by Julia Sykes
Master
An Impossible Novel
By Julia Sykes
© June 2014
For everyone who read Mentor and asked for more Master and Kathy.
Impossible Series Reading Order
While the books in the Impossible series can be read as standalone romances, the following is the chronological order of the stories:
Impossible: The Original Trilogy (Monster, Traitor, and Avenger)
Savior (An Impossible Novel)
Rogue (An Impossible Novel)
Knight (An Impossible Novel)
Mentor (An Impossible Novella)
Master (An Impossible Novel)
Please note that Master is directly connected to Knight and Mentor. It is not necessary to read those books before reading Master in order to follow the story, but it will enhance the reading experience.
Chapter 1
Katie
I’ll be watching you today. And every day, until I finally take you. Don’t worry, Kathy. I don’t want to break you. But I do want to make you scream. I want to make you mine. Come and find me. Come to me, pet.
My stomach began to churn before my mind could fully process the words. It was as though they stared up at me from the dirty scrap of paper they were scrawled upon, as though the eyes of the person who had written them were piercing my soul. I felt violated, dirty. The wash of horror made my throat convulse as bile rose. How could nothing more than ink on a page affect me so viscerally?
It could, because the intent behind those words was so abhorrent that it made me want to lash out at my invisible assailant like a wild, cornered animal. But there was no assailant, and my adrenaline burned through my veins, scorching them when it found no outlet.
“Katie? You okay?”
I whirled, and my fist swung in a practiced arc. In the half a heartbeat it took for me to register the familiar voice, I managed to slow the punch. My hesitation gave my partner the split second of warning he needed to catch my wrist, blocking the hit.
“Whoa, Sparrow. What’s got your panties in a twist?”
“Dex. Don’t sneak up on me like that.” It was much easier to turn my fear into ire, even if it wasn’t warranted.
He gave me a small frown, and he didn’t release my wrist. He lowered it so that it hung at his side, almost as though he was holding my hand. “I wasn’t sneaking. I said your name three times before you tried to pop me across the jaw.” His fingers squeezed in reprimand. “Thanks for changing your mind at the last second there.”
All the aggression left me on a heavy sigh. I ran my hand through my hair. The familiar weight of the copper curls was comforting, as was the little tug on my scalp as I pulled on the strands. The sensation helped ground me, tethering me to the moment so that I could leave my fear behind.
“Sorry. I’m just tired, that’s all.” I didn’t want to tell Dex about the note. He would just freak out and go all alpha male protective on me, as though I was one of the victims we worked with all too often. I wasn’t a victim. As a member of the Violent Crimes Task Force for the FBI, I was the hunter, the one who put away the bastards who turned those poor women into victims.
I shifted my body to place myself firmly between Dex and the evidence. His frown deepened, drawing his masculine features down into something forbidding, if no less handsome. Pale blue eyes shot through with navy glared down at me, and the way the light caught his close-cropped blond hair made him look like an avenging angel. I couldn’t deny that Dex was intimidating when he got like this. It was one of the reasons why he was such a good FBI agent.
“Don’t lie to me, Sparrow. I can always tell. What’s bothering you?” Dexter Scott, human lie detector. Another quality that made him a good agent. And a pain in my ass.
My sigh was one of annoyance this time. “Don’t call me that. I get it. My surname sounds like ‘bird.’ I don’t like the cutesy nicknames at the office. I’m an agent, just like you.”
His fingers squeezed my wrist again. “Okay, then, Agent Byrd. What’s really bothering you?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that if I’m being evasive, it means I don’t want to share? Social niceties dictate that you back off.”
Even the casual shrug of Dex’s shoulders was intimidating. The movement called attention to his imposing stature. At five foot eight, I don’t consider myself short, but when being stared down by a six foot four, heavily muscled god of a man, I felt as small as a child.
“No.” He informed me. “Tell me what’s going on with you, Sparrow.”
It was no longer a friendly question. It was an order. Dex didn’t outrank me, but I found myself cracking anyway. My body shifted, and my eyes cut to my desk, where the note lay on my keyboard. From a distance, it didn’t look like anything more than a scrap of paper, but I could feel malevolence rolling off it.
Dex’s long fingers snatched it up.
“Don’t!” I protested, but his eyes were already scanning the sickening words. In the five seconds it took him to read it, his features twisted from disapproval to rage.
His eyes were twin blue flames when they found mine. “Who sent this?”
“I don’t know. I just found the envelope in my box. It’s probably not even for me. It might be evidence from a case someone didn’t label properly. It’s addressed to Kathy, not Katie.”
Dex’s hard expression told me I was being willfully ignorant. “Kathy can be short for Katherine. Don’t pretend like you don’t know it’s for you.”
“I don’t know that,” I snapped to cover the fact that I suspected he was right. I couldn’t show weakness. Not at the office. Not ever. “Like I said, it could be mislabeled evidence. I’ll see if I can track down what happened. You shouldn’t be touching that without gloves.”
“Well, it’s too late for that now. We’ll have to take into account the fact that you and I touched it when we run it for prints.”
