsidion.” He extinguished the flame and set the branding iron in its cradle.

  Where was Ciel? Dax had to have done something to her, knocked her out. Her friend and Mistress would never have stood still and let him deface her this way. Amber forced her eyes open as soon as they’d docked, but she could barely see through her tears.

  Something crashed into the metal door, the noise making Amber cringe even before a man burst in, his accompaniment a string of curses. “You sadistic son of a bitch!” It sounded like Cole, Ciel’s brother. Amber held her breath, hoping…

  “Fuck you, rich boy.” Dax said more, but the sounds coming from his lips morphed into a scream. Cole’s meaty fist hit Dax’s open mouth with enough force to make him stagger backward spitting teeth, blood spurting from his lips.

  Amber saw Cole now, standing over Dax’s prone body like an avenging angel. Spots of blood dotted his fists, and she saw murder in his dark expression. Amber strained against the cuffs and belts that held her on her belly, unable to move more than a few inches in any direction. She took solace despite the burning on her ass cheek, knowing Dax was feeling pain as well.

  Guilt swamped her for feeling that way about a Dom. A submissive wasn’t supposed to harbor such thoughts. Instinctively, she knew Master Cole would never ignore her safe word. Ever.

  Now, even though she was in excruciating pain, Amber felt the first sense of real happiness she’d experienced since learning more than a year earlier that Cole had been exiled. A sense of joy spread over her as she looked at him, the hard-muscled chest framed by the two sides of his open shirt, the powerful thighs encased in snug denim that drew her gaze there and higher, to the outline of his cock and balls.

  The furious expression he wore would soften, she imagined, when his sub was pleasuring him. Amazingly, arousal stirred in her despite her burning ass cheek, her shock…

  Ciel! What had Dax done to her? Amber opened her mouth, managed to croak out her friend’s name before her throat constricted and she had to gasp for breath.

  “I sent for the medics to take care of Ciel,” Cole said. “Be thankful I’m a rational man, or I’d also be summoning a mortician if there were one here on Obsidion. For this piece of shit.”

  “But Ciel’s not dead. She can’t be…”

  “No. If the bastard had killed her, I would have ended his worthless life without a second thought. She’s in bad shape though.” Cole stripped his belt from around his waist and used it to bind Dax’s limp arms behind his back. Then he came to Amber and removed the handcuffs and leg shackles, cursing when he saw that they’d cut into her tender flesh. “I’ll take you home and have the medic see to you too.”

  She could tell from his scowl as he examined her angry wound that it disgusted him. “Did you allow him to do this to you?” he asked, making an obvious effort to maintain an even tone.

  “I told him no. Didn’t want this, didn’t want to be his slave. I used the safe word.” Amber hated the look of revulsion on Cole’s handsome face. She’d observed Cole enough to know that he’d always taken care never to damage the subs he’d played with at the clubs back on Earth.

  “I’ll kill him.” Cole sounded fierce, but the way he lifted Amber and carried her off the transporter was incredibly gentle. Mindful of her injury, he settled her on her belly next to Ciel, in the cargo area of a large hovercraft marked No Bounds.

  “Please don’t do anything like that. I couldn’t bear to see you imprisoned because of me.”

  * * * * *

  Amber’s concern for Cole moved him. Through the next stressful hours, the knowledge bolstered him and kept him going. He brought in Ulrica, one of the most highly recommended Obsidion medics, and had her give Amber something for pain before going to work on his sister.

  For nearly six tense hours, Ulrica worked on Ciel, purging her systems of the drug Dax had apparently forced on her and monitoring her closely until it appeared that she would pull through. “Your sister should survive,” the woman said, “no thanks to the monster who overdosed her.”

  “Will she…” Cole couldn’t voice his fear that the drug might have left Ciel an empty shell.

  Ulrica straightened and met Cole’s gaze. “I believe there should be little if any lasting damage to her brain or other vital organs.”

  “Thank you.” Though he had left Amber in the care of one of his staff members, Cole felt drawn now to be with her. As Ciel had fought for her life, he’d looked in on Amber every few minutes, reassuring himself that she was in good hands. Seeing her pain subside had lessened his worry, but it crept back into his mind when on his next visit it had returned despite frequent doses of pain medication. “Can you give Amber something stronger for her pain?”

