Bael retreated down the hill, not because he was scared of the dragon-well, okay, he was a bit-but because he was terrified of that glint in Kett’s eye. This was not precisely how he’d planned breaking the news to her. He’d figured he’d go in and compliment her on her hair, or her dragon-roping skills or something, and buy her a drink or two-there’d been a ramshackle pub in the tiny village he’d passed through, or maybe they could retire to wherever she lived-and sit with her by the fire and coax her to bed. Then after he’d had head-banging sex with her, he’d carefully introduce the subject.
He hadn’t really planned on nearly getting them both killed. Still, he lived on the edge.
He watched as she grabbed her leather bag and strode determinedly to the dragon, still tethered from four points on its harness. The creature watched her warily from one red eye. Kett unwound the rope from her shoulder and weighed it in her hands, never taking her eyes off the dragon. Bael peered closer, frowning. A lasso? She was going to lasso the dragon? With rope? She must be crazy. It’d be incinerated in seconds!
He started to move forward then stopped. Kett knew what she was doing. Surely she did. It was bravery, not insanity.
Maybe a little of both.
Kett and the dragon eyeballed each other awhile. The dragon snorted. Kett pulled her visor down over her face.
She stepped to the side, still watching the dragon. Damn, she had a sexy walk. He’d never noticed before because she’d either been running-and jiggling in much more interesting places-or limping. Her leg seemed to be better now, and she was moving with grace, like a predator. Careful and slow, each movement precise.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being mated to her.
He leaned against a rock, arms folded, and watched her work.
Moving smoothly the whole time, she distracted the dragon with the swinging lasso then flung a hunk of meat high in the air. When the dragon snapped its fearsome jaws on it, Kett whipped the rope around its muzzle, hauled its head down to the ground and leapt onto the back of its neck.
Bael closed his eyes, heart pounding. If it came to the worst, he could probably catch her when the dragon flung her off. Because it would fling her off.
He opened his eyes again, ready to move, and watched with his heart in his mouth as Kett rode the furious dragon as if it was a fairground ride.
A minute or two later-it felt like hours to Bael, whose heart was hammering-the dragon’s head sank to the ground. Its eyes were closing. She’d drugged the meat. Kett tapped its nose, got no reaction then rummaged in her bag again for a syringe, which she stuck inside the dragon’s nostril.
Then she hopped down, wincing just a little as her weight fell on her right leg, grabbed the broken collar and strode back to him.
Bael started breathing when she started walking. Hell, those long strides, strong shoulders, even her scowl turned him on. She ripped off her leather helmet as she approached, shaking out curls that were damp with sweat and flattened by the headgear, and shoved it at him.
“You,” she said. “Follow. Now.”
He grabbed the helmet and stumbled after her, powerless to resist.
She led him down the hill to a large stone barn. Tacked on the side of it was a smaller building with smoke coming from the stone chimney. The roof, Bael noticed, was tiled. With all those dragons around, he guessed it made sense not to build from wood and thatch. The walls seemed to be several feet thick, the door plated with steel.
Kett slammed the heavy door open as if it was made from cardboard and yelled, “Jarven!”
“Yeah?” a male voice called back, and Bael’s hackles instantly rose.
“Fira snapped her collar. We got any spares?”
A man emerged from the steep ladder to Bael’s right. Tall, his dark hair tied back with a leather thong, hard years etched into his face, he gave Bael an inscrutable look before gesturing back toward the barn. “Should have. What happened?”
Kett dealt Bael a filthy look and threw the damaged collar at the worktable on the far side of the room. On the other side, backed against the barn, was a forge, its fire billowing out heat into the stone room. “Someone distracted me,” she said. “Didn’t get all the chains down, she spooked, broke the collar.”
He frowned. “Fira spooked?”
“Yes,” Kett said, glaring at Bael again. She strode over to the trough of water by the forge, stripped off her gloves and plunged her hands in. There was a sizzling sound and something like relief came over her face. “She’s out now, though. Got the needle in.”
Jarven inclined his head. “I’ll do her wing now.”
“Let me fix her collar first. She’s dosed, but I’d rather not take the chance.”
Jarven nodded and Kett stuck her gloves back on and walked to the door. Bael started to follow her but without even looking back, she barked, “Stay.”
Meekly, he obeyed. Right now, he had the feeling badgering her would be suicidal.
