Morning sunlight stabbed Bael’s eyes but he didn’t open them. He felt like hell, his back and his arms aching even before he moved them. Which he did, just to confirm it, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Pain shot down his left arm, his wrist, his shoulder, straight to his spine. His feet were killing him too.
But the movement brought something much more interesting than pain. Warm skin, not his. Someone lying in his arms. A woman.
Well, this was always interesting. Bael grinned and cracked an eye open as he tried to remember who she was and what he’d been doing to end up with her.
Long, snaky dark hair spilled across his chest. Her eyes were closed and there was a small, pale scar on her cheek. Oh yes, he remembered her now. Remembered waking up with her tight, muscular body pressed against his as they dangled from the roof of that cave. Remembered the flash in her weird silver eyes as she rode him into the ground last night.
His cock stirred. Hell, she’d been fun.
She looked a lot less fierce, lying there still and quiet. Awake, she’d vibrated with angry energy, but now she looked more peaceful, younger even, despite the slight frown on her forehead.
He ran his hand down her back and paused at the scar tissue there. He’d discovered the whip marks crisscrossing her spine last night. But, what with her mouth on his and her breasts rubbing against his chest, he’d had other things to think about.
Now he was intrigued. The marks were old, healed, but he could feel the intensity of the lashes, the jumble of scar tissue that said she’d been flogged again and again.
What had happened to result in those scars?
She stirred, her skin sliding very pleasantly against his, and mumbled something in her sleep. He stroked her hair, tangling his fingers in the thick, unruly curls. His fingers found the warm skin at the nape of her neck and stroked.
Her eyes fluttered and she smacked her lips, stretching out her arm across his chest.
Then she froze, and her eyes slammed open, already flashing with silver fire.
“That’s very impressive,” Bael said, still playing with her hair. “How’d you get them to do that?”
“What?”
“Your eyes. They’re all sort of…sparkly.” He stole a quick kiss. “Very sexy.”
She blinked at him. Then she levered herself upright, sitting on his stomach, and stared at him.
“Mmm.” He placed his hands on her hips. “Even sexier.”
She opened her mouth to speak but Bael pulled her down and kissed her. Gods, she was fantastic, all tightly coiled power and fierce energy. He ran his tongue over her teeth and sucked her lip into his mouth, making her moan. Happily he rolled her onto her back, all the better to lick and bite her all over, but he’d only gotten as far as nipping at her throat when a tiny sound made them both freeze.
Bael looked up and saw an arrow. A bow. They pretty much occupied his attention until Kett said, “Why is that kelf aiming an arrow at us?”
Bael refocused. Behind the bow and arrow was a small green figure, three fingers on each hand, skin hairless, eyes huge. It stood immobile, impassive. Inhuman. Bael’s lip curled. He bloody hated kelfs, and this was precisely why.
“Look, I don’t interrupt you guys when you do…whatever it is you do in bed,” he said, rolling Kett away and getting to his feet.
The kelf said something in its own language, which irritated the hell out of Bael. It knew he couldn’t understand it. Kelfs never taught their language to anyone.
“You don’t-” Kett began, stepping toward the creature, and it turned its bow on her.
“Oh no you bloody don’t,” Bael said, lunging for the little green bugger, but it was too fast for him. There was a sudden zip and whine, and then a furious pain in his left arm.
Bael stared at the arrow sticking out of it and whirled on the kelf, murder in his eyes. “Hey! What the fuck was that for?”
“You are trespassing,” said a sweet, feminine voice in accented Anglish.
Before the voice had even died away, Kett had whirled to face it, her hands curled into fists, muscles tight, body low in a defensive crouch.
Bael stared at the dozen or so kelfs that had emerged from the trees, each holding a bow trained on him. Maybe they could smell the blood. Little bastards.
“This is their land,” said the woman’s voice, and he tore his eyes to her. “They graciously allow me to hunt with them, but they don’t like trespassers.”
