Saving Sara (Masters of the Castle) Read Free

join you there shortly.”
    “I hope our rooms are close together,” the woman , now beside Sara, whispered. “It’d be nice having a familiar face while we’re here.”
    “Yeah,” Sara said and tried to smile, but that sickly sensation inside her was churning now.
    She wanted to be here, she told herself again. She needed to be here. This was going to be good for them—her and Robert. Nothing else mattered.
    “We’re going to have such a great time,” the woman beside her said, beginning to sound excited.
    “Yeah,” Sara—the one-track recording—said again. She tried to shake herself out of it. “A great time. Sure.”
    Now all she had to do was make herself believe that.
     
    * * * * *
     
    “This place has everything!” Robert declared as he came barreling into their assigned room. His face was flushed, he was so excited. And damn, but he looked good.
    Sara didn’t know if dominants got to pick their clothes the way submissives did, but if so, he had definitely chosen right—black leather pants, white poet-sleeved shirt unlaced halfway down his handsome chest and a black leather vest that brought the contrast between them together. She had a thing for leather: the feel of it, smell of it, sight of it. His outfit absolutely made hers—cream-colored brocade, off-the-shoulder princess gown with a shawl that hid her burns (all but the one that crawled up the side of her neck), and a matching corset that made her breasts look twice as large and her waist twice as small.  Sara got up off the bed where she’d been sitting, limping slightly as she met him halfway across the floor of the small apartment they’d been assigned to share.
    “Everything,” Robert gushed again. “Dungeon, stockade, equipment the likes of which makes the Shadowbrook look like a wanna-be beginners group!”
    Her heart gave a faltering skip when he caught her face between his warm hands and kissed her soundly. When he pulled back, he looked at her so warmly, so sexily. It was exactly like the looks he used to give her back when they’d first started dating—back before he realized how screwed up she was.
    “We are going to have so much fun here.” His thumbs caressed the curves of her face. “There’s something else, too. Something I want to show you. I don’t want you to be scared. Trust me, okay? Can you trust me, Sara?”
    This was the happiest he’d looked since they first boarded the bus to come here.
    Sara nodded. “Of course, I trust you.”
    For looks like this, she’d have said anything he wanted to hear, done anything he wanted her to do. It didn’t even matter that he hadn’t noticed her dress.
    He grinned, pulling her toward the door. He looked down at her as he held it open. “You look nice.”
    She beamed.
    His roving stare turned slightly critical when it came to rest on her shoulders. Both their smiles dimmed a little then. “Are you sure you need the shawl?”
    “I’m a little cold,” she lied.
    Robert opened his mouth, but then closed it again without arguing. He forced his smile back almost to what it had been. “All right.” His hand squeezed hers. “It’s okay. You’re going to like this,” he assured and led her down the hall.
    The Castle was huge, much larger on the inside it seemed than it had from the outer courtyard. Since the twist of scar tissue on her left hip sometimes gave her trouble on stairs, their room was one of only a handful of guest quarters located on the first floor (the woman from orientation was, thankfully, located somewhere else). And still there could have been no less than thirty apartments in this wing alone. As she followed Robert, they passed the double-door entrances to three other wings and at least several hundred people.
    They were everywhere, some heading to the complimentary dining hall and others for the fine dining restaurant, some to the ballroom where soothing music was playing. Two professional instructors were walking guests through the dance