From Sanctum with Love (Masters and Mercenaries #10) - Lexi Blake
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all I want to thank all of you readers who are still here and with me. This is the tenth main story line book in the Masters and Mercenaries series. I’m astounded by that because I’d only planned five. Thanks for sticking it out with me and I hope you’ll be there for all the stories to come.
As always thanks to my crew: Richard Blake, Chloe Vale, Riane Holt, Liz Berry, Stormy Pate, and the best formatter in the business who also happened to emerge from my womb – Dylan.
I would also like to thank OSK (one sexy kitten) for making the sadisticks that inspired a scene in this book.
The genesis of this book happened a few years ago in Seattle when I met two crazy women and became friends with them. They were in the lifestyle, but it was their love of life and their friendship with each other that truly inspired me. So this book is dedicated to Kori Smith and Sara Buell. May you both find your happily and kinkily ever afters, my friends.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Author’s Note
Dominance Never Dies, Masters and Mercenaries 11, Coming June 21, 2016
Devoted, A Masters and Mercenaries Novella, Coming April 12, 2016
Ruthless, A Lawless Novel, Coming August 9, 2016
About Lexi Blake
Other Books by Lexi Blake
PROLOGUE
Seattle, WA
12 years before
Kai Ferguson looked at the rundown house and felt an odd longing sink into his bones. He hadn’t expected this, hadn’t thought for a second that he would look at that shitty two bedroom and feel a sense of nostalgia. After all, most of the bad things in his life had happened there, but suddenly all he could see was his mom. She was all over that damn house. Though it was in a bad part of town, the yard was still neat, the front beds still had petunias blooming. Even from the driveway he could see the wreath she’d always kept.
Just because it isn’t Christmas, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate.
She’d kept a wreath for every season. She would make them with crap she’d bought at the craft store—whatever happened to be on sale. Cheap pieces of junk that she somehow turned into something lovely. The same with the flowers in the front beds. She bought the cheapest she could find, the ones that looked half dead at the nursery, and brought them back to life.
That was his mom. God, he missed her.
Though now he supposed the flowers were being kept up by whatever chick his brother was sleeping with. His younger brother had recently turned nineteen and dreamed of Hollywood stardom, though mostly what he’d managed was to look ridiculously good in a series of ads for the local gym he spent way too much time at. He was two years younger than Kai, but Kai was fairly certain his brother had started romancing women at the tender age of five when he’d charmed a kindergarten teacher into not holding him back a grade. Jared had started young and never gone long without a woman in his bed.
It had been almost a year since Kai had made love to his fiancée.
His gut clenched at the thought of seeing her. He had to though. He had to figure out if there was anything at all to come home to when it came to Hannah.
Thanks to a stray piece of shrapnel, he’d gotten unexpected leave. One week. He had one week before he had to report to Fort Bragg, and then he’d be on his way back to the Middle East. He had another year of enlistment and then he could come home and finish up what was left of his degree. Jared had made it through high school. He’d made it plain that he wasn’t going to college. Kai had done his duty to his baby brother. He’d put off his own dreams in order to keep Jared in school. Kai had put off his last two years of college and his wedding in order to go into the Army after their mother had lost her battle with breast cancer. He’d fulfilled his mother’s dying request and now it was almost time to come home.
Whether he had a fiancée when he came back was definitely in question. He couldn’t stop thinking about how angry she’d been when he’d left. She’d begged him not to go back and when he’d explained he couldn’t leave his unit, couldn’t