Masters at Arms Read online

  Masters at Arms

  by Kallypso Masters

  Masters at Arms

  First in the Rescue Me Series

  by

  Kallypso Masters

  Copyright 2011, Kallypso Masters

  Smashwords Edition

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Edited by Jeri Smith, www.booksmithediting.com

  Cover art by Linda Lynn

  This book contains content that is not suitable for readers 17 and under.

  Thank you for downloading this e-book. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author, Kallypso Masters, at [email protected].

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (See http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/ for more information about intellectual property rights.)

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons—living or dead—or places, events, or locales is purely accidental. The characters are reproductions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  To discover more about the books in this series and others by Kallypso Masters, follow her “Ahh, Kallypso…the stories you tell” blog at http://kallypsomasters.blogspot.com. Or send a friend request to Kallypso Masters on Facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter as @kallypsomasters.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my pre-publication fans who fell in love with the Masters at Arms—Adam, Marc, and Damián—and followed along on my journey since May 2011. Your encouragement and excitement kept me working to make sure this novel lived up to your expectations. (Of course, the masters used the flogger and single-tailed whip on occasion, as needed, for motivation, too.)

  Now I turn the Master at Arms over to your good care. (But, trust me, if you’re bad, they can be even more fun. Of course, you’ll have to wait to see how their romances turn out in Nobody’s Angel, Nobody’s Hero, and Nobody’s Perfect—where their sexy Dom modes will come to the fore.)

  I also dedicate this book to the men and women in uniform. God bless and thank you for your service.

  Acknowledgements

  There are so many people to thank, and I’m sure I’ll forget some. First, I’d like to thank my editor, Jeri Smith, of Booksmith Editing. Your keen eye and excellent suggestions have made this book into what it is today, and have led me to improve on how the story of how these three men formed such a strong band-of-brothers bond. Thanks also for your encouragement. I look forward to working with you on the other books in this series.

  To my beta readers and critiquers Fiona Campbell, Kristin Harris, Kelly Hensley, Carol Ann MacKay, Kathy McKenzie, Kelly Mueller, Lani Rhea, Kelly Timm, and Kathy Treadway. Your insightful suggestions helped save me embarrassment and to make this book and its characters so much stronger.

  To Laura Harner, Carol Ann MacKay, and S.A. Moore, thanks for your help in getting my military facts straight. All remaining errors are mine, of course. (Readers: Please keep in mind that the military protocols and equipment described in this book are from 2002-2005 and may not be the same as those followed currently.)

  Thanks to my many Facebook friends for encouragement and support. Thanks to Elizabeth Leighton, who came up with the title of this book; to Lizzie Walker, who discovered Master Adam’s craving for peanut butter; and to Anita Hayes who just knew Master Adam would listen to Aerosmith.

  To my wonderful MPs, thank you for lifting me up, making me laugh, giving me delightful inspiration into the lifestyle, and providing me multiple social-networking fixes every day! You’re the best! Thanks to Katona Barnes and Lisa Kait, especially for completing the Mistresses Admin 3. We’re invincible!

  Last, but not in no way least, to Cherise Sinclair, who wrote Club Shadowlands, the first erotic romance I ever read. Your Doms and subbies are to die for and I hope mine are one-tenth as memorable. Thanks also for your Facebook friendship, mentoring me on various aspects of the lifestyle, and for your ongoing support and encouragement. Now, please get back to work and finish Master Raoul’s story, my dear Alpha Sub. I can’t wait for my next visit to Club Shadowlands.

  Section One

  Prequel to Adam’s Story, Nobody’s Hero

  Night before Thanksgiving 2002, Chicago, Illinois

  Joni, you were my anchor. I’m lost without you.

  Adam Montague slumped into the seat at the terminal, hoping to catch a couple hours of sleep before his bus left. He looked around Chicago’s busy terminal and saw the autumn decorations scattered every five yards or so. Apparently, going for the homey Thanksgiving look. Not even close. Just another crap-hole bus station, no different from the ones he’d seen a lot of during his early years in the Marines.

  Twenty-two years. He’d survived the First Gulf War in 1991 and a deployment to Kosovo in ’99. Just when he and Joni started planning for his retirement, some damned assholes attacked the United States, the country he’d sworn to protect and defend. So, he’d put off turning in his retirement papers until he could see how Operation Enduring Freedom went. He’d serve as long as he was useful and needed.

  Adam had been deployed to Kandahar twice since 2001. His first tour ended with a medical leave earlier this year after a clusterfuck of bad intelligence led one of his recon units into an ambush with disastrous results. He’d gone in after them and gotten only a few of them out unscathed, but he’d lost two good men and managed to get himself injured in the bargain.

  So, he’d been home at Camp Pendleton with Joni more than a month last winter as his body had healed. Now he wondered if she’d known about her cancer back then and kept it from him. Would it have made any difference if he’d known? He’d have been sent back to war and she’d still have had to fight the disease alone. She’d known the deal when she married him. While he was active duty, she’d have to take a back seat to whatever crisis he’d been sent to fight in the world.