She wore bright silken robes and perched elegantly sidesaddle on a handsome white horse. A crossbow rested on her lap. She was tiny, with long, glossy dark hair and tilted eyes, and she was smiling. Bael figured that was probably because the armed kelfs were on her side. Oh, and the fact that both he and Kett were totally bollock naked. Literally, in his case.
Kett scowled up at the woman. “Miho?”
The tiny woman smiled wider. “Kett. I didn’t know you were in the country.”
“Well, funny thing.” She relaxed a little, stood up straight. “Neither did I.”
“You know her?” Bael looked between the two women, his tall, scarred warrior and the tiny, delicate creature on the horse. His arm throbbed, blood oozing from the wound.
“Yes. Miho and I…go way back.”
“Well, that’s great.” Bael waggled the arrow in his arm. “Reckon she could lend us some clothes? Get some food? Dunno about you, but I’m starving.” He glanced at the kelfs surrounding them, bows still drawn. Bloody kelfs. No smiles. They wound him up beyond belief. “Maybe we could eat one of them.”
Kett didn’t smile.
“Apologies for your injury,” said Miho, nodding regally at Bael. “There are medical supplies at my house.”
Bael nodded and considered grabbing the kelf’s bow to shoot back at it. Not that it would have done much good.
Could have been this kelf who killed your mother. Could have been any of them.
The kelf looked up at him, its pointed face impassive. So charming and helpful, so long as you’re not faced with a Nasc.
How can humans love them so much?
Kett poked at the arrow, ignoring his flinches.
“Flesh wound,” she said. “You’ll live.”
He glowered at her then at the kelf, who stared impassively back. Bloody kelfs. You could beat them, but they never bruised. You could shoot and slash at them, but they never bled. Their colorful, hairless skin was like iron.
They bowed and scraped to every human in the five Realms, but became deaf the minute he uttered a polite request.
Well, a request, at any rate. Bael wasn’t good at being polite.
“Oh, piss off,” he snarled halfheartedly, and turned his attention to the arrow in his arm. It hurt like buggery but it didn’t seem to have hit anything major. “Stupid fucking kelfs,” he growled, working the arrow back and forth and eventually gritting his teeth and yanking it out.
He made a pointed yelp of pain. Kett and Miho, who’d been quietly conversing, both glanced over. Bael pressed down on the bleeding injury, giving them a wounded look.
“Shouldn’t’ve gone after it, should you,” Kett said, as a munta was led out from the trees. Four-legged and a little like a camel without the hump, the creature was covered in shaggy dark green fur and looked at him with huge eyes as the kelfs started unloading game carcasses from its back.
“Oh sure,” Bael said. “This is what I get for being chivalrous?”
“It wasn’t really going to shoot me,” Kett said patiently.
“Yeah? They’re not as nice as people think,” Bael said, lifting his fingers from the wound on his arm and showing her the blood.
Kett just rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said, mounting the creature and holding out her hand. She had moved slightly awkwardly, limping a little, and indeed Bael could see an ugly puckered scar on her right thigh.
But Kett never said a word or asked for help. After a moment, Bael swung up behind her. She didn’t seem remotely perturbed to be sitting there completely naked, all the girlie bits he’d been so enjoying last night on view for anyone to see.
Her back was warm against his chest, her neat little butt smooth and round where it nestled against his groin. His groin, which was definitely enjoying the close contact. Maybe the day was looking up.
“I’m afraid I only have one cloak,” Miho said, as a kelf handed it up-passing it to Kett, he noticed.
“Well, that means we’ll just have to share,” Bael said, wrapping it around them both, grinning as Kett leaned right back against him. “Hard life, ain’t it?”
“Certainly seems to be for you,” she said, shifting against his growing erection.
By the time they made it to Miho’s elegant house with its flamboyantly curved roof, Kett was in agony. Sleeping outside in the cold hadn’t done her leg any good at all, and jolting it into sudden exercise this morning had been the kiss of death. Every movement of the munta as it trotted along happily after Miho’s horse jolted fresh pain through her leg until she could hardly breathe.
