Silver’s Triad Read online

  Club Esoteria 19

  Silver’s Triad

  At fifty, widow Annie McLaughlin is alone, lonely, and at the lowest point of her life. She has raised her son, buried her husband who was also her Master, and retired from a job she never really loved, but that paid well. Her older, alone status has kept her from visiting Club Esoteria, a place where she and her husband always loved to play.

  Max and Silver have been a couple for five years and living a Master/slave life for the past three. Retired fifty-something military veterans, they have been nomad bikers for the last five years, looking for a place to call home.

  Running late one night, they meet up with Annie and think they have a reason to stay in New Bern. Will Annie be able to submit to both men? Will her son cause problems? Will Dominic, and the members of Club Esoteria, accept them into their family?

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 34,381 words

  SILVER'S TRIAD

  Club Esoteria 19

  Cooper McKenzie

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  SILVER'S TRIAD

  Copyright © 2018 by Cooper McKenzie

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-014-1

  First Publication: February 2018

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at

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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  For Stacy Wilson, the best sounding board an author can have.

  Special thanks to Kate McLaughlin who suggested Annie’s first name.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Cooper McKenzie always thought she had been born a hundred years too late, though she appreciates air conditioning, computers, and other conveniences of modern-day life. She recently moved to central Texas with her mixed breed companion, Honey, the Princess Fuzzybutt.

  For all titles by Cooper McKenzie, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/cooper-mckenzie

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Author

  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

  Landmarks

  Cover

  SILVER'S TRIAD

  Club Esoteria 19

  COOPER MCKENZIE

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  Would anyone even miss me? Annie McLaughlin thought as she stared across the mile-wide, flat, black void that stretched out before her. The Neuse River ran silent and dark through eastern North Carolina, separating New Bern from Bridgeton.

  Hell, how long would it be before someone realized she was no longer around?

  A day?

  A week?

  Longer?

  Would her neighbors miss her quick-marching by their house at dawn each morning? Would her Facebook friends notice her absence? Or would they assure one another that she had just gone silent as everyone did when real-life demands became overwhelming?

  Even what was left of her family that was speaking to her would not make a fuss until she missed church on Sunday. An unanswered phone call Sunday afternoon would be shrugged off. It would be another week or two before anyone bothered to stop by in person and check on her. This was one of those times when Annie wondered how she had raised such a self-centered child who only called or came by when he needed something from her.

  Staring into the wide blackness of the river, Annie gave in to the sadness that filled her heart and soul. Tears rolled down her wind-chilled cheeks too fast to mop up, so she didn’t bother.

  Over the past months, she had pleaded with the universe to bring a new reason to get up each morning into her life. She longed for a man who would hug her long enough and tight enough that all the broken pieces of her battered heart would fuse back together. She begged for a man who would hang around for the rest of her years, make them something special, and witness the rest of her days so her eventual passing would not go unnoticed. A man who would keep her from acting on the blacker-than-black thoughts of embracing death that currently consumed her.

  For the last weeks and months, she had felt herself sinking into an emotional pit of depression. Life was growing too hard to keep up the good fight. Maybe it was time to give up the battle.

  Since her husband, Eric, had died three years earlier, Annie had worked to fulfill the few childhood dreams that her own fears and her husband’s small-town mentality had not destroyed.

  She had already lived longer than she had expected to. The politically tense era of the eighties and nineties had been such that Annie had never expected to reach her fortieth year.

  Yet here she stood, as lost and rudderless as she had felt that June evening she had graduated from high school oh so many years ago. People kept telling her the world lay at her feet. Problem was, she had no idea where to go from here. She was tired of fighting

  She had lived her entire life without long-range plans. She moved through each day, working jobs she did not enjoy because they paid well enough to help keep bills paid. She had spent her life so focused on keeping the family’s collective heads above water that years, and then decades, had passed in the blink of an eye with little to show for her efforts.

  Her marriage of nearly two decades had ended with Eric’s death after a short, intense bout of a cancer the doctors had been unable to identify until it was too late. Their offspring, Ryan, was not speaking to her at the moment because she had refused to continue financing his self-indulgent lifestyle at the expense of her retirement.

  Even the people she thought of as friends had their own lives, their own families, their own interests. Everyone was busy with living.

  Everyone, but her. She spent her days volunteering with a variety of groups and her evenings reading and knitting hats that she gave away and wondering why she was still alive.