The door slammed and he was left in the welcome heat of the forge with the tall, muscular man she’d called Jarven. Jealousy flared madly in Bael. She was his mate! What was she doing living with another man?
Come to think of it-was she sleeping with him? Did that mean she wasn’t his mate? He ought to be relieved. Especially since that meant she’d been cheating on Jarven in Nihon. Which meant she wasn’t the sort of woman he wanted for a mate.
He swallowed. He’d never allowed himself to think about what sort of woman he did want for a mate, but in the last few days he’d reconciled himself to it being Kett-and had weirdly rather welcomed the idea. She might be an angry, scarred, twisted, bitter lunatic, but she had fire and passion and when her eyes sparkled with silver, he lost his breath and forgot how to finish a sentence.
She was the sort of woman he wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life being surprised by.
He glanced over at Jarven, who’d picked up the broken collar and was examining it.
“So, er,” Bael said, and Jarven glanced up but didn’t give any other hint he’d heard. “You’re…” Kett’s lover. Her husband? Oh hell!
“Jarven Tenvale,” came the reply. He went over to the forge and started pumping up the fire.
“Baelvar,” Bael said, scrutinizing the other man. His straight dark hair was graying slightly at the temples and there were deep lines in his face. Frown lines, not the brackets around the eyes and mouth that came from smiling. He had a slightly grim look to him, although he didn’t seem to be the sort of man who showed much emotion. Or, apparently, the sort who talked.
“You’re, uh…” Boinking my woman. No. “I didn’t know Kett, er…” Was shagging someone else. No! “We met in Asiatica,” he finished lamely.
Jarven grunted.
“About a, uh, month ago.” Chained to the ceiling, naked, her hot body rubbing all over mine, those lean thighs and firm breasts and hard nipples…
And then he felt it. A twitch in his pants. He was getting hard over Kett. Thinking about Kett! Kett was making him hard!
Bael would have sung a hymn of joy there and then that his penis was working once more, were it not for the fact that Jarven might perform an exorcism on him for it. Also, there was the small matter of him living with Kett.
“How long have you known her?” he asked.
Jarven scratched his whiskered jaw. “Thirty years.”
Bael’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow. So you must know her pretty well?”
Jarven shrugged.
This was like getting blood from a stone. Bael gritted his teeth and debated whether or not to be honest about it.
Better not. Honesty always got him into trouble.
“What-um. She never told me what she was doing in Asiatica.”
“Didn’t she?”
Bael waited for more, but didn’t get it. Okay. No more leading questions.
“Did she tell you how we met?”
“Nope.” Jarven sounded like he didn’t care, and a thought occurred to Bael.
“Did she tell you that we had met?”
Jarven sighed. He waved his hand over the forge as if to test the heat. “No.”
“Right, then. Well, the truth is we were both sort of captured. I don’t know who by. They seemed to want us for some sort of ritual. There was blood and silver chains…”
Jarven was heating up some sort of poker in the forge and didn’t seem to be listening.
“Anyway, we escaped. Ran into a friend of Kett’s. Miho? Little Xinjiangese woman, lives in Nihon?”
Jarven gave another grunt.
“And, uh. Her cousin was there. Kett’s cousin, I mean. Chance. Do you know her?”
Jarven gave a shrug that implied he might.
Bael swallowed a little nervously. Here he was, about to explain to a big man with a piece of hot metal in his hands that he’d shagged the woman who was quite possibly his wife. And that he intended to carry on shagging her.
He didn’t want to. Tell Jarven, that was-he definitely wanted to shag Kett again-but he couldn’t think of another way to get around the subject.
“I slept with Kett,” he said, and immediately afterward it occurred to him that he could have just asked Jarven if they were involved. Fuck it. Well, he knew he wasn’t very bright. Albhar was always telling him that his inability to think first, speak second was going to be the death of him.
He watched Jarven carefully, anxiously. The other man was concentrating on the poker thing he was heating up in the fire. Had he not heard?
“I said, er-”
“I heard,” Jarven said. Then he added, as if it was an afterthought, “Makes no never mind to me.”
Bael blinked. “It doesn’t?”
“Nope. Who she sleeps with is her business.”
“So you’re not…er…”
What looked like the faintest smile crossed Jarven’s face as he turned back to glance at Bael. “Nope.”
He sagged against the ladder. “Oh, thank gods.”
Jarven snorted.