“Thank you for being sensible.” Relief sank into me at his agreement that the note had nothing to do with me personally. “I’ll just take this to the lab and-”
“Not yet, you won’t,” Dex cut over me. “We’re showing this to Frank.”
“Why? It’s part of one of my cases. He doesn’t need to-”
This time he stopped me with a low growl. His fingers tightened around my wrist again. “I already told you to stop pretending. We both know this is a personal threat, Katie. And I’m not letting you bury it just because you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared!” I insisted. I couldn’t let him see that I was scared, even if he was my best friend. “You’re just being unreasonable.”
“You’re lying again.” It was a cool statement of fact.
I tugged against his hold on my wrist. He didn’t even seem to notice. “Just leave it, okay? Even if it is for me, it needs to be processed just like any other piece of evidence. Let me take it to the lab. I can deal with this.” I was reassuring myself just as much as I was trying to persuade him of that fact.
“I know you can deal with it, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it on your own. It’s okay to be scared, Katie. This is some scary shit. And that’s why I’m not going to let you quietly try to handle it by yourself.”
“You’re not going to let me?” That truly got my hackles up. I didn’t usually mind my friend’s pushiness, but right now, with my emotions fraying, I couldn’t face it. “Careful, Dex. Your alpha-douche is showing.”
To my surprise, he chuckled darkly. “Oh, Sparrow, you haven’t even glimpsed my ‘alpha-douche.’ I can assure you, he would most certainly not appreciate that title.”
I shifted uncomfortably. His touch on my wrist suddenly
burned much hotter. My eyes slid away from his. “Damn it, Dex,” I muttered, my confident façade cracking ever so slightly. “Don’t make this a big deal. Please.”
“I’m not making it a big deal. This is serious, Katie. You’re going to talk to Frank about it, and you’re going to keep me updated. Don’t keep things like this from me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I glanced up at him and saw a hint of fear for me flash through the righteous anger in his eyes. That swayed me more than his demands. My partner cared about me.
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, either, Dex,” I admitted. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
The taut lines around his full mouth softened. “Always.”
A long moment passed between us, and I felt that the weight of his stare was more significant than just concern for my safety. There was something else there. It was answered by a stirring of affection deep within me.
“I’ll take the note to Frank, then,” I finally broke the intense silence.
“Good.” Dex’s voice was a touch deeper than usual as he delivered his approval. It made me feel warm inside, and I gave him a small smile as I took the piece of paper back from him. It wasn’t as scary now that my partner shared the burden of its contents.
Well, it had gone from terrifying to mildly horrifying on the fear-inducing scale. But at least now I could touch it without feeling like vomiting.
Dex finally released my wrist. “Go on, then.” The upward curve of his lips was softly encouraging.
I nodded. “I’ll let you know how it goes.” With that, I skirted around him before my courage failed me. Trepidation and a touch of shame bled into the sense of calm I had found with Dex. Not only was I worried about Frank’s reaction to the note, but I was also embarrassed to show him such an overtly sexual threat. Franklin Dawes might be my boss, but he was also a father figure to me. What girl wants to discuss something like this with her dad?
I shook my head. Frank might have known me since I was a teenager, but I wasn’t a girl any longer. And my real father was dead in the ground, along with my mother. I had never known her, but I had lost Dad when I was seventeen. Frank – Dad’s partner and one of his closest friends – had helped fill that gap. He had even helped guide me to my job with the Bureau. I had faced some heinous crimes with him, but none of them had ever involved me personally.
Even though I held it gingerly between my thumb and forefinger, the paper seemed to burn them by the time I knocked on Frank’s office door.
“Come in.” His voice was deep and calm, as always. Frank never lost that sense of composed control, no matter what crime we faced. He was an incredibly strong man, emotionally as well as physically. Even if he was a touch stern, I always felt safe around him. His consistent moods made his supportive presence incredibly comforting, and they gave me the strength I needed to match that calm control when it came to facing the sick criminals I hunted.
Focusing on that knowledge, I took a deep breath and stepped into his office.
His face lit up when I entered. “Katie,” he beamed. He always had that warm smile for me. It was the only time I ever saw his cool demeanor melt. It made me feel special, cared for. The faint crow’s feet around his polished mahogany eyes deepened, and his perfect white teeth flashed.
Frank cared about me. He would help me through this.
“What can I do for you?” He asked genially.
“This…” I fumbled. “This was waiting for me when I came back in this afternoon.” I dropped the note so quickly that it fluttered through the air for a second before landing on the desk in front of him.
He reached for his gold wire framed reading glasses and lifted the paper closer to his eyes. His brows rose nearly all the way to his meticulously-styled steel grey hair. After a moment, his expression went carefully blank, and his gaze returned to me. Tension gripped my muscles at the sight of it. The warmth he usually afforded me was gone, as was his usual calm. It was as though it was taking all his effort to conceal his emotions.
“Who sent this?” His voice was softer than I had ever heard it.
“I… I don’t know. It was in an envelope in my box when I went to check it just now.”
