Unleashed by the Defender (Brides of the Kindred #25) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,20
forearm and then showed her hand to the cabbie who looked at it thoughtfully.
“Hmm. Well, where are you headed, Mistress?”
“The Luxx,” Imani told him. “Can you take us there?”
“The Luxx, eh?” His eyes widened. “Well, if you’re staying there you can certainly afford to pay.”
“Yes, I can,” Imani said. She was thankful she had the no-limit cred chip Commander Sylvan had given her. “In fact, I’ll pay you twice the going rate. Only please, just take us home.”
“Twice you say?” This offer seemed to make up the cabbie’s mind. “All right—hop in, Mistress. Only mind that big bodyslave of yours doesn’t mess up my upholstery.”
“He’ll be as quiet as a lamb,” Imani promised. She looked at J’are. “You’ll be good for me—right, J’are?”
He nodded stiffly once and repeated, “Good,” in that deep, hoarse voice of his.
“All right—climb in then.”
The cabbie slid open the back compartment of the shuttle, which meant Imani had to climb over the waist-high railing of the bridge to get in. She was just about to do so when a pair of big hands took her by the waist and simply lifted her into the flying shuttle-cab.
“Oh!” she barely had time to gasp before J’are was climbing in after her.
“All settled back there?” the cabbie asked, looking at them from behind a thick plasti-glass shield which separated the front and the back of the cab. When Imani nodded, he said, “All right then—off we go!”
Twelve
The shocked looks Imani got leading J’are through the lobby of the Luxx would have made her blush with embarrassment at another time. But at the moment she was so tired and worn out, she honestly just didn’t even care.
She walked with her head down, intent only on getting to her room and refused to notice the whispered remarks about how “filthy” her bodyslave was or snobbish references to people who didn’t belong on the planet in the first place.
At last they reached her suite and she was able to bring him inside. She wanted to collapse on the bed but one look at the shiny black paint stuff all over him made her reconsider. Clearly her job wasn’t done yet.
She considered putting him in the shower but she wasn’t sure the black paint would wash off easily. Maybe it was better to give him a good soak in the tub—she might have better luck getting it off him that way.
“J’are, what is this stuff?” she asked, picking at the black paint on one arm after she had gotten the water running in the huge marble tub in the center of the bathroom.
He frowned.
“Makes safe. Need to keep safe in the dark.”
“You do?” Imani asked, puzzled. “Is it…very dark in the Yonnite holding jail then?”
He nodded.
“In the hole it is.”
“The hole?” Imani shook her head. “Do you mean solitary? Solitary confinement?”
But J’are shook his head vigorously.
“Not solitary. Not…alone. Other inmates in the hole. And…things. Biters…crushers…bad things.” He shook his head again. “Not alone. Never alone.”
“Oh, you poor thing!”
Imani’s heart went out to him. He must have been fighting for his very existence for months! And it sounded like the Yonnite jail was worse than even the worst prisons on Earth.
“Well,” she told J’are. “You don’t need this anymore, so we’re going to wash it off. Okay?”
He drew away from her, frowning mistrustfully.
“Need it to keep safe! Safe in the dark!”
“But I’ll keep you safe now,” Imani promised him. “I mean, I won’t let you get put back in jail. You’re mine—remember? I Claimed you,” she added, hoping this would help him relent and get into the bath. She couldn’t take him everywhere with her as he was now, covered in the shiny black paint.
“I’m yours.” Slowly J’are nodded. Since the fight on the bridge, he had regressed even more into his feral state but this seemed to get through to him. “You’ll keep me safe?” he said, looking at Imani hopefully.
She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The fact that a seven-foot-tall, huge, muscular Kindred warrior was asking for her protection seemed like a joke. But until she could get him completely free of the Yonnite court system, she was actually his best bet for safety.
“I’ll keep you safe,” she repeated. “So how about getting into the nice warm tub and washing this stuff off. Would that be okay?”
J’are appeared to think about it for a moment.
“You wash me because you Claimed me?” he asked.
“Yes, exactly.” Imani nodded her head vigorously.
“All right.” He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling.