Lexi Blake - Dungeon Royale

It made her realize how much she’d pushed her siblings away, how much she’d taken on her own shoulders.

She got up and walked to the largest of the three bedrooms. Her parents’ room. She’d put it off long enough, and now she was packing up her mother’s things, keeping a few items, but giving away the clothes and knickknacks that represented her mother’s life. She pushed the speaker phone option and continued talking to her sister as she worked, emptying the dresser. “I’m fine, Diana. I’m almost done. There’s just the bedroom and then the kitchen. I’ll be ready to put it on the market in a couple of weeks.”

“All right. I just want to make sure I’m helping.”

She was overcompensating. “She knew you loved her, Diana. You came every week.”

“She didn’t know me at all at the end, Pen. And George and I let you take the load. I should have moved her in with me.”

Around the children? Her mother could get violent when she had an episode. “No. Please let it go. I don’t want to talk about this. We’ve discussed it and you’ve apologized.”

“Fine, I’ll let it go for now. I’ll see you tomorrow, right? You won’t leave me and George alone with the horrible Hendersons, will you?”

Their cousin, Beatrice Cash-Henderson, was marrying some posh nob and Penny had gotten dragged into the wedding. It was being held at some expensive club where Bea and her nasty sisters would lord it over the rest of the family.

And she’d promised to go.

“I think I feel a bout of Ebola coming on, Diana.”

“Oh, don’t you do that. There is no hemorrhagic fever in London. You’re going and that’s that. I’ll see you there. Do you want me to get you a date? I met a nice doctor the other day. He works at University College. I think you would like him.”

Her skin nearly crawled. The last time Diana had tried to set her up had been with an accountant who spent the entire night bemoaning the British tax system. “No. Oh, no. I’m fine going by myself.”

It would be miserable because everyone would ask her who she was seeing and why she’d let Peter go, and oh, did she really want to become an old maid and everyone knew some nice man they wanted to set her up with. Then there were a few who really thought she was a lesbian and tried to set her up with a nice lady.

It was the burden of being single and in her thirties.

She should date, but all she could think about now was Damon Knight and his devil’s bargain.

Diana chatted on for another few moments and then they hung up. Penny was left alone with the sum of her mother’s life. She took a long breath. Soon this house would belong to someone else. Some other group of kids would run and play in the garden in the back. They would fight and share secrets and grow up right here where she had.

It was odd to think that she’d spent her whole life in one place and now her future was somewhere else. It was a bit frightening.

She could stay here. George and Diana wouldn’t mind. She would be comfortable here. She could move right into her mother’s room and nothing would change.

Her hand came up against something hard in the last drawer. Odd. The dresser only had clothes in it. She pulled it free. It was a small notebook. A long sigh came from her chest. Her mother’s recipe book.

A sheen of tears hit her eyes as she sat back on the bed and started to flip through her mum’s personal versions of Yorkshire pudding, pot roast, popovers. All her favorites. The book had gone missing a year before and she’d been worried that her mother had lost it.

The recipes were written in her mum’s steady hand, each one a memory for Penny.

Until she got to the last page. It wasn’t a recipe she found there. It was a letter.

My Dearest Heart,

I’m lucid now. The times that I remember are getting further and further between and I need to talk to you but you’re at work. The nurse is kind, but I don’t trust her to remember what I need to say to you. George and Diana will be fine. They took after your father. They’ll find themselves and forge their own lives, but I am so worried about you, my Penny.

I know you’ve put life on hold to take care of me, and I can’t thank you enough. I wish it weren’t necessary. But I fear that you will continue to put your life on hold. Much as I did.

There is always an excuse to not do something. I wanted to go to university. I wanted to teach. But it was always something I would do next year or after the children were grown or after your father was settled. Tomorrow never comes when you keep telling it no.

I loved your father, loved you children, but I wanted more. I wanted something for myself. I fear if you continue down this path, you will have nothing for you, dear girl, and that would be a tragedy.

