My shoulders relax, hearing her happy sound. This causes the level of her body to lower until she comes to rest under my ear. I adjust where I clutch her hips and pet her metal-covered rump. I grow hard.
Isla’s fist clutches the dorsal spine she has a grip on. “Um, babe? Could you not fondle my ass? At least wait until we’re in the batcave and we can do something about it—”
“YOU THERE!” I bellow, glad that Isla’s ears are safe from my shouting with her at my back. “You stay away from that wall! I was gentle with the lot of you and your tears, if you’ve shed any, do not count now. Isla and I are taking a brief breaking time. The rest of you are to do the same. And know this: if I come back to a zero on my counter, I will beat every one of you I can get ahold of!”
“I don’t think sex on the regular is mellowing him out like you thought it would,” Mandi whispers to Gracie in decibels loud enough the whole quarry can hear.
Gracie doesn’t even attempt to whisper. She returns, “Give Isla a chance to work him. Let’s see what he’s like when he gets back!”
A punching growl bursts up from my chest, but Isla pats me on the back, beside my swelling spines. “Leave them be. I’m ready to talk.”
CHAPTER 42
ISLA
It’s a quick and quiet hike back to the cave… not that we make it there. I’m so quiet, Bash doesn’t feel like waiting for the privacy of his home, and halfway across the mesa, he changes direction and leads me to the Narwari’s stable rather than take me down into the old quarry.
He marches in with me and orders, “Out,” to the hobs who are cleaning stalls.
They go.
Bash’s hand tugs on mine and I look up to meet his concerned gaze. “Isla, speak to me. What has you so unhappy?” The part of his tail just behind his blades forms a soft loop and pets carefully along the side of my face.
“Who bosses you around?” I ask him.
“Not you.”
Despite myself, I smirk. It’s a sad one though. “Give me time. We haven’t been married long. And I meant at work.”
He frowns. Then he scowls. “If you want me to admit that I must take orders from Gracie—”
“No, who is your regular boss? Who owns your quarry?”
Now Bash’s whole scaly-covered face shutters. “Cessilla.”
Cessilla.
His jaw works and he says softer, “A Gryfala by the name of Cessilla.”
“Is she the one you lov—”
“Yes.”
Ow, ow, ow. “Oh.” Her name is even beautiful. A cruel, beautiful bitch’s name. And I use that term in the most positive definition: whip-smart, successful, accomplished, feminine and powerful. A proper bitch.
You know, not me.
“Isla, why does this vex you? Is it because she owns our cave?”
I gape at him.
His ears sling back and he licks his sharp teeth unhappily. “Ah. I see. You didn’t know to be insecure about that.”
“No!” I shout. “I didn’t!”
Bash gathers me to him, his jaw hard against mine and his scales scratchy as they rasp the side of my face. “You have nothing to feel unconfident about. Yes, she owns the quarry, and yes, the land our cave is set in. If you think a Gryfala would ever enter there, you don’t know Gryfala. They love their sky, they need it. And I feel it important to note that by the time she sent me out from her rookery, I didn’t want her to step foot in my territory. Not any of my territory.”
I let him hold me until I don’t feel like screaming. Then I pull back to look him right in the eye. “If I was employed by my ex-lover, the former love of my life—”
Bash’s snarl could belong to a saber-toothed tiger. His lips are curled back and his eyes glint dangerously. “I see. You must kill her.”
Weakly, I laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far…” I just need you to quit your job and relocate to a whole new cave someplace that your former love doesn’t have any control over.
“Isla?” He makes a loop of his tail again and presses it under my chin, tipping my head up until our eyes meet.
I clutch it tightly enough I can feel his scales make impressions on the insides of my fingers. “You know how you needed to shackle me to the bed and fit me in anti-straying panties?”