A moment later, the rushing water sounded... and then her voice echoed. “The human police have found the scene.”
That got John out of bed and hungry for more intel. As he came into the bath, she turned around under the showerhead and arched back to rinse the shampoo he used out of her hair.
“The place was crawling with cops, but the new initiates were hidden in the same way I had been—all those humans saw was enough blood to paint a house red. No sign of Lash, but there was a drive-by of a street racer with something that smelled like fake strawberries behind the wheel. I called Rehv with the license plate number to pass on to Vishous and I’ll make the report to Wrath right now.”
When she looked over at him, he signed,
“Yup. We do.”
Qhuinn woke up alone, having sent Layla back to the Far Side after they had done a little more business. He’d meant to tell her to go right away, but a goodbye embrace had led to other things...
She was still a virgin, though.
Not untouched, any longer, but defo still a virgin... Seemed like there were two people in the world he couldn’t have sex with. The trend continued and he was going to end up celibate.
As he sat up, his head pounded, proof positive that Herradura was an opponent of worth.
Rubbing his face, he thought back to kissing the Chosen. He’d taught her how to do it properly, how to suck and stroke, how to open the way for someone’s tongue, how to penetrate a mouth when she wanted to. Female learned fast.
And yet it hadn’t been hard to keep things from getting out of hand.
What had killed the urge to seal the deal was the way she stared at him. When he’d started down the Lewis- and-Clark highway with this sex-ploration shit, he’d assumed she was just looking for the practical course after all her textbook training. But on her side, there had quickly been more to it than that. Her eyes had started to get stars in them, like he was the key to the door that kept her locked in herself, like he alone held the power to spring her dead bolt and set her free.
Like he was her future.
Rather ironic because, on paper, she was his ideal female. Might well have solved his mating problem permanently.
Except his heart wasn’t in it.
So yeah, no way he was taking on the responsibility for her hopes and dreams. And not a chance he was going all the way with her. She was already being seduced by a fantasy of him—if he actually made love to her, it was only going to get worse: When you didn’t know any better, that kind of physical rush could easily be mistaken for something deeper and more meaningful.
Hell, that sort of delusion could happen between two people who had experience.
Like that chick at the tat place, for instance, slipping him her number. He’d had no interest in calling her before, during, or after. He couldn’t even remember her name—and the intel vacuum didn’t bother him in the slightest. Any woman willing to fuck a guy she didn’t know in a public place with three other males around was not someone he needed to have a relationship with.
Harsh? Yes. Double standard? Not a chance. He had no respect for himself either, so it wasn’t like he judged his own low, filthy standards with any less distaste.
And besides, Layla had no clue what he’d been doing with humans since his transition... all the sex in bathrooms and alleys and dark corners of clubs, that dirty math adding up to his being able to know exactly what to do with her body.
With any body. Male or female.
Shit. Didn’t that make him think about how Blay had spent the day.
Qhuinn fumbled with his phone and flicked the thing open. Calling up the text that Blay had sent from that unknown number, he read and reread and reread it again.
Had to have come from Saxton’s phone.
Probably typed out on the guy’s bed.
Qhuinn tossed his BlackBerry onto his table and stood up. In the bathroom, he kept the lights out because he was sooo not interested in what he looked like in the jeans and shirt he’d slept in.
Hot mess. No doubt.
As he was washing his face, a subtle whirring sound emanated from all around, the shutters rising from the windows. With water dripping off his chin and a can of Barbasol in his mitt, he glanced out into the new night. In the moonlight, the buds on the silver-trunked birches by the window had come out even farther, indicating the day had been a warm one.
He totally ignored any parallel to Blay’s being awakened to his own sexuality.
By Qhuinn’s own cousin.
Disgusted with himself, he skipped the razor action and stalked out of his room. Gunning for the kitchen, he went as fast as he dared, given that the barometric pressure in his skull was making him worried about the health and longevity of his optic nerves.
Down in Fritz’s fiefdom, he made a pot of coffee as
Pride mattered in moments like this.
Mind you, first trip through the park, he forgot to add the grounds, so all he got was a nice, steaming pot of clear water.
Once more with feeling.
He was coming out of the dining room with a camping thermos full of dark brown miracle juice and a bottle of aspirin when the door to the vestibule was opened by Fritz.
The pair who stepped past the good
For a split second, he nearly growled as possessiveness made him want to drive his Hummer between the two and park it there—until he realized their huggy-huggy was evidently for medicinal purposes. Saxton didn’t seem too steady on his feet, and his face had clearly been used as a punching bag.
Now Qhuinn growled low for a different reason. “Who fucking did that to you.”
Couldn’t be the guy’s own family. Saxton’s folks were cool with what and who he was.
“Tell me,” he demanded. And once that question was answered, the pair could follow it up with how in the fuck Blay thought he could bring an outsider not only into the Brotherhood’s seat, but the home of the First Family.
Oh, but number three:
Saxton smiled. Sort of. His upper lip wasn’t working all that well. “Nothing but some human trash. Let us not get emotional, shall we?”
“Fuck that. And what the hell are you doing here with him?” Qhuinn stared at Blay and tried not to measure the guy’s face for stubble burn. “He can’t be in this house. You can’t bring him—”
From up above, Wrath’s voice cut him off, the king’s deep baritone filling the foyer. “Blay wasn’t kidding about you, was he. You got some kind of cracked there, didn’t you, son.”
Saxton wheezed as he bowed. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, for not providing a more agreeable presentation. You are most kind to welcome me herein.”
“You did me right when it mattered. I return the favor. Always. That being said, you compromise my happy home in any way, I’ll slice off your balls and feed them to you.”
I love Wrath, Qhuinn thought.
Saxton bowed again. “Understood.”
Wrath didn’t look down the stairs, his wraparounds remaining straight ahead so that it seemed as if he were staring up at the frescoes on the lofty ceiling. And yet even with his blindness, he missed nothing. “Qhuinn’s got coffee, from what I can scent, so that’ll help, and Fritz has fired up a bedroom for you. You want something to eat before you feed?”
