Adored (Masters and Mercenaries #8.5)

Adored (Masters and Mercenaries #8.5)

Lexi Blake



One Thousand and One Dark Nights



Once upon a time, in the future…



I was a student fascinated with stories and learning.

I studied philosophy, poetry, history, the occult, and the art and science of love and magic. I had a vast library at my father’s home and collected thousands of volumes of fantastic tales.



I learned all about ancient races and bygone

times. About myths and legends and dreams of all people through the millennium. And the more I read the stronger my imagination grew until I discovered that I was able to travel into the stories... to actually become part of them.



I wish I could say that I listened to my teacher and respected my gift, as I ought to have. If I had, I would not be telling you this tale now.

But I was foolhardy and confused, showing off with bravery.



One afternoon, curious about the myth of the

Arabian Nights, I traveled back to ancient Persia to see for myself if it was true that every day Shahryar (Persian: ??????, “king”) married a new virgin, and then sent yesterday's wife to be beheaded. It was written and I had read, that by the time he met Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, he’d killed one thousand women.



Something went wrong with my efforts. I arrived in the midst of the story and somehow exchanged places with Scheherazade – a phenomena that had never occurred before and that still to this day, I cannot explain.



Now I am trapped in that ancient past. I have taken on Scheherazade’s life and the only way I can protect myself and stay alive is to do what she did to protect herself and stay alive.



Every night the King calls for me and listens as I spin tales.

And when the evening ends and dawn breaks, I stop at a point that leaves him breathless and yearning for more.

And so the King spares my life for one more day, so that he might hear the rest of my dark tale.



As soon as I finish a story... I begin a new

one... like the one that you, dear reader, have before you now.





Chapter One



Mitchell Bradford stared down at the phone and wondered if he could somehow manage to reach through it and strangle the man on the other end of the line. His office was cool, but he could feel the temperature rising with each word he heard. He was certain Kai Ferguson would tell him he had anger issues and should come in for a session. Then Mitch could kill the f*cker in person. “What do you mean you paired Laurel with the new Master? Which Laurel would that be because you couldn’t possibly be talking about Laurel Daley, my paralegal. I believe I told Big Tag that she was to be refused admission to Sanctum.”

Kai chuckled over the line. “Oh, you know, Big Tag has a soft spot for a well-meaning sub.”

He took his cell off speaker and pressed it to his ear, as though bringing it closer would make his point more clear. “The only thing Laurel means by joining Sanctum is to push me into a jealous rage. She’s manipulating me. That means she’s manipulating Tag, too. Deny her application, Kai.”

Laurel Daley was rapidly becoming a pain in his…damn it. Thinking about the gorgeous, not even thirty-year-old brunette made his cock hard. She was stunning. Smart and capable, he’d thought about firing her more than once because his brain shut off the minute she walked in a room. He’d hired her sight unseen because she was his best friend’s sister. She’d needed a job and he’d needed help.

His best friend. There had been times Will Daley had been his only friend. Will had picked him up and dusted him off and made sure he didn’t kill himself with booze. How did he tell his best friend in the world that he wanted to f*ck his sister so badly he dreamed about it every night?

He might have been able to deal with the entire situation if Laurel hadn’t lost her damn mind and decided she wanted him, too.

One of them had to be sensible.

“I can’t deny her application. She’s perfectly sane.” Kai was his other friend. He and Will and Kai had taken to hanging out together. Unfortunately Kai was also the gateway to Sanctum. He was the club’s resident shrink, with the power to approve or disapprove membership applications.

“You wouldn’t think that if you saw how pissed off she gets at fictional characters. The woman yells at her e-reader. She threw it across the room the other day and her only explanation was that someone named Joshua Lake was being a butthead.” He’d narrowly missed having his head taken off with the damn thing. Luckily, the e-reader seemed pretty tough. The thing hadn’t had a scratch on it and she was right back to reading after she’d finished the first draft of the contract she was working on.

Kai chuckled over the line. “Those women are serious about their book boyfriends. If that was a sign of insanity, I would have to get rid of most of the submissives at Sanctum. Face it, Mitch. You’re going to have to deal with her.”

Laurel would soon be running around Sanctum, likely wearing very little.

Sanctum was his sanctuary. It was a BDSM club, a very exclusive one. He’d had to pay through the nose and give Ian Taggart, the owner, a massive discount on legal services in order to get in. Apparently all his paralegal had to do was bat her eyelashes. His stomach turned and he wondered if he had any antacids. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would do if he couldn’t spend his nights at Sanctum. His friends were there. It was how he blew off steam.