Crisis averted, Bael glanced around the small room for somewhere to sit. As far as he could tell, it was a working room and nothing else. There was the big forge, a large tub of water and an anvil, and a table or two holding various items that all looked like torture instruments. There were no chairs.
Did Kett live here, he wondered, or somewhere else? Maybe in the village. Maybe this was just a workplace.
Maybe he’d live here with her. Let Albhar run his other lands and estates, buy a house up here. He frowned as he thought of the tiny, gloomy stone cottages he’d passed on the way to the forge, then grimaced. Maybe build a place here. Nice house with large rooms, big fires lit all the time to keep the chill off, because he strongly suspected without the heat of the forge, this tiny, dark cottage would be as freezing as the outside temperature.
He was just opening his mouth to ask where Kett lived when a buzzing sound caught his attention. It also caught Jarven’s, which Bael figured was a minor miracle.
Jarven put down the hot metal he’d been messing with and reached for something hanging on a leather strap from a peg on the wall. A hemisphere of rock, the flat, polished surface of which seemed to be glowing red.
Well, that was interesting.
Even more interesting was that when Jarven picked it up and looked at the flat surface, it stopped glowing and Kett’s voice came out of it.
Bael started. Now that wasn’t normal.
“Collar’s done,” Kett’s disembodied voice said. “She’s still out, but do you want the syringe?”
Bael stared at Jarven, who wasn’t looking remotely surprised or stunned or bewildered. Well, Bael conceded, it didn’t look as if he ever would.
“No, I’ll bring one,” Jarven said.
“Right. I’m dying for a drink. See ya.” Jarven nodded and put the thing back on its peg. Then he turned back to what he’d been doing at the forge.
Bael stared at the thing, which now just looked like an inanimate geode. How had it been responsible for conveying Kett’s voice? Had she been poking her head through the window and he hadn’t noticed?
He looked around. There didn’t seem to be any windows.
Maybe Jarven was a Mage. Bael went cold despite the heat as he watched the other man poking at the fire. Maybe Jarven was with the Federación.
“What…” His voice was all broken, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That, er, thing. You were talking to Kett, but she’s not here.”
“No,” Jarven agreed.
“But-how-?”
Jarven sighed again, turned with the hot metal still in his hands and said, “It’s called a scryer. It’s a kelfish device, powered by kelfish magic. They act as conduits for thoughts. If you want to talk to someone else who has one of them, you hold the scryer and concentrate on that person, and it makes a connection with theirs. Then the face of the scryer turns into a sort of window so you can see each other as you talk.”
A kelfish device. Okay. The kelfs had nothing to do with the Federación.
Bael shook his head, relieved. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Jarven turned back to the forge.
“So is that like the longest speech you’ve ever uttered?” Bael asked, and Jarven stabbed the metal into the fire with a little more force than before.
“There are chairs upstairs,” he said. “Go and sit.”
Bael grinned. Hey, he’d rattled the emotionless man! In retrospect, being that Jarven was clearly close to Kett, not a good choice. But Bael had never much cared for consequences.
“Those drinks she mentioned,” he said, figuring Kett should be back around now. “Where are they? I’ll get one for Kett. You thirsty?”
“They’re in the village,” Jarven said.
“Oh. So she’s going to fetch them?”
“No,” Jarven said in slow, patient tones. “She’s going to go to the pub, order a beer, drink it there, repeat the process several times and come back when she’s done.”
Bael opened his mouth then shut it again. “She’s avoiding me!”
Jarven muttered something that sounded like, “Can’t imagine why.”
“Where’s the pub?”
Jarven was silent a moment or two, as if deliberating whether or not to tell him, then evidently decided it was worth it to get Bael out of his hair, and gave him directions.
“Avoid me!” Bael said indignantly, pulling his gloves back on. “What did I do?”
Wisely, Jarven said nothing.
“Beer me,” Kett said before she’d even taken off her coat.
Across the bar, Bill, the grizzled old landlord, filled a tankard. “Bad day?”
“Fucking horrible.” Kett ripped off one glove, strode over and downed the beer in one go. “More.”
Bill laughed. “Dragons been giving you the runaround?”
“No, the dragons have been fluffy little kittens. It’s a different species entirely that’s pissing me off.”
“Men?” suggested Angie, Bill’s pale, skinny daughter.