Bael, of course, had no idea she was in pain. He seemed to be enjoying the bumpy ride, rubbing his big cock against her with every sway of the munta. Kett wasn’t turned on. She might have been, had her leg not been causing her such agony, but pain had never been arousing for her. This sort of pain was threatening to kill her.
But she didn’t let on. She never let on.
Miho slid elegantly from her horse in the pristine stable yard. “The kelfs went on ahead and prepared a room for you,” she said. “There is food and a hot bath.” She frowned and shouted something in Xinjiangese to a kelf, who nodded and scurried away. “And medical supplies. Come. It is cold out here.” She glided away toward the door of the house.
Kett couldn’t move. Bael didn’t seem inclined to. She supposed that was because he was sporting a massive hard-on that he didn’t particularly want to display.
“You get down first,” she managed through gritted teeth. “Keep the cloak.”
He hesitated. “You sure?”
She nodded, tears in her eyes as his movements jolted her leg just the tiniest bit. How the hell she was ever going to make it inside, she had no idea. She didn’t even know how she was going to get off the munta.
“You coming?” Bael asked, looking up, and she managed a nod but didn’t move. He frowned, then his eyes slid down to her bare thigh where the mangled, twisted scar glowed, pink and vicious. Kett ignored him and, with a monumental effort of will, swung her left leg across the munta’s back. If she could slide her weight onto her left side, she might just-
She squawked in sudden pain and surprise as Bael scooped one arm under her knees and wrapped the other around her shoulders, cradling her against him. A trickle of fresh blood slid down his arm, but the arrow wound didn’t seem to be causing him any extra distress as he supported her full weight.
Breathless and astonished, she stared up at him. He grinned back.
“I know you have your pride, my sweet, but I have mine too, and I just can’t allow you to walk barefoot a moment longer.”
Kett opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“No no, don’t protest,” Bael said, adjusting her weight in his arms as he carried her across the courtyard, following an obviously amused Miho. “Nothing’s too good for my angel.”
Kett finally recovered her voice as they entered the warmth of the house. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Saving my lady the exhaustion of walking a step farther,” Bael said grandly. Then added in a whisper, “And the embarrassment of admitting she can’t walk at all.”
“I can-”
“Sweetheart, you couldn’t even dismount.”
Miho led them down vast hallways before opening a door and ushering them inside a room with a large bed and lacquered furniture. The low window looked out over an exquisitely designed garden. There was a large table covered with food and steam flowing from a second door. To Kett, it looked a lot like heaven.
“There are clothes in the closet,” Miho said, “and the bath is hot. If you need anything, call for the kelfs.” She indicated a bell pull. “And try not to pick a fight with any of them.” She gave them a bow then left, closing the door.
“Will you put me down now?” Kett asked.
“And watch you lying there all naked and helpless? Actually…” Bael seemed to be considering this.
“Knock it off.”
He grinned and strode through to the bathroom, dumping her in a huge sunken bath filled with scalding water that steamed fragrantly and shocked her into silence.
Feeling a little like a lobster plunged into the pot, she could only stare up at Bael, but he was already leaving the room. Feeling returned gradually, her skin throbbing in the mad heat, her muscles forced to relax. Her leg seemed to have given up the fight, faced with such indomitable heat, and she managed to move it an inch or two.
Bael came back in with several plates of food, plonked them by her elbow then went back out again. Still speechless, Kett stared at the piles of sandwiches, noodles, vegetables, kebabs-and then Bael came back in again. He put down more food, a couple pitchers and a tray of medical supplies, then dropped the cloak and stepped into the bath.
Then he leaped like a cat on drugs and yelped, “Fucking hell, that’s hot!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Kett asked, recovering her voice. She picked up a pitcher, sniffed at it and ascertained that it was beer. Which she proceeded to drink.
“Bleeding hell,” Bael swore, bravely going back in. He gingerly dunked his arm under the water, flinching as heat seared the arrow wound.
“Yep.” She grabbed a sandwich and devoured it whole. Unable to remember the last time she’d eaten anything, she was suddenly ravenous.