  Being honest with herself, she was lonely. And tired. And depressed.

  Annie stared at the three-foot-high fence that separated her from the mile-wide river. Then she looked to her right. The fence ended there, at the corner of the park, where wide steps led into the water. All she had to do was walk a handful of yards, throw herself into the gaping black void that was the Neuse River, and start swimming.

  The fears that had plagued her all her life kept her from moving. Fear of what was really on the other side of the death. Fear of what came after the heart stopped, the blood stilled, and the soul was no longer bound t
o the body. Fear of what those who knew her would think of her taking this way out.

  The first fifty years of her life had been consumed with keeping up appearances, making sure everyone around her was happy, fulfilled, and smiling no matter how much it hurt her. She had learned early to never, ever let anyone see her tears.

  Since Eric’s death, she had changed. She had grown fiercely strong and independent, unwilling to ask for help from her friends or family, no matter how much she might need it. The loving submissive who had knelt at her Master’s feet on those rare occasions they played their BDSM games had been buried with Eric.

  Annie missed her.

  She missed being able to let go and allow someone else be responsible. Though she had worked hard all her life and grown fiercely strong, Annie dreamt of giving over control to a Master and not having to worry about every decision, every choice, every moment of every day. She wished for someone else to take over and be in charge for a while.

  She missed sex.

  Staring through tear-filled eyes over the flat blackness of the river, Annie remained poised on the knife’s edge, trying to find a thought, a single argument that would tilt the balance one way or the other. Would she live through the night, or would she take the plunge and see what life beyond death was like?

  A noise in the distance pulled at her attention. Wiping her cheeks, she listened hard to identify the sound.

  Footsteps. Someone running. Running through the park toward her. Turning only her head in the direction of the rhythmic steps, she wondered if they were a threat, or just some second-shift worker out for a middle-of-the-night jog to relax after work.

  Two figures came into view. They were running the sidewalk that ran the perimeter of the park along the Neuse River before it turned up the Trent River and continued past the convention center, two hotels, and the new condo complex toward the palace that was the center of the tourist area of town.

  A moment later, she saw their shadows in the lights from the hotel that sat beside the park on the Trent River. From their outlines, she could tell there were two men running. The one on the left was bigger, broader, and bulkier while the other appeared a few inches shorter and more sleekly built. They were coming toward her at a fast clip. Turning to face the river, she tried to delude herself into believing that if she didn’t look directly at them, they would not be able to see her.

  Their slowing footsteps proved her thinking wrong.

  * * * *

  Silver Baer noticed the figure as soon as they turned down the sidewalk. A sweeping glance of the rest of the park showed it was empty. No cars. No people. The person was alone in a park that, according to the town’s informational website, had closed several hours earlier.

  “Heads up, doc,” he said softly as he slowed his steps.

  “Got it,” Max Wolff responded, his voice just as low.

  Their footsteps slowed, for which Silver was most grateful. Though he wasn’t the runner his partner was, he refused to allow Max to run alone. Especially at night and in a strange town. As Max’s best friend, lover, and Master, the man’s safety, health, and welfare were Silver’s first priority. Just as his health, welfare, and comfort were Max’s.

  They had officially been a couple for five years now, since the night after their retirement ceremony, ending their long Air Force careers. The Master/slave dynamic had come about over the past three. Nowadays, they could practically read each other’s minds.

  Silver’s panting breath caught up with him as they slowed to a quick march. The person standing at the water’s edge was still a good half-dozen yards away, but had either not heard their approach, or was ignoring them. In any case, Silver was prepared.

  As they moved closer, he noted the person was, in fact, a woman. What the fuck was a woman doing out here all alone? She should be home, behind locked doors and fast asleep.

  She remained still and focused on the river as they approached. Was she hoping they didn’t see her? Good try, but no joy.

  “Miss? Are you all right?” Max asked before he could.

  Stopping when Max did, Silver allowed the other man to take the lead. This was one of those times when his slave’s smaller, leaner physique and gentler personality would work vastly better than Silver’s bigger, more powerful appearance and rougher manners.

  The woman stiffened, but did not turn.

  “I’m fine,” she said. Her voice sounded watery and anything but fine to Silver. “Please, don’t stop your run because of me. I’ll be fine.”

  Though tempted to call bullshit, Silver held his tongue when Max held up his hand. It was fisted with only his index finger extended. Taking a breath, Silver remained silent.