  His last tour had ended with his hardship leave two months ago when Joni’s mother had finally told him Joni’s cancer had come back with a vengeance. He hung his aching head and held it in his hands hoping the heels of his hands would quell the throbbing in his temples.

  Memories of walking into that bedroom in Minneapolis two months ago flashed through his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out, but knew the sight was imprinted there forever. God, the disease had so ravaged her body by the time he got home, he was afraid to touch her. Then her frail hand had patted the queen-sized mattress and he’d crawled into bed with her and held her in his arms while she sobbed.

  Adam raised his head and wiped his hands down his face. Numb. He still felt numb, whether from losing Joni or from the two-week bender, he wasn’t sure. Probably a bit of both.

  He guessed his units were out of Kandahar by now. Sounded like Iraq would be next on their dance card.

  Bring it on. I got nothin’ left to lose.

  Fuck! Stinkin’ thinkin’ like that would get the men and women under him killed. He knew he wasn’t mentally ready to go back, but his orders were to report Monday. He hoped he’d find the fire in his gut he’d need by the time he reunited with his units.

  A cornucopia cutout hanging from a fluorescent light fluttered when a blustery wind blew in from the open doors. Joni had always taken so much pride in making their home festive for the holidays. She especially loved Christmas, even though it was just the two of them, well, when he wasn’t deployed. She even kept her nativity set and some other favorite decorations displayed all year long for whenever he did make it h
ome. Not that he paid much attention to that. He’d just been happy to see her, hold her, love her, and make up for lost time.

  So damned much lost time.

  What the hell was he going to do with all that stuff now? He’d call her mother and tell her to do whatever she wanted with it. He had his memories and a few photos—and her wedding ring. Shit, he hoped Joni had gotten rid of their playthings before she’d moved in with her mom. Well, nothing he could do about that now.

  Camp Pendleton—or wherever he would be sent—would be his home until he retired from the Corps. He hoped that, by the time he got back in country, whichever war zone that would be, he’d have shaken off this black mood that matched the frigid black night outside.

  In a way, he couldn’t wait to get back. War and military life, he understood. What stumped him was cancer. Fucking cancer. Nothing in his tactical or weaponry training prepared him to help Joni fight against the insurgent that destroyed her body.

  Not that she’d even wanted him to help her fight the disease. By the time she’d let her mom tell him about the recurrence, she was given a month at best. She’d managed to hold out for a couple weeks longer than that estimate.

  God, his eyes burned. He rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger, then lowered his hand and clenched his fist. Damn it, he should have known sooner.

  Joni told him she saw no point in pulling him away from a place where he could make a difference, just to sit by her bed and watch her die. She’d figured he’d have gone stir crazy with the helplessness of not being able to do anything to change the unalterable outcome.

  God, he’d kill for another bottle of scotch right now. He looked at the wino passed out on the floor across the room. Adam thought about offering the man a wad of money for whatever he had left in the brown-paper wrapped bottle he clutched to his chest with both arms, like a lover.

  Adam had held Joni in his arms for the last time, just like that, as she had slipped away from him forever. Before she died, two days short of their twentieth wedding anniversary, she’d assured him she wouldn’t have changed a thing in their years together.

  Hell, he’d sure have changed a few things.

  Togetherness wasn’t the best word to describe their marriage. She’d lived with him on base when he wasn’t deployed, and they had eight years together after the end of the Gulf War and before he’d been sent to Kosovo. Then came Operation Enduring Freedom and he hadn’t been home much since.

  They’d talked about the good times they’d had in the ’80s and ’90s when he hadn’t been deployed to war zones. Their Dom/sub power exchanges had been total then. But that had been impossible to sustain while deployed.

  Fire burned the backs of his eyes. Joni never wanted him to take his focus off the military missions to deal with her “little problems.” Like the time she’d totaled the car. She’d had to take care of everything herself. He’d been deployed, of course. As always, she’d handled everything perfectly. Except she hadn’t told him. Said she was afraid he’d be upset about the car. Hell, he didn’t give a shit about the fucking car. He’d just been worried when he heard how close she’d come to being killed.

  All of the times she’d needed him—from when she’d held their stillborn son in her arms in 1991 to when she’d fought her last rounds of chemo and radiation this past summer—he’d been fighting battles elsewhere. Long deployments in too many hot spots in the world had come before her more often than he’d wanted. Hell, he’d barely made it home in time to watch her die.

  Joni, I’m so fucking lost without you.

  He blinked against the burning in his eyes. After her burial, Adam spent two weeks locked in a Minneapolis motel room trying to dig a hole deep enough to bury his sorrows. He’d only wound up in a drunken stupor, not unlike that wino’s over in the corner. Joni had told him to lay off the bottle twenty years ago because his excessive drinking scared her. Her father had been an alcoholic. He’d wanted her to be proud of him and had quit for her.

  Until now. In the past couple weeks, there’d been a few nights where he’d come out of his stupor clutching a bottle of scotch to his chest.