Bael picked through the bottles on the food tray, sniffing at a few until he found one he liked the smell of. But instead of drinking, he poured it all over the wound on his arm, stiffening in pain. Kett frowned; he was wasting good saki.
“Food good?” Bael asked as he took a pair of tweezers from the tray and started picking at the hole in his arm. He watched Kett as she demolished the sandwiches and started on the noodles, eating them with her fingers.
“Right now I’d eat a raw kelf,” she said, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Kelfs really annoy me.” He paused, apparently realizing she wasn’t impressed by that. “You do know I was joking, right?”
“You do know that kelfs aren’t known for their sense of humor, right?” She grabbed a kebab and ripped the meat off with her teeth.
“Well, I do now.” He extracted something from his arm and dropped it on the tray. “How’s your leg?”
“Five by five.” The empty kebab stick clattered on the plate.
“What does that mean?”
“Fine.”
“Well, clearly it’s not, since five minutes ago you couldn’t even move. What happened?”
She swallowed a handful of noodles and washed it down with beer. “Just an accident.”
“An accident involving something with big teeth?”
She gave him a sharp look, not easy to do with a mouthful of tomato. Swallowing the food, she said, “Really big.”
“What was it? A dog?”
“Bigger.”
“Are we going to play that game where I ask questions and you answer with single words? ’Cos we could be here for some time.”
Her mouth once again full, Kett held her hands about ten inches apart. Bael raised his eyebrows. She chewed and swallowed and said through half a mouthful, “Sabertooth. Really big teeth.”
He whistled. “You got bitten by a sabertooth tiger?”
She shrugged and quaffed some more beer. “Yeah. Piece of advice? If a sabertooth tiger ‘really annoys’ you, don’t pick a fight with it. Don’t taunt it. Just get the fuck out of there.”
Bael opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded. He gestured at the tray of medical supplies. “I think the pills in the brown bottle are painkillers.”
“Think?”
He picked up the bottle and squinted at the unfamiliar alphabet. “Well, take one and find out.”
Rolling her eyes, Kett took the bottle. Her Xinjiangese was rusty, but she’d learned the important words. And sadly, an important word for her was “painkiller”. She recognized it on the label and slugged a couple of the tablets.
“Brave,” Bael said. “I like that in a girl.”
“Read the label,” she said.
“I like that in a girl too.”
“What? Literacy?” She rested her head back against the edge of the bath.
He frowned at the symbols on the bottle. “It’s more like deciphering a code,” he said.
“If you think of it that way, all language is,” Kett said, closing her eyes, an image of the strange symbols around the cave mouth coming to mind. She suddenly felt sleepy. No telling what was in those bloody pills.
“Very profound for someone who’s naked.”
“I’ve always found nakedness a great excuse for profanity.”
Bael laughed. “Yeah, me too.” She felt him inch closer. “Kett?”
She yawned. “Yeah?”
“What really happened to your leg?”
“Told you. Pissed off a tiger.”
“Really?”
“Mmm. It came off worse though. Have one of its teeth somewhere.”
His hand touched her shoulder, caressing her slick skin. “What about your back?”
“It didn’t bite me there.” It was getting harder and harder to stay awake.
“No, I mean these.” His hand edged between her back and the wall of the bath, and traced the scars on her skin.
“Mmm. Tell you later.” Kett curled toward him, his body big and solid and comforting. “Sleepy now.”
“Those must be some pills.”
“Mmm,” Kett said, and slipped into blissful unconsciousness.
It was a testimony to the power of the pills that Kett woke slowly, groggily, instead of ricocheting awake on full alert, as she usually did. One by one, ideas trundled into place in her brain. The room was dark. The bed was soft and warm, and the sheets smelled sweet and clean.
Nuala’s house? She sniffed at some other scent that drifted over the bed, something slightly cloying, like jasmine or some other flower. But Nuala wasn’t inclined to leave flowers in Kett’s room, which usually only smelled of leather and wood polish. Besides, she hadn’t been to Elvyrn in ages.
