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Regina hung back until they entered, then she closed the distance. Terry immediately issued a clipped order to stop the session, but Regina saw it was protocol only, like the police identifying themselves to a perp who'd already given up.
Siren was collapsed in a corner of the room on a chair. She was trembling, her face rigid as if she was about to start screaming through stiff lips.
The situation wasn't what Regina had assumed, but when she saw who the sub was, it wasn't a surprise. It also hit her hard in the lower belly.
Goddamn Marius.
Marius's reputation at The Zone had been going downhill over the past months. Most Mistresses didn't even bother with him anymore, but when they did, the highest rating he earned was "frustrating-as-fuck." Topping from the bottom, an incorrigible brat, a misclassified Dom, a sub caught in the nebulous world of not wanting to be a Dom, but way too controlling to be a top. She'd heard all the speculations, and had wondered if he was an amalgamation of all of that. Plus one more, added by her good friend Lyda.
"He's become a total asshole," the Mistress had said bluntly.
Regina didn't disagree with the assessment, but the changes he'd displayed since the night she'd done a demo scene with him hadn't been able to completely erase the impact he'd made upon her that night. They had kept her in observation mode ever since, though. No matter how fascinating she found a question with no ready answer, she wasn't going to commit herself until she was sure he was worth her time. That he had the potential to be more than an asshole.
She didn't know if this would close the file on her interest, but it would be the end of something. As her gaze swept Room 7, the cold feeling told her what had happened here. It also explained Alex's frustration and Terry's anger.
Boy, you are so done. You finally pushed it too far.
Even so, his condition sent a spurt of angry incredulity through Regina. While Siren wasn't the most experienced Domme at The Zone, and she had qualities that Regina knew might have been rubbed the wrong way with a difficult power sub like Marius, she had enough experience to step back if she was losing control of her emotions. But she hadn't. Obviously.
Marius was off his feet, hung by his arms. His torso, legs and upper thighs were a mass of ugly welts, some inflamed enough to weep blood. The tools responsible were lying in a discarded stack on the ground. Fuck, she'd thrown everything but the kitchen sink at him. Dragon tail, violet wand, steel paddle. Even a frigging sjambok, a wicked-looking rubber cane.
The painfulness of the marks, the strain in his shoulders, should have been evident in his expression. Yet she only saw boredom, a mild annoyance. Until he turned his eyes toward her and she caught a flash beneath all that. A look which stopped everything and put her Mistress instincts on high alert.
Feral. Wild and violent, an animal in a trap. Then it was gone and the boredom was back.
Two things were happening. He was as spun up as any submissive would be, caught an intense scene that had gone bad. Yet another part of him, the part she suspected had contributed largely to that wrong direction, had iron control over his exterior reaction, making him look detached.
It was a dangerous deception, one she admitted she'd never had to defuse. Most times, a topping sub stayed in control. Marius was both in and out of control.
This boy shouldn't be within a hundred yards of a BDSM club environment. Not anymore.
Because another disturbing element in that buried-deep-but-not-deep-enough look was the desire to do harm. It made her cut Siren a little more slack, because it wasn't something that particular Domme would have recognized until it was too late. It was what a human predator emanated, emerging out of a cloak of shadows in a dark alley. But Regina was no one's prey.
"If the Mistress is done with me," Marius said to no one in particular, "it'd be nice to get some slack."
Siren had stayed hunched on the chair, shaking her lowered head as Terry spoke to her, the manager's hand on her shoulder. Yet when Marius spoke, the Domme's head whipped up like she'd been stung by a bee.
"You didn't give me any slack." She spat the words in a hoarse growl and exploded off the chair, taking Terry by surprise. Before she could grab Siren, the Mistress had charged Marius like a wounded animal, going after him with black nails and shoving hands, tearing a grunt from him as the impact jerked him against the chains.
Alex quickly subdued her in a neutralizing pin, and Terry moved to block her view of Marius. Regina stepped over the threshold, catching the manager's eye. "I'll handle him if you want to get her out of here," she offered.
Typically, the sub would have been the first person they attended. But Marius was being an ass, his studied indifference a passive attack, and they needed to get Siren away from that act now.
Terry had come to the same conclusion, prioritizing the care of the Domme to protect the interests of the club. "Appreciate it," she said shortly.
Siren was weeping in Alex's arms. In that condition, they could shepherd her out between them without further incident. Regina slid past them and approached Marius.
"Poor thing," Marius murmured. His tone was flat, not mocking, but Regina went with instinct.
She fetched him a sharp slap that boxed his ear.
It might not look like "safety first," but that hadn't made it any less necessary. He'd been moving his head, following the activity in the room, so she wasn't worried about neck issues. The rebuke served the right purpose, snapping his attention to her. Seizing his sweat-dampened dark hair, she jerked his head around and clamped her other hand on his jaw so he could see Siren being led down the hallway. Marius had a solid, strong-boned face, his jaw covered with a manly dark sandpaper stubble that rasped under her fingertips.
Alex had paused to give Siren a tissue from one of the liberally distributed dispensers before putting an arm around her again.
"That's your handiwork. Proud of yourself? Look at her. Unless you can't."
This time the aggression that flashed to the surface of his expression stayed. Good. She needed to spill off as much of that as she could, in addition to tending to the physical issues. Releasing him, she rested one palm between his shoulder blades and picked up the remote control to the suspension system. As she started taking him back to the ground, she could feel his explosive energy through her touch. If it wasn't defused, he could take this situation from bad to worse.