I’m going to leave this out and hope you find it. If you don’t, then you will likely discover this after I’m gone and I want you to stop grieving. Stop it this instant. Do one thing for me. I will only ask one thing more of you, my darling girl.

Say yes.

Say yes to one thing that frightens you, that intrigues, that you think you can’t do. Say yes and don’t look back. It will or it won’t be, but you’ll never know if you don’t say yes.

Her mother’s handwriting became indecipherable, the script turning into doodles as the dementia had obviously overtaken her again.

But the words had penetrated Penny’s soul. She stared though she couldn’t see through her tears.

If she stayed here she would never start her life. She would never begin that essential piece of a life—the part where she had no idea what the next day would bring. She’d gotten comfortable with the daily rituals of serving her family.

It was time to figure out who the hell she was, and she couldn’t do it here. She couldn’t do it if she was always, always so afraid.

Her mother had sent her a lifeline, a prayer for her.

Without another thought, without letting her brain take back over, she found her phone. The number she needed had been left in the file, and she dialed it with shaking hands.

One chance. If she didn’t do this, she likely would wake up tomorrow and come up with some excuse to go back to her safe life, but some decisions had to come from emotion, from instinct—from love.

The phone rang once and then again.

“This is Knight.” His deep voice rumbled into her ear.

If she did this, she would likely have sex with him. She would know what it meant to be Damon Knight’s lover.

“Penelope? Darling, are you there?” He was back to oozing charm. He must have seen her name on his caller identification.

“Yes.” She said it.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes.”

She could practically hear his satisfaction. “Yes. You said yes.”

“I’ll see you Monday.” When he’d said they had to start training. God, she was going to let him train her. In kinky things. In things that made her heart pound. Maybe she would finally understand what sex meant.

She hung up before he could say another word.

Clutching the tiny notebook, she sat down and cried, the tears somehow purifying.

Penelope Cash was finally and truly ready to begin.

Penny picked up a glass of white wine with a sigh. The reception had just begun but she was wondering if there was a way out. She wanted to get home. She had roughly eighteen hours before she was supposed to begin her rather odd training with Damon Knight, and she’d spent every spare minute reading up on the Internet about Dominance and submission.

She stepped behind one of the large potted palms decorating the space. Her aunt and uncle had spared no expense in celebrating their daughter’s wedding, but Penny couldn’t keep her mind on it.

What would it feel like when Damon Knight’s hands were on her body? She’d had one lover her entire life and they hadn’t exactly set the world on fire.

Damon was doing this for a mission. It wasn’t because he was desperate for her body. She had to remember that.

Still, every single word she’d read the night before made her scared. And every single word called to her.

She couldn’t be submissive. The images and words were playing through her mind even as she began to hear the conversations around her. Her family. They were a truly European family with members from across the EU. There were at least five different languages being spoken. Unfortunately, she understood most of them.

“Das arme Mädchen ist hübsch genug. Ich verstehe nicht, warum sie keinen Mann findet.”

Translation. The poor girl is pretty enough. I don’t understand why she can’t get a man.

Her aunt Angela. She was a widow who seemed to spend all her time gossiping and traveling amongst the family. And she almost always traveled with her sister, Aunt Edda.

“Nun, wenn sie einen Ehemann bekommen will, muß sie ein wenig abnehmen. Männer mögen keine beleibten Frauen.”

Translation. Well, if she wants to find a husband, she needs to lose some weight. Men don’t like portly women.

She moved away, walking toward the bar. It looked like she would need something stronger.

“Hän on ruumiinrakenteeltaan äitinsä kaltainen.”

Translation. She’s built like her mother, that one is.

“Ainakin Diana muistuttaa meidän sukuhaaraamme.”

Translation. At least Diana took after our side of the family.

Embarrassment flashed through her system. Two elderly women sat, hats perched on their silvery heads, drinking tea and gossiping about the people around them.