Frank placed it carefully on his desk. “We’ll run it for prints. Has anyone else touched it other than you and me?”
“Dex. He held it.”
His lips thinned in disapproval. “I’ll make sure no one else does. I’ll personally deliver it to the lab.”
“I can handle it,” I insisted quickly. I hated how upset Frank seemed over the situation, and I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t deal with the note. I didn’t want him to think I was afraid. “I’ll take it-”
“I didn’t ask for your permission,” he cut me off. I swallowed hard and took a step back. I had seen this domineering side of him before, but he never turned it on me. He sighed, and his expression softened to something more soothing. “I’ll take care of this, Katie.”
The paternal light in his eyes let me know the unspoken significance of those words: Let me take care of you.
The offer was too tempting to refuse. It was all I could do to stop myself from throwing myself in his arms and seeking his comfort, as I had done so many times after my father passed away.
I blinked hard to clear the tears that glossed over my deep green eyes. “Thanks, Frank.”
“I’m very proud of you for being so brave about this, Katie,” he told me kindly. “But this is serious, and you shouldn’t deal with it on your own.”
“That’s what Dex said. He convinced me to show you the note.”
“You should have come to me immediately.” His voice sharpened, and just like that, I felt like a chided child.
“I know,” I mumbled, dropping my eyes.
“You will tell me the next time something like this happens. Before you consult with anyone else. You’re my responsibility, Katie. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
It was the same thing Dex had said. He wasn’t the only alpha male in the office. Frank’s insistent protectiveness didn’t grate on me the way my partner’s had, though. If anything, the fatherly instinct to keep me safe was gratifying.
“I promise I’ll come to you first.”
“Good.” Frank nodded once, satisfied. “Now, there’s something else I need to discuss with you. One of the guys from the New York unit is coming in to work with you on The Mentor case.”
The Mentor. I suppressed a shudder at the name. Well, the man I was hunting didn’t have a name. He didn’t have a face, either. Not yet. But I was determined to identify him. If he was anything like his mentee – Carl Martel – he had likely abducted, raped, and killed dozens of women.
“Why?” I asked to distract myself from the images of battered women that raced across my mind. “Why am I not working with Dex?”
Frank’s lips twisted in distaste. He was obviously as unhappy with the assignment as I was. “Kennedy Carver – the New York unit director – suggested it. Martel’s last victim, Lydia Chase, was selected because of her interest in the BDSM lifestyle. Carver thought it would be helpful if someone with experience in that area was on hand to help here in Chicago.”
Martel had lived outside New York City, but Lydia Chase had been abducted from Chicago, so members of both units were searching for The Mentor. I nodded my agreement with the new agent’s assignment to our field office. We could use all the help we could get.
“Who’s the agent?” I asked.
“His name’s Reed Miller. He’s a rookie, barely four months with the Bureau. But Carver insists he’s experienced in the BDSM lifestyle and has done good work so far.” Frank’s frown deepened. “I want you to watch yourself around him, Katie. Professionally, I approve of his partnership with you. But he’s new, and I don’t know if I trust him with your safety. Be careful.”
“I will be,” I promised. “If Carver says he’s good, I’m sure he’ll have my back.”
Although I wish I could keep Dex a
t my back. I knew my current partner, and I trusted him with my life. Being paired with a stranger didn’t sit entirely well with me.
A knock at the door distracted me. Frank glanced past me to look through the glass wall at the front of his office. The blinds were open, revealing the man who stood just outside.
“Come in.” Frank’s tone lacked the warmth it held when he invited me in.
The man who stepped through the door wasn’t just a rookie; he was probably around my age. I hadn’t expected to be partnered with someone so young. Or so breathtakingly gorgeous. The man was as tall as Dex, but where my partner was all light and righteousness, Reed Miller was dark and positively sinful. His skin was golden, and his black hair matched his eyes. They were dark, fathomless pools. A woman could drown in those eyes.
“Katie, this is Reed Miller. Miller, this is your new partner, Agent Katherine Byrd.”
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Agent Byrd. I’ve heard great things.” His voice was as sensual as the lips from which it issued.
Automatically, I reached my hand out to shake his, and strong heat enveloped my fingers. It raced up my arm, flooding my chest before finding its way down lower in my abdomen. The warmth pooled somewhere entirely unprofessional.
“Be careful.” Frank’s warning echoed in my mind.
Oh, I was going to have to be very careful when it came to Reed Miller.
Chapter 2
“Agent Miller. It’s nice to meet you, too.” My voice was a touch breathier than usual. I shot an uneasy glance at Frank as I withdrew my hand. What girl wants her dad to see her getting the hots for a guy?
I am not a little girl anymore. I hadn’t been for a long time. When I had wanted to break down and hide from the world like a child after my father’s death, Frank had been the one to drag me out. He had helped me become strong. He had helped me become a woman.
But the disapproving slant of his lips made me want to run to my room and pull my bedcovers over my head. Frank had helped me grow up, but he still had the unique ability to make me feel like a stupid little girl when he turned that particular frown on me.