“Close enough,” Kett growled, and stomped off to the back reaches of the dingy pub to see if anyone wanted a game of darts. They didn’t, because even drunk men knew it was a bad plan to get near Kett when she was angry and had a fistful of sharp objects, but a couple of them ventured to offer the snooker table as an alternative.
They’d been playing for five minutes when Kett realized there were three of them and only ten balls. Still, variety was the spice of life.
“Is it Jarven, then?” Bill asked as he watched.
Kett banged a ball into the pocket. “Nope.”
“Jarven’s incapable of annoying anyone,” Angie said. Kett suspected she harbored a crush on her silent roommate.
“Yeah, he’d have to speak for that.”
“Well, who is it?” Angie asked. “Can’t be anyone in the village or we’d have heard.”
“It’s-” Kett began, but then the door banged open and she turned her head, distracted, to see who was coming in amidst the flurry of snow. Up in the mountains of the Northern Province, winter lasted for months and Kett couldn’t remember how long it had been since they’d had a snow-free day. For the newcomer to stand there with the door open, letting in billowing gusts of freezing cold air, marked him as an outsider. Or an idiot.
Or both. She ducked behind the snooker table.
The door finally closed and conversation dimmed as all the locals watched the newcomer walk across the stained wooden floor to the bar.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said, and Kett rolled her eyes, because if she hadn’t guessed already, now she knew it was Bael.
“Who would that be then, sir?” Bill asked.
“A woman.”
Kett stifled a snort. She’d been here six months before the locals caught sight of her in a t-shirt and spied her breasts. Before that, they’d assumed the new dragon trainer was a man. Most of them still thought of her that way.
“Only woman here’s my daughter,” Bill said now, with an overlay of heavy protectiveness.
“No-I mean, a specific woman. Tall, dark curly hair, scar on her cheek, limps slightly. Very hot. And angry.”
Angie stifled a giggle.
“Her name is Kett.”
One of the snooker players snorted. “Kett’s not a woman.”
“Er,” Bael said, “I’m pretty sure she is.”
Kett felt her face get hot.
“Is she here?” Bael asked, and from behind the snooker table, Kett shook her head frantically at Angie, who gave a small shake of her head to her father.
“Sure, she’s hiding behind the snooker table,” Bill said cheerfully, and Kett shot him a filthy look as she stood up. “Drink?”
“Whatever she’s having,” Bael said, beaming at Kett, who pinched the bridge of her nose and reminded herself that if she got thrown in prison for killing Bael the week before Yule, her father would disown her.
Actually, maybe that would be a good idea.
Then Bael winked, and despite herself Kett felt something go twing in the region of her underwear.
“Is there a reason you’re here, or are you just stalking me?” she asked, trying to dispel the feeling.
“I need to talk to you,” Bael said.
“I hate those words,” Kett muttered. Louder, she asked, “What about? You know who strung us up in that cave?”
The pub suddenly got a lot quieter.
“Er, no,” Bael said.
“Then what could you possibly have to tell me that I’d be interested in?”
“Uh.” Bill put Bael’s beer on the bar and he picked it up, suddenly looking nervous. “Is there somewhere quieter we can go?”
“No,” Kett said. If they went somewhere quieter, she might forget that he’d almost gotten her killed earlier and jump him. Which would just be stupid.
“Outside, maybe?”
“You did just come from outside, I take it?” Kett asked incredulously. “It’s below freezing and it’s been snowing nonstop for weeks.”
“I really would rather talk to you in private,” Bael said.
“Well, tough.”
He sighed, drank some of his beer then tugged her over to a quieter corner of the pub. Since every single person there was silently listening, it didn’t make a whole lot of difference.
“Okay,” he said.
Kett waited.
“Okay.” He drank some more beer.
Wow, he really was nervous.
“Okay-”
“Bael?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop saying ‘okay’ or I’ll punch you.”
“Ok-” He swallowed. “Right.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You know your cousin, right?”
“Chance? I’m acquainted with her.”
“Well. You know how she’s sort of our queen?”
“Sort of?”
“Well, is. Because she’s the king’s mate.”
“Yes.” Kett folded her arms and leaned against the wall.
“Right.” Bael drank some more. “Uh. You’re not sleeping with Jarven, are you?”
Kett blinked at this mad conversational segue. “Why is that any of your business?”
Bael looked miserable. “It just is. Are you sleeping with anyone?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No. Happy now?”
“Have you, er, slept with anyone? Since me, I mean?”
