AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her third head nod is her most fervent yet.
I deliver her to the bathroom, armed with the supplies she’ll need—Epsom salt, soaps and bath bombs, my finest type of Turkish bath towel, and another t-shirt of mine she can wear. For now, until we can wash and dry her pair, she’ll have to go without panties.
The sound of running water follows me the rest of the walk down the hall and to my bedroom. The punishment game Lyra and I played took well over an hour. In the time I’ve been gone, I’ve missed four calls.
Two from Rebecca at the office. Another from Nolan. The last from an unknown number.
I call Rebecca first. She answers in a stressed ramble about my schedule and missed appointments. I’ve cut my hours in half over the past two weeks, rescheduled with several clients, and even pushed back Eunice Mitchell’s surgery a second time.
“Figure it out,” I snap. “Pencil in Horschman to cover for me on the bypass surgery. Call Mitchell back and tell her we will proceed forward with the sixteenth. Yes, for certain this time. And Rebecca?”
“Yes, Dr. Raskova?” she warbles out.
“Don’t ever call me in a ditzy panic again, or I will fire you. Do you understand?”
I hang up on her before she gives me an answer. It doesn’t matter whether she understands. That’s what will happen regardless.
Typically, it disturbs the perfectionist inside me to let my work go with such little care. However, current circumstances have muted my professional obsession. The recent interest I’ve developed in Lyra takes precedence for the time being.
On a number of occasions in the past, I covered for my partner, Doctor Titus Horschman. It’s more than time he returns the favor.
I go through the other alerts on my phone. Nolan’s call gets ignored. The unknown number holds my attention for a split second before I move on to email.
Halfway through reading the first one, my phone rings. It’s the same unknown number calling.
“What do you want?”
“Kaden,” comes the deep, rumbling voice of the Owner. “You have been avoiding the club.”
My grip tightens on my phone, and I rise from the side of my bed. “I have been busy. There’s a difference.”
“You are never too busy for the Society. You would do well to remember.”
I glare at the generous open space of my bedroom as if the Owner has materialized in front of me. “Duly noted. But it would also be beneficial if you’ll tell me what it is that you want. I doubt someone as important as you has called me just to tell me to attend club events. I have missed plenty before with no objection.”
“Your task,” the Owner says simply. “Is it complete?”
A second passes in the time it takes me to answer.
“No, not yet.”
“For what reason?”
“Some minor… complications,” I answer. “But it will get done. And soon. I keep my word.”
“A week. Or I will reassign your task to someone more dependable, and you will have many things to answer for. You choose how this goes.”
He hangs up. Which is more than fine with me considering I didn’t want to talk to the insufferable bastard in the first place.
A door in another part of the penthouse opens and closes. My head lifts up as I listen for other sounds.
Lyra couldn’t possibly be foolish enough to go wandering again… could she?
I scowl and pocket my phone. If today’s not proving to be one fire after another, I don’t know what is. I stride down the hall, following the echo of what is female voices.
Not one. But two.
Emerging from the hall, I’m greeted by an unexpected sight in my gourmet kitchen.
