“What would you do to me?” she drawled. “Would you kiss me here?”

She drew her elegant hand down the side of her throat. And as he nodded like a planker, she smiled. “Here …?”

Now her fingertips were at her collarbone, and he nodded again.

“How about … right here?”

As she brushed one of her nipples, he ground his molars so hard his jaw let out a crack.

“Right here, warrior? You would kiss me here?”

She teased her own nipple, pinching it so that she hissed and then rubbing it as if she were soothing the sensation. And then her other hand drifted over her stomach.

“How about … here?” she whispered as she stroked down to the very top of her cleft.

A pumping growl left him, and Xcor said in a low burst, “Yes. Right there.”

“What would you do with your mouth?” One fingertip traced the outside of her sex. “Or … no, you would use your tongue, wouldn’t you, warrior. Your tongue …”

She gasped as she touched herself, her eyes sticking with his as she had to tilt her head to the side, the sensations clearly beginning to get the best of her.

“You would put your tongue here—”

Xcor lunged at her, moving so fast he wasn’t aware of making the decision to get on her. And he was rough, shoving her hand out of the way and sealing his mouth on her sex, taking what he wanted, what she had teased him with.

Now she was the one throwing hands out, looking to keep herself in some semblance of physical order. But he was having none of that. He yanked her down flat on the tile, slapped his palms on the inside of her thighs, and butterflied her open, going in deep with his tongue, consuming her.

She came hard against his face, her hands spearing into his damp hair, pulling at it until it hurt. Not that he gave a shit. All he cared about was getting into her, making her say his name, marking her with his lips and tongue.

That wasn’t enough.

Even as a release claimed her and she jacked up off the tile, her shoulders jutting back, her breasts surging up, the water on her skin making her flesh gleam in the low light, he wasn’t getting enough.

Xcor mounted her and pushed his cock in deep, his fingers biting into her hip bones and holding her as he started to pound. Now her breasts were kicking this way and that, and her lower teeth clapped into her upper ones, and her arms flapped. But her eyes were like fire as the animal in him subjugated the animal in her.

He pulled out at the last minute, rising above her, his shoulders blocking the spray of the shower. Grabbing his erection, he was even more brutal with himself than he had been with her, yanking at his sex, making himself come.

So that he covered her.

It was the marking of a bonded male, a practice done so that any other male in her presence would be fully warned that if he approached her, he had best beware.

She was another’s.

Not as property. But as something far too precious for others to toy with.

By the time Xcor was finishing with her, the spray falling from the shower had started to lose its heat—not that Layla cared. She had her warrior between her legs, and he was doing what a male did when he claimed a female, an ancient instinct bred into the species to ensure its survival. It was raw and it was beautiful, it was primordial and yet very much welcome in the modern world.

At least her modern world.

When he finally collapsed on top of her, she wrapped her arms around slick shoulders and closed her eyes with a smile.

“I weigh too much,” he mumbled into her neck.

Before she could stop him and tell him that she didn’t care that her tailbone was aching or that she suspected she had a couple of black-and-blues in her future, he was picking her up and getting to his feet, holding her in his arms as if she were cut glass.

Outside of the shower, he took a fluffy white towel and wrapped her up in it. Then he took a second one and patted her face dry before moving behind her. With gentle squeezes, he drew the terry cloth down the long length of her hair, rolling up the ends, getting most of the water out.

The whole time, she watched him in the mirror, memorizing the details of his expression, his body, his still-wet hair, and his coiled power. His face was especially dear to her: The fierce planes and angles had softened—and she had a sense that he wouldn’t have liked her seeing the vulnerability in him.

“Will you be safe tonight?” he said in a low voice. “As you go to that house? And then to the Sanctuary?”

“Yes. I promise you. They will not hurt me.”

“And no one else is welcome up there, correct? No one can get at you?”

“No, others outside of the Chosen have to be granted access. I’m not sure how it works, but it has always been thus. Only my sisters and the Primale are permitted to come and go as we please.”

“Good. This is good.”

“Where are you going to go?”

As she waited for his reply, her heart beat faster because she hated the idea of him out there in Caldwell, alone—and also because she dreaded the passage of the night. The sooner he found his males, the sooner he would be gone from her.

When Xcor didn’t answer, the silence between them was a palpable weight.

“So I’m staying up there during the day, too.” She said this even though she’d already told him what the plan was. “But upon the nightfall I shall return to this house.”

“And I will be here to greet you.”

As she exhaled in relief, Xcor put the towel aside and picked up a brush. Starting with the very tips, he continued to tend to her hair, carefully removing the knots.

“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered to his bent head.

It seemed utterly incongruous that a male as hardened by war as he could wait upon her like this, that brush so small in his hands, his shoulders so big behind her, his harsh face wearing that impossibly kind expression.

“’Tis only a day and night.” He moved to the crown of her head, seemingly enthralled with the way the black bristles went through her golden hair. “We shall be back together before we know it.”

Layla nodded only because she sensed her emotional equilibrium was of vital importance to him—and she wanted to pretend she was all right for his benefit. But their twenty-four-hour separation was not what was on her mind. The one that was going to last for the rest of their lives was.

Closing her eyes, she tried not to think about it. Her heart had just been eased. There was no reason to rush a return of sadness.

“I love you,” she said.

Xcor stopped, his eyes flipping to hers in the glass. “What?”

She turned around and looked up at him. Dearest Virgin Scribe, she was never going to get tired of that face of his, his scent, his body.

Rising on to her tiptoes, she put her arms around his neck, and as her breasts came up against his chest, she felt a now-familiar heat curl in between her thighs.

“I love you,” she repeated.

His lids closed and he seemed to sway.

But then he unclasped her hands and lowered her arms. “Shh …” He kissed her once, and then again. “I have to go, and so do you.”

THIRTY-FOUR

Tohr told himself, as he stood in Wrath’s French study and listened to a big bucket of piss about Xcor, that he was going to keep tight. He was just going to slap all kinds of no-problem-boss on his face, and nod at the right times, and maybe shrug once or twice.

As if Wrath letting a known criminal walk free just because the motherfucker had kissed a ring that meant nothing to him was no BFD. Happened on the reg. NP.

Oh, and of course, yeah, sure, bringing the Band of Bastards in to do the same was a perfectly sane idea. Yeah, one by one, that’ll really cut down on the risk.

’Cuz it wasn’t like Xcor and his boys would think about coordinating an attack.

Nah. Why would they do that?

“—everybody, and I mean, everybody”—Wrath turned his head in Tohr’s direction again and then swung those sunglasses of his around to Qhuinn—“to be on board with this. After the oaths, they’re leaving for the Old Country and we are done with them.”

Actually, Tohr thought, maybe he should just eat the business end of a shotgun now. More efficient than waiting for his brain to explode in this solution that had stoopid idea stamped all over it.