  A lousy substitute for Joni.

  But, if he hadn’t been due back at Camp Pendleton in five days, he’d still be in that hell-hole motel—or buried six feet under beside Joni. He remembered how close he’d come one night, staring down the barrel of his pistol.

  He shuddered and looked around the still-crowded station. He’d been here for several hours waiting for his next connection. With holiday travel in full swing, Adam had known he wouldn’t have managed to hop a seat on a flight in time to get to Pendleton by Monday. Maybe if he’d sobered up sooner. No matter. This weekend, the clientele in bus stations better suited his foul mood. They wouldn’t bother him and he fucking sure wouldn’t bother them. The last thing he wanted right now was a chatty companion asking if he was headed home to be with family.

  He had no family anymore.

  Adam leaned forward and held his aching head in his hands. He sure as hell hoped he’d lose the aftereffects of this binge before he got back on base. The colonel would bust his chops if he saw him like this. Adam knew he had a lot of eager young men and women looking to him to set an example, too.

  He just didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone right now, and didn’t know when he would again.

  “Can I get you something to eat?”

  Adam looked up, squinting at the throbbing in his temples caused by the fluorescent lighting. Yeah, blame the lights. He saw a lanky black man in pimped-out orange pants and a Robin’s egg-blue shirt talking to a teenage girl seated across from him. She must have just sat down a few minutes ago, because he’d have noticed her before with her spiked neon pink hair and the most god-awful amount of makeup around her eyes.

  Despite the bravado of her flashy hairstyle and all-black Goth outfit, her wide-eyed gaze darted to the pimp, then away. When he slid into the empty seat next to her, she leaned away from him in small degrees, as if not wanting to offend him by just getting up and moving. When the dickwad reached out to touch her hair, she squeezed her blue eyes shut and shrank into the chair.

  Little girl lost.

  Don’t let him scare you.

  Adam’s attention shifted to the dickwad. No, Dickwad—with a capital D.

  “No, thanks. I already ate,” she answered in a high-pitched squeak.

  Don’t be polite. Tell him to go fuck himself, hon.

  “How about a drink? There’s a liquor store around the corner.” He took her elbow, and she shook him off.

  “No!”

  Better.

  “Thanks, anyway, but I’m waiting for my bus to New York.”

  Aw, honey, don’t go and tell him your plans.

  “That where you live?”

  “No. I, um, have a job waiting.” She looked away.

  Shit. A runaway. The girl barely looked fifteen under all that makeup. Adam sat up straighter, ignoring the pounding in his head. If that sorry bastard touched her again, he’d ice him like a salmon.

  Don’t forget, you have your own bus to catch. He didn’t need to be playing hero and winding up doing jail time for assaulting the jerk.

  The runaway pulled her backpack closer to her chest and tried to scoot to the other side of her chair, but the armrest prevented her escape. Like a shark, the pimp moved in on her—the most vulnerable prey he could find here on the night before Thanksgiving.

  Her hand shaking, she unzipped a pouch in the pack and pulled out a book. The cover showed a vampire whose fangs were about to pierce the neck of some half-dressed busty woman who looked like she was about to come. While the runaway pretended to read, she cast nervous glances at Dickwad. He just continued to stare at her, trying to intimidate her. Succeeding, too. When the pimp reached out to stroke her hair again, she pulled away.

  “Please, leave me alone.”

  Aw, fuck, don’t let him see you cry. The tears welling in her eyes tore Adam’s guts out. He’d never been able to
see a woman cry. Girls either, for that matter.

  The pimp hooked his hand around her arm just above the elbow and tried to force her to her feet. “Come on, baby. Let’s get outta here.”

  Anger boiled over in Adam, a sensation he’d been trying to medicate against for weeks. Clenching his fists, he took a deep, slow breath. He fought the need to pummel Dickwad into the ground. Hell, as hung-over as he was, Adam wondered if he’d even be able to take the prick down.

  But he’d love the chance to work off some of his anger. Damned if he’d sit and watch that shithead harass a little girl—or worse. Adam stood and took a step toward them, towering over the man.

  “I think the young lady asked you to f—” remembering the young girl, he reminded himself to watch his language, “—get lost.”

  The pimp looked him up and down. “Fuck off, soldier boy. Get your own ho.”

  Adam’s hands snaked out to lift the skinny little prick out of the seat like a sack of potato chips. Obviously Dickwad had no such filter on his salty language. He threw him across the room and watched with satisfaction as the perv slid until he landed against the ticket counter, far from the girl. Adam stood with legs apart, braced for Dickwad to make a move against him.

  Come on, punk. He’d love the chance to pummel the prick within an inch of his sorry-assed life. Adam clenched and unclenched his fists his breathing fast and shallow.

  Waiting.

  When the pimp stood up, he brushed himself off, and slunk toward the exit muttering something about evening up the odds. Adam turned to look down at the girl. Damn. Her hands were shaking so badly, he thought she’d pull her book apart at the seams.

  Scared to death.

  * * *