  “It would not be wise. I’ve never understood why some of you Earthling masters insist upon the practice of branding your slaves.” Ulr
ica shook her head, her expression disapproving. “Barbaric, that’s what it is, when lasers will mark flesh just as effectively without causing so much pain—not to mention the likelihood of infection.”

  “Not all Doms are sadists. I certainly am not one. That brand was the work of the fiend who nearly killed my sister, and it was done without Amber’s consent.”

  The healer shot a doubtful look Cole’s way. “I will go now that your sister is out of danger. She will sleep, possibly for twenty-four hours or more. Someone will need to observe her and contact me if anything changes. I will check Amber before I leave.”

  For a long time Cole stayed with Ciel, but when she still slept peacefully after half a day, he left her with a staff member and took a break. He needed some time away, needed to shower and eat and be sure everything was going as planned to ready the club for the grand opening.

  Something drew him to Amber’s bedside. Ignoring his fatigue and everything he needed to do, he pulled a chair up beside her bed and watched her sleep on her side, her cheek pressed to the pillow in an almost childish pose. An unfamiliar sense of tenderness overcame him and he reached out and stroked her soft blonde hair back from her face.

  When she woke, she turned her head and looked over at him with innocent-looking golden eyes.

  “Here, try to drink a little of this,” he said as he held a cup of cold water to her lips. She wasn’t so weak that she couldn’t have held it for herself, but he wouldn’t let her. He dismissed the question of why he was insisting that she take her pill from his hand and slake her thirst by letting him serve her.

  There was no question. Cole knew why he wanted to do for Amber what she could do for herself. He wanted her. But she belonged to his sister. He had to get a grip on his emotions—and his lust.

  “How is Ciel?” Her gaze was on him now as he raised his weary head from his hands and focused on her. Pale and shaken yet apparently no longer in severe pain, she managed a smile, then repeated, “What did he do to Ciel?”

  “She’ll survive. Barely. The bastard force-fed her enough drugs to choke a horse.” Cole stood, walked around the bed and pulled back the covers, grimacing when he looked at the angry wound that covered Amber’s left ass cheek. “The medic told me that when this heals it will be the bastard’s initials. Apparently it can be removed with a series of skin grafts. She also mentioned it could be modified now, while it still is raw, and turned into something more attractive before your skin begins to mend itself.”

  Amber shuddered, as though the idea of enduring more of the excruciating pain Dax had inflicted terrified her. Stepping back, Cole pulled the sheet back up over a sort of platform the medic had erected to keep the covers from touching her wound and causing more discomfort. “Ulrica told me that the modification would be done with a laser tool and you’d be sedated,” he said, even as ire built in him that she had thought he would permit her to endure another old-fashioned branding in his home.

  “How would she modify the design?” Obviously Amber wasn’t thrilled at having the sadistic Dom’s initials emblazoned on her body even for the short time until she healed and the brand could be surgically removed. That pleased Cole immeasurably.

  “Ulrica said a skilled laser artist could turn those initials into a simple flower. A lily, maybe. Or a rose. Would you like that?”

  “I believe I would like it if it were done on your order, Master Cole.”

  Amber, calling him Master? They’d been playmates, friends…equals. He had tried never to let himself consider her as a potential slave. In fact, he’d often had to remind himself that he assumed she was the exclusive property of his sister, not so much in a sexual way as in the manner of a companion, a submissive follower who Ciel could dangle like a carrot in the faces of other Dommes and Doms she wanted to impress.

  But the wanting had been there, Cole knew, even though he’d buried his lust deeply under a veneer of friendship. He recalled many nights when he’d slept and dreamed of tasting Amber’s soft pink lips, feeling those lips stretched around his cock. He’d fantasized about claiming her cunt and ass until she came as she’d never come before.

  He grew dizzy as blood rushed to his cock. Hell, just thinking about her got him rock-hard and turned his brain to mush. “My order? Are you saying you want to be my slave?”

  The look in Amber’s golden eyes when she raised her gaze to his slammed into Cole’s gut. “If that would please you, Master.” She seduced him with a worshipful gaze and honeyed words, and that made him wild with lust. He had to take her. He wanted to mark her as his possession in every way he knew.

  Except with a brand. Or in any other manner that would put a permanent sign of his ownership on her flesh.

  Unfortunately, he would have to do that or wait for the signs of Dax’s abuse to be obliterated. Once again, Cole wished that he’d killed Petrone when he’d had the opportunity. He pictured that bastard holding her, ignoring her pleas to stop, cooking the tender flesh of her buttock with red-hot metal.