The mattress dipped with someone else’s weight. Kett’s eyebrows rose in the dark. Someone big. Someone male. Well, it was nice to know she hadn’t switched sides. Someone-
Oh yeah. Now she remembered. Bael. The silver chain. The cave. The burnt remains.
Kett lay still for a while, frowning. What the fuck had that whole thing been about? She had woken in some pretty interesting circumstances in her life-once, memorably, to find that she’d recently been dead-but they’d generally been reasonably traceable. Last thing she remembered before the cave was performing for the Maharaja and his family, then going to bed in the modest suite provided for her in his palace. She’d been thinking about the journey home and planning to get up reasonably early to make a head start.
She sure as hell didn’t remember crossing the Realm, taking off her clothes and wandering into a cave, chaining herself to a naked hottie and suspending herself from the ceiling. That was the sort of thing, Kett figured, that ought to stick in your mind.
She shifted, her leg aching. Probably she ought to get up and see if there was any liniment on that tray of medical supplies. Did Miho know about her leg? Well, she must have seen the scar earlier. It was hard to miss.
The bed was warm and soft, and she didn’t really feel inclined to move. On the other hand, the longer she just lay there without sorting her leg out, the worse it would get. It was like an old cartwheel, she thought grumpily as she pushed the covers back. Keep it well oiled or it’d rust over.
This was proven when she swung her leg out of bed, tested its strength and found it to be totally useless. With a flash of sudden pain, it crumpled beneath her and she toppled to the floor, crying out as she hit the cold wood.
Her leg hurt so much she almost blacked out for a second, sound and vision dimming, her breath snatched away. Then sound returned and she heard someone scrambling from the bed, calling her name.
“Kett? What the- Are you okay?”
Five by five, she tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Breathless, trying hard to keep her leg still so it wouldn’t hurt any more than it already did, she nodded, blinking as her vision cleared and Bael appeared, hovering worriedly at her side.
Hmm. He was kind of adorable when he was worried. Or maybe pain was making her delirious.
“Don’t,” she cried as his hand moved to touch her leg. “Just don’t touch it.”
He snatched his hand back, and instead touched her shoulder as she rose up on her elbows and surveyed her leg with dismay.
“What happened?”
She took a deep breath and let it out shakily. “I just fell,” she said. “It’s not very strong. I mean, usually it’s fine, but I haven’t been taking medication or anything, and it’s just seized up. Give me a minute.”
“What medication? Maybe your friend Miho has something that will help.”
“Maybe,” said Kett, thinking it was unlikely anyone at all would have the stuff she took. “Could you go see if there’s any liniment on that tray?” Bael hesitated, so she added, “Just bring the tray.”
He bit his lip, looking uneasy, then nodded and rose gracefully to his feet. Kett, cursing the day she ever decided to fight a hungry sabertooth tiger instead of either shooting it or running the fuck away, tried to follow suit and ended up back on her backside on the floor.
Bael put the tray down on the bed then his hands on his hips and looked at her. There was a bandage wrapped around his arm where the kelf’s arrow had hit, the fabric very white against his skin.
“If you want help, you just have to say so.”
“I’m fine.” Stubbornly, she tried again, but her leg pulsed with pain and refused to cooperate.
“I mean, I have a great view here. I’m perfectly happy to see you stay right where you are.”
“Pervert.”
He grinned.
“Could you pass me the liniment, please?”
“What, down there on the floor? Come on, you’ll freeze.”
“I’m fine.”
“You blatantly are not.”
Kett glared at him. He grinned back. Eventually she sighed, gritted her teeth and said, “Oh, all right. Could you please help me up?”
“I’m sorry?” Bael cupped his ear exaggeratedly. “What was that?”
“Fuck off.”
“Thought so.” He scooped her up and dumped her on the bed so fast her leg hardly had time to protest. “You want a hand rubbing that stuff in?”
“No.”
“Tough. Payment for helping you out-I get to feel you up.”
“Perv-”
“You said that already.” He picked up a couple of jars, opened them and sniffed the contents. “Eurgh.”
