The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,173

shall take too long for you to safely return to your compound.”

“Then we’ll stay the day with you,” Phury said as his eyes traveled over the script. “But until we know you and your staff are all right? We’re going nowhere.”

Abalone exhaled. “Blessed am I for your presence.”

Z laughed tightly. “You think we want to go back and tell Wrath you got your throat slit because we didn’t do our job? Not the kind of report I want to make to the King.”

Phury gave the letter back and put his hand on Abalone’s shoulder once again. “And let us do the dirty work—it’s safer for everyone that way. Where’s your bedroom?”

“Down that way.”

“Come on, we’ll take you there and then get your staff secured. After that, we’re going to fine-tooth-comb this house until we know there’s nothing but that letter left behind.”

Abalone found himself nodding. “Thank you, sires. Thank you so very much.”

“I am most pleased that you called upon me. And I am sorry that I kept you waiting.”

Throe smiled at the female addressing him and indicated the comfortable sofa he’d been sitting on since he arrived on her property. “It has been no hardship. I’ve been warm and dry. Already, you have been as gracious as any hostess could possibly be.”

The aristocratic female smiled, flashing teeth that were as white as the diamonds at her throat. Her wrists. Upon her fingers and earlobes. Standing just inside the modest caretaker’s residence on her huge estate, she looked like a model who’d walked into the wrong photoshoot.

“My mate is unwell,” she said gravely. “I had to attend to him.”

Dressed as she was in a skintight leopard-print cocktail dress, one had to wonder exactly what kind of needs her elderly hellren had.

Hardly the sort of thing a shellan would wear to tuck an older gentlemale into bed.

More likely, Throe thought, she had dressed to meet him.

“Yes, I recall he was ailing,” he said smoothly. “I’m very sorry.”

“It grieves me so.”

“How could it not.”

“I shall be a widow soon.”

As he nodded in solemn sympathy, he deliberately allowed his eyes to drift down from her black straight hair to her dainty feet.

The last time he’d seen her, it had been here, but there had been far fewer clothes involved—for both of them, as well as his fellow Bastards. She had been lying before the hearth, and he and the soldiers had swarmed over her naked flesh, feeding, fucking. That had been about a month ago, only the most recent of the sessions that had been ongoing for the previous year at regular intervals.

“Is it only you then tonight?” she asked in a husky way.

“Yes, and I must have you know that I am afraid we have parted ways, Xcor and myself. I’m getting out of the fighting.”

“Are you,” she purred. “And where are you staying?”

“I am between residences at this moment.”

“Really.”

“Indeed.”

She came forward, crossing the shallow room to stand within arm’s reach of him. “Dawn is coming soon.”

He sent his stare down her body again. “Is it. Well, then I shall have to go.”

“So soon,” she pouted.

“’Tis only safe.” Idly, he trailed his fingertips up her hip, across her lower belly … down to the juncture of her thighs. Pressing in through the dress, he gave her cleft a little stroke. “So I’m afraid I must end things here—”

“Perhaps you and I may come to an arrangement,” she said.

“Oh?” he said.

“My hellren is far older than I. He is my true love, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But because of his advancing age, there are certain needs of mine that he is not capable of fulfilling regularly.”

“I believe you are familiar with my abilities in that regard.”

The female smiled in a feral fashion. “Yes. I am.”

“And it would seem only fair that, were you to offer me room and board, you be compensated in a manner which you deem appropriate.”

The female put one of her stiletto-clad feet on the arm of the sofa and lifted the hem of her dress up to her waist, exposing her bare sex to him. “Perhaps you shall refresh my memory as to your talents first.”

Throe purred in the back of his throat and leaned into her, extending his tongue, licking his way into her slit. As her hips tilted toward him, and her head fell back, he sucked at her clit—

And then stopped. Sat back. “I have one problem.”

“Yes?” she grunted, pulling her head back to level.

“I cannae stay here at this cottage. Not if the Band of Bastards are