“I really don’t see-”
“Just answer me. Please,” Bael said, and Kett saw the desperation in his eyes.
She blew out a sigh. “No,” she said. “I live in the middle of fucking nowhere and there are no eligible men here between the ages of eighteen and eighty. Except for Jarven, and he don’t count.”
Something flared in Bael’s eyes but it was hard to tell what. He drank the rest of his beer all in one go then held it out to Bill. “More, please.”
Bill silently refilled it, watching them intently, and Kett sighed. Bael was clearly really uncomfortable talking about this in public, but equally as clearly he wasn’t going to go away until he’d said it.
Maybe he did know something about the cave. She ought to hear him out.
“Bill,” she asked, “mind if we go upstairs?”
Amusement flared in the landlord’s face before he nodded. “Go ahead,” he said, and Kett picked up her mug of beer and led Bael to the door behind the bar that separated the pub’s private and public sections.
Upstairs was a small parlor, away from the sounds and smells of the bar. But Kett wasn’t used to drinking in such a clean atmosphere, so she lit up a cigar while Bael looked around nervously.
“Talk,” she said.
He sat down opposite her and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not making this very easy,” he said.
“Wasn’t aware I was supposed to.”
He sighed. “Okay. Here’s the thing. I’m Nasc, right?”
“Right. What’s your animal?”
“Don’t distract me. I’m Nasc. Do you…know very much about us?”
Kett waved her hand to say she didn’t.
“Right. Well. Your cousin is mated to one.”
“We covered this already.”
“Yes, but do you know what that means? Mated?”
“I figure it’s like being married, only more…animally. More sex, maybe.” She blew out a smoke ring.
At the mention of sex, Bael’s eyes darkened. Well, she couldn’t blame him. If it had been half as good for him as it had for her, he’d be desperate for more.
“Well, yes. Sort of. It has a lot to do with sex.”
“What a surprise.”
“Once a Nasc is mated, they can’t have sex with anyone else.”
“Like marriage, then.”
“No, I mean literally can’t. It’s physically impossible.”
Kett blinked, an image of the insanely virile Dark being unable to get it up suddenly flashing into her mind. “Seriously?”
“Yep. And we can only have children with our mates too.”
“So…once you’re mated, that’s it? No get-out clause? No divorce? No shagging around on the side?”
“Nope. Once you’ve found your mate, that’s it.”
“Huh. Well, I suppose it’s a better system than ours.” Her fingers curled into a fist, remembering. “So long as you’re really, really sure you want to be mated to that person.”
Bael cleared his throat, drank some more beer then cleared it again. “Um. Well. That’s the thing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That can’t be the thing; you already said ‘the thing’.”
“Well, this is another thing. Or part of the same thing. Um. You don’t actually get to decide if you want to be mated or not.”
“You don’t?” Kett scowled. It reeked of arranged marriages to her, and in Kett’s mind, an arranged marriage was like executing a random person when a crime had been committed. You might get lucky and get the right person, but chances were you’d just condemned someone innocent.
“No. It’s sort of a fate thing. Once you find each other, that’s sort of it.”
“Fate,” Kett said skeptically.
“Well, yes.”
“That’s bollocks,” she said.
“I thought you’d say that,” he sighed.
“No, it is. The whole fate thing. Written in the stars and all that. There’s not a thing written down can’t be changed.”
“It’s not written anywhere,” Bael said, looking miserable. “It’s just true. Once you find your mate, that’s it.”
He looked at her then, and those green eyes connected with something inside her. A nasty suspicion started in Kett’s mind.
“Please don’t be telling me what I think you’re telling me,” she said.
“What do you think I’m telling you?” Bael asked warily.
“That you think we’re these fated mate things.”
He swallowed. “Well, yes.”
Kett looked at him. He appeared to be serious. And not particularly cheerful about it, either. Well, fuck this.
She picked up her beer and drank some. Then some more. Then some more, until the mug was empty. Then she went to the stairs and yelled, “Bill, I need more,” and handed down her mug for a refill.
His bushy eyebrows waggled at her as he filled it. “How’s it going up there? Don’t you two stain my rugs.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kett snapped, and took her beer back.
Bael was sitting where she’d left him, gnawing on one fingernail. She hadn’t seen him look so uncertain since she’d met him-but then, she reminded herself sternly, she hadn’t met him very long before he’d buggered off again.
They hardly knew each other. This was insane.