“It’s not meant to smell nice.” She pointed out the right jar and Bael made another face.
“What’s it meant to do?”
She sighed. Evidently there was no way of getting out of this without Bael being involved in every detail. “Loosen up the muscles.”
“Right. Why are they tight?”
“Because a tiger bit through them.”
He started examining her leg. “Actually through them?”
“Hamstrung me.”
He visibly flinched. “Youch. You must have had a hell of a surgeon.”
Kett thought about Striker and nearly laughed. “Yeah, sure,” she said.
Bael scooped out some of the smelly liniment and spread it over her leg. The scar ran mostly down the side of her thigh, but both ends of it curled round to the back where the tiger’s massive canines had ripped right through.
“Come on, roll over,” he said, nudging her hip. “Give me access.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“No need to sound so accusing.” He smoothed a warm hand over the back of her leg as she moved. “I’m doing this purely for your benefit, out of the goodness of my heart, the milk of human kindness that runs-”
“So it’s not payment for helping me?”
He grinned at her. “Call it more of a reward.”
She was silent for a moment as he stroked the warming ointment into her skin. He had good hands, strong and gentle hands, and a careful touch. He never pressed too hard or skimmed too lightly.
After a minute or two she asked, “Is that why you’re massaging bits of me that don’t need a massage?”
His fingers caressed her buttocks. “I’d say they’re crying out for it.”
She smiled despite herself. “Tell me you never trained to be a doctor.”
“Well, I do have an excellent bedside manner.”
His fingers stroked the sensitive skin inside her thighs, which Kett was pretty sure didn’t need any massaging at all, and she let out her breath. Okay, maybe she was enjoying it a bit. It had been a long time since anyone else had stroked her legs, that was for sure. In fact, there hadn’t been anyone since before the tiger had taken a chunk out of her. Three years! No wonder she’d jumped him last night. No wonder his magic hands were making her muscles turn to liquid and her heart flutter in her chest. It had been awhile and she was horny and he was hot as all hell.
Kett looked back over her shoulder at him. He was clean, but he still looked scruffy as hell. A day or two of stubble and hair that went all over the place, eyes bracketed by lines that said he laughed a lot. A good mouth. A great mouth. Kett had a minor fantasy of that mouth on her pussy, that stubble scraping her inner thighs, and lost her breath.
“You okay?” Bael asked, his voice low and husky. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” Kett breathed, and his eyes met hers. A slow smile came over that great mouth of his.
“Maybe,” his thumb drew circles on the back of her thigh, “I should kiss it all better.”
“Not unless you like the taste of liniment,” Kett said, but otherwise the thought had great appeal.
“That’s a good point. Perhaps if I kiss other places instead it might take your mind off it?”
A roll of heat surged over her and she nodded, unable to speak. Bael grinned, dropped his head and licked her hip, and she let out a hard breath.
Then the door burst open. Kett’s head came up so fast her neck made a snapping sound, and her cousin was standing in the doorway, hand to her mouth.
“Oh, sorry,” she exclaimed, but she didn’t sound it.
Once again, Kett couldn’t quite manage to speak. She could feel the heat of Bael’s breath on her hip and thought about his tongue licking her somewhere else and nearly sobbed because she wanted it so much.
She swallowed and found her voice. “Chance,” she managed. “Don’t you knock?”
Chance grinned. “It’s more fun this way.”
“Oh, you are so your father’s daughter.”
Chance rolled her eyes, and Kett wondered if her cousin had undergone a lobotomy. Being reminded she was the daughter of the Realms’ most evil man wasn’t usually something Chance enjoyed.
Kett frequently thanked whichever gods might be listening that she wasn’t related to him by blood.
Then the doorway was filled from top to bottom, side to side, with the imposing frame of Chance’s-boyfriend? Lover? Fuck-buddy? Kett decided lobotomy was definitely the answer. It seemed to have the same sort of effect as falling in love.