  “If you were fine, you wouldn’t be standing in a closed park in the middle of the night staring at the river. Now, we could leave you here, but I’d rather walk you to your car first. Not that you’re going to do anything crazy, but it’s probably not too safe out here alone like this.”

  The woman shrugged and looked over her shoulder at them. Silver sucked a breath when one of the park’s lights illuminated her face. She was beautiful, even with tears still rolling down her cheeks. She was older, but not a senior citizen. Late forties, early fifties would be his best guess.

  “Did someone hurt you, girl?” he asked in his rough, blunt-as-a-sledgehammer way.

  Without looking, he knew Max was frowning at him, but Silver did not relent. He kept his eyes trained on the woman. As a former military investigator, he had learned to read even the subtlest changes in a person’s expression.

  She huffed what he supposed might have been a laugh. It was not a happy sound. Then her gaze moved and met his squarely. Even as dark as it was, inner strength glowed through the sadness and pain he saw in her eyes.

  “Only if you call life a someone,” she muttered, her tone dripping acid with each word. “Please, don’t stop your run on my account. I’ll be fine.”

  Silver glanced at his partner. Max shook his head as if he knew better. Not sure what was pulling him into action, Silver eased his bigger body around to the woman’s other side. He leaned his hip against the fence and tried to appear nonthreatening. “We can’t do that. There’s an all-night restaurant near our hotel. How about we buy you breakfast?”

  She began moving her head side to side even before he finished speaking. The spot between his shoulders blades was itching like crazy, telling him if they left her here alone, at some point in the next few days, they would be hearing about a body being found along the riverbank.

  Taking a chance, he stepped closer and eased one arm around her shoulders. She tensed but did not move away. Turning, he took her along with him and, in his take-charge, bear-like dominant fashion, guided her away from the water. “I promise we won’t bite unless you ask, and if you give us a ride back to our hotel, I’ll treat you to French toast and hot chocolate.”

  Max chuckled as he stepped up to her other side. “Please take him up on it, Miss. Otherwise, he’ll make me eat oatmeal or gruel or some other vile, nasty, good-for-me food.”

  The woman looked from Silver to Max and back again. Her tears had stopped and a growing amusement had taken its place. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. “I’ll go to breakfast with you, but I’ll pay for my own food.”

  Pushing that argument aside until later, Silver took the win that they had successfully moved her away from the river’s edge and shifted her focus from death to food. Looking over her head and meeting Max’s eyes, he also realized that all their lives had just taken a left turn.

  It would be only a matter of time before he knew whether the turn was good or bad.

  “Now, where did you park your car?”

  * * * *

  As he followed his Master and the woman to her car, Max knew their lives were changing, and they had yet to find out the woman’s name. From what he could tell after twenty years of providing military mental health care, this woman was in some serious emotional distress.

  She did not speak
during the five minutes it took them to reach her car. Though she was obviously tense, she did not fight the arm Master left resting on her shoulders. Very tense. Like she wasn’t comfortable with a man’s touch. But at least she wasn’t fighting the big man’s hold, which was a good thing.

  Maybe she hadn’t been in the park for the dark and deadly reasons running through his psychologist’s brain. Or maybe she was, and they had just successfully pulled her back from edge of oblivion with the offer of breakfast. Thank the universe that Silver had agreed to a run before crashing for the night.

  She led them to a dark-colored, hard-top Jeep Wrangler, which he thought he was an odd choice for the older woman. He expected her to drive a luxury car of some sort. Thankfully, it was a four-door, so he wouldn’t be cramped in the nonexistent back seat of the smaller two-door version. It was the only car parked in the parking lot across the street from the park.

  As they approached, he watched and waited. As a retired military psychologist, he was good at snap diagnosing PTSD patients with a ninety-nine percent accuracy. And he would bet a hard flogging and a week in the hated cock and ball cage that this woman was a victim of some kind of abuse. Whether it was domestic or not was still up for debate. Once they reached the restaurant, he would check her out more thoroughly.

  Then he and Silver would have to decide what to do next. Though they had yet to be introduced, Max felt the pull toward her that he had only felt for one other person, his Master.

  Picking up his pace, he hurried around Master’s side to reach the vehicle first. Once the woman hit the electronic unlock button, he opened the door and held it while she climbed in. Once she was seated, he closed the door, then went around the front and opened the passenger’s door for Master. Finally, he climbed into the back seat so he could keep an eye on the woman as she drove.