“Look,” she said, sitting down again. “This is stupid. We can’t be those mate things because I’m not Nasc.”
“Neither is the queen.”
Dammit, he had a point. “Well, are you sure they’re these fated mates?”
Bael nodded morosely. “Yes. They even gave me details.”
A piece slotted into place in Kett’s head. “You talked to them about this?”
“Had to talk to someone! I haven’t been able to have sex with anyone since you!”
A small touch of pride warmed Kett. Then irritation squashed it. “Is that how you found out where I live? Chance told you?”
Warily, he nodded.
“She is so dead.”
“Don’t you threaten my queen.”
He said it mildly, and Kett snorted. “She’s my cousin. And I could definitely kick her ass.”
“Look, we’re not talking about her.”
“No, we’re talking about your recent fit of insanity. I say recent, because based on the evidence so far, they seem to hit with the same regularity as the sunrise. Bael, I’m not your mate. We hardly know each other!”
“Chance and Dark hardly knew each other. In fact, he tried to kill her several times, but they still-”
“Still not talking about them,” Kett said, glaring at him.
He was a loon. Well, she already knew that, but he was twice a loon now. If he thought she was going to jump for joy at his mad proposal-because that’s what it was, a proposal, horribly mixed in with a fait accompli-then he wasn’t just insane, he was also stupid.
Why her? She was a divorced ex-con with a crippled leg and a mad family. She wasn’t young, she wasn’t beautiful and she did nothing but yell at him. All she had in her favor was that she was great in the sack, and frankly Bael could probably get that anywhere.
Kett didn’t like fate. She didn’t like the idea that things were meant to happen and there wasn’t any way to change them, and she really didn’t like the idea that there was a preordained destiny out there for everyone. Especially for herself.
She’d heard enough predictions about how she was going to either go insane, get locked up in jail or die young-or all three-to be completely sick of it.
Even if two out of three had come true already. And sitting here listening to Bael, she wasn’t entirely sure about the third.
Added to which, she didn’t want a mate. Husband. Boyfriend. Whatever. Other people got in the way-they always had, they always would. Other people got you hurt, or they got hurt because of you.
Alone was best. It always had been.
Kett ran her hands over her face. It was just as well she couldn’t currently change her shape, or Bael would probably think it was a sign they really were meant to be together. She needed to make it clear to Jarven that Bael wasn’t to be told-in the unlikely chance that Jarven actually decided to speak to anyone, that was.
“Well, look,” Bael said. “There is one way to be sure.”
“What’s that?”
He cocked his head. “Actually, two.”
Kett stubbed out her cigar. “Go on, then.”
“Well, you could have sex with someone else. If you’re my mate, that should be impossible.”
Kett opened her mouth to tell him there wasn’t anyone within a fifty-mile radius she’d even consider having sex with, but then it occurred to her the idea had merit.
She had to pick up Striker and Chalia tomorrow and take them to Elvyrn. She hadn’t planned on staying, but maybe if she did, she might find someone to hook up with. Nuala was always trying to set her up with someone. The idea of a single woman in her thirties seemed to be completely unnatural to her stepmother.
Yeah. She’d go to Elvyrn, endure the family Yule gathering and shag some stranger. Then she could prove to Bael that this was all bollocks.
Shag a stranger. She used to do it all the time when she was younger. Why in the Realm had she stopped? It was always so-
Empty.
Exciting!
Sordid.
Liberating.
Sad.
Cool.
Childish.
Adult.
Pathetic.
She sighed. “Okay, what’s the other option?”
“Well, you could have sex with me.”
Kett snorted. But Bael seemed to be serious.
She tried to ignore the stab of heat that came from the idea. “What would that prove?”
“That I’m your mate.”
“Er, no. It wouldn’t.”
Although, it would be an excuse for more of those fireworks Bael had given her last time… No. Bad Kett.
“Well, it would to me.”
“You’re not the one who needs convincing!” She hoped her hard nipples weren’t visible through her shirt.
“Yes, I am. I need to be convinced my penis isn’t broken,” Bael said plaintively.
Kett laughed. She couldn’t help it. She clinked her mug against his and stood up. “Well, you try, I’ll give you that.”
“This isn’t funny,” Bael said, standing too.
“Is to me. And look at it this way. If I didn’t think it was funny, I’d probably be beating you up. Bael, you’re a nutball. I’m not sleeping with you. End of story.”