And what a man she’d chosen to fall in love with. Kett wasn’t given to fits of jealousy, but surely it wasn’t fair that Chance had found a man who was not only potently delicious, handsome, strong and kind, but also bona fide royalty, the king of his people. The Nasc, who were born with an animal twin with whom to share their soul, worshipped their ruler.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Chance asked as Bael moved away from Kett’s hip. He was staring at Chance, but that was only to be expected. Her cousin was the most beautiful woman Kett had ever seen, all ash-blond hair and cheekbones, her perfect figure caressed by a green silk kimono. It should have looked stupid on someone with her coloring, but Kett had never known Chance to look stupid in her whole life.
She sighed. “Yeah,” she grumbled, pulling the sheet over herself. “This is Bael. Bael, this is my cousin Chance, and Dark, her…er-”
“Majesty,” Bael said, bowing his head, and for the third time in as many minutes, Kett was lost for words.
Chance giggled. “You got yourself a Nasc lover,” she said, and Kett stared at Bael. Nasc? Well, why not? This was shaping up to be one of the weirdest days in her considerably weird life.
“Right,” she said. “Uh, Chance, what are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to see so much of you.”
Kett scowled. “Well then, you should have knocked. How did you know I was here?”
“I know everything,” Chance said airily. “Plus Miho called me.”
Bael was still staring at her. Kett reached over and closed his mouth, and he blinked.
“Yes, she’s beautiful,” Kett said. “She’s also boffing your king.”
“I forgot what a charming turn of phrase you have,” Dark said in his rumbling, deep voice, reminding Kett that at any moment he could switch forms with his animal twin, an eight-foot, dark-maned lion.
“The correct term is ‘mate’,” Chance said, leaning against Dark and looking up at him with a smile. Kett figured the correct term for it was “soppy”. “Which does actually make me the queen.”
“Well, whatever,” Kett said. “Why did Miho call you?”
“Said you might need my help. Naked in the woods and all that.”
“My being naked in the woods is cause for concern now?” Kett asked, and Chance grinned before her face sobered.
“No, but that cut on your wrist is. She said you were having trouble walking too.”
So much for hiding it. “I’m fine,” Kett said automatically. “Five by five.”
“Yes. Well, I don’t believe you.” Detaching herself from her “mate”, Chance walked over to the bed. “Dark, could you go tell Miho to hold off supper for a bit, please?”
Dark nodded, verbose as ever, and left the room, closing the door behind him. Chance picked through the tray of medical supplies. “So what happened?”
“Fuck if I know,” Kett said. A cave in the mountains. Symbols on the walls. Burnt bodies.
The sad thing was that on Kett’s scale of weird shit, this barely rated a five.
“Right. Excellent. How long have you two been together?”
She snorted at that. “About five minutes.”
“Wonderful.” Chance, wisely, stopped asking personal questions as she picked up Kett’s wrist to look closer at the jagged cut there.
Then she dropped it, Kett’s hand thudding on the mattress, and recoiled. “Bloody hell!”
“What?”
Chance peered at Kett’s eyes, visibly shaken. “What kind of mojo are you under?”
A prickle ran up Kett’s spine. The sort of mojo that repressed her shape-changing abilities, she’d bet. Ritual magic. They’d wanted her alive when they strung her up.
She shook her head wordlessly.
Chance transferred her attention to Bael. “Did you do it?”
He shook his head, clearly still under her spell. Kett clicked her tongue in irritation. She was used to watching grown men reduced to quivering teenage boys by Chance’s phenomenal beauty, charm and grace, but that didn’t mean she particularly enjoyed it.
Bael was looking at her as if she was coated in whipped cream and dispensed beer from her nipples. Five minutes ago he’d been about to lick Kett’s pussy and now she might as well be part of the furniture.
I was desirable until she walked in.
“You mentioned supper?” she asked, beyond irritation.
“Er, yes-Miho said it was just about ready…” Chance was regarding Bael with a slight frown.
“Right. Good. I’m fucking starving.” She shoved back the covers and tested her leg. Hurt like hell, but it was holding. “And can I get some bloody clothes?”