  Had the pervert had an orgasm while he’d been making her flesh sizzle, inflicting unthinkable agony on Amber’s helpless body? As Cole traced the faint blue line that marked her jugular vein, he realized how small, how fragile she really was. “It would please me to take you, to control you, to care for you. But what about Ciel? What is your relationship with her?”

  “I love her as a sister. We have never been lovers, except when it pleased her to use me that way in order to torture her slave of the moment. Will she recover fully from whatever it was that Master Dax gave her?”

  Cole shook his head. “I’m not sure, but Ulrica thinks she’ll eventually be all right. I know that if—when—Ciel comes back to us in spirit as well as fact, I will insist she get some therapy. This baiting she likes to do with sociopathic Doms like Dax will eventually be the death of her.”

  Amber reached out and touched Cole’s hand. “Master, I don’t believe Ciel is a true Domme.”

  “You think she’s a switch?” Cole doubted that, but it certainly was a possibility he was willing to consider.

  “No, I’ve always believed she’s a submissive who’s determined to resist that part of her psyche. It makes sense when you think about the fact that she’s the oldest child of a very powerful father who expects less from her than from you just because she’s female.” When Amber turned her head toward Cole, she gave him a smile that brought out every protective instinct he’d ever had. “Unlike me. I want nothing more from life than to be enslaved by a loving master. By you.”

  Cole wanted desperately to crawl into that bed and take Amber. He longed to make her his in every way. But he couldn’t, not now. What she needed at the moment was tenderness, time to heal. “Keep that thought in mind until you’re well again, ready to give yourself fully to me. Never doubt that I yearn to claim you. For now, though, I’m going to watch over you, take care of you. I want to give you the time you need to make sure you heal properly.” He paused, bent and brushed his lips across hers. “I’ve waited years for you, you know.”

  She reached over and took his hand. “You need not wait any longer, Master.”

  “Yes. I do. Claiming you the way I want to would only make this hurt more.” He laid a hand on the opposite buttock from the raw wound of the brand, caressed her gently.

  “Will you please change the brand, Master?”

  He could live with looking at Petrone’s initials but he sensed that Amber could not. “Yes, sweetheart. I’ll send for the laser artist now.” When he reached the door, he paused. Damn it, he hated the thought of causing her more pain. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure, Master. If I’m going to wear a brand, I want it to be yours.”

  “All right. Just know, I would never have chosen to mark you if—”

  “I know you wouldn’t. It’s okay.”

  Chapter Two

  He couldn’t watch, yet he couldn’t make himself leave. Cole paced in front of a window in Amber’s room looking out on Obsidion’s rugged terrai
n. He tried to imagine the scene a year from now, after the straggly trees and shrubs he had planted grew up to lend some green to a setting that was now mostly jagged rock and hard clay riddled with shifting crevices in its arid surface.

  Every time the stench of burning flesh began to gag him, he reminded himself that Ulrica had sedated Amber before the laser artist began her work. He had seen her inject the powerful local anesthetic and observed Amber’s expression soften, her fists unclench as the drug had numbed her tortured flesh.

  He had to tell himself over and over that Amber felt nothing that the artist was doing to transform Petrone’s entwined initials. She’d assured them that the brand would heal to look like a graceful lily once she was done.

  But Cole was impatient. He wanted the procedure finished. Who knew how long it would be before the anesthetic wore off? “How much longer will it take?”

  He steeled himself before turning away from the window and moving to the bedside. He had to see for himself exactly what was going on.

  “The design is almost finished now. Would you care to take a look?” The artist straightened and set the laser tool in its cradle.

  The first thing Cole saw were tears streaming from Amber’s eyes, staining her cheeks and dampening the pillow. “You hurt her,” he ground out as fury bubbled up inside him and threatened to spill over into action. He’d never before felt so protective or so possessive of a woman—certainly not of a woman he’d never fucked. Never even kissed or touched in a carnal way.

  He liked the feeling, this new depth of emotion that compelled him to take care of Amber. Not just her sexual needs but her general well-being. He took another step forward when he saw smoke rise off Amber’s flesh.

  “Stop now.” He grasped the artist’s hand as she was about to pick up the laser again.

  She spoke through clenched teeth. “I will not tolerate your interfering. Your slave is completely numb. She can’t feel a thing. Please believe that I would not cause her further distress.”