Page 26 of Bloody Bargain

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Sighing, I waved him over and grabbed a fresh towel from the back of the door. D’abel followed after me, breathing in the warm mist.

“It is a laconica,” he wondered. Then he dipped his head to my hair and breathed in again. “One that smells like you, my lady.”

I ducked away with a stitch in my brow. “Back off.”

D’abel grinned, unperturbed by my bark of warning. “Your faithful spirit is a lucky man.Myn chalishas a fiery heart and scent both.” His split tongue slithered out of his mouth and tasted the air slowly, not with the flick of a snake’s tongue, but thicker, slower, more indulgent. “Giloferandjunipere.Ah, cloves and juniper now.”

“Sorry to dash your fantasies, but it’s the shampoo.”

I threw open the shower door and pulled out the wet bottle, shoving it into his chest. He lifted it to his nose, then licked the cap, wrapping his purple tongue all the way around it.

“Roses,” he hummed with self-satisfaction, challenging my glare.

Fit to stab him again, I wrenched my eyes away and gave him the shortest directions possible.

“This knob’s hot water, that one’s cold. You can mix them for the right temperature. Use therosesfor your hair and the other one for your body. When you’re done, turn off the water.”

He bowed his head as I retreated to the yellow suite and shut the door in his face. A moment passed, then the water bloomed, filling the unbearable silence and drowning my panicked heartbeat.

My bottle of aspirin was in my hand before I knew I had it. I swallowed three of the white gel tablets and shoved all my dirty clothes into a canvas bag with a hand-painted tag marked ‘laundry.’ A little pamphlet on the nightstand gave instructions to leave the bag in the hall by eight at night. It would be returned to us no later than ten the following morning.

Counting the last of my money was painful. I’d hoped it would stretch for two months, but now that fiends had attacked me in the heathlands, I couldn’t guarantee that the isolation of nature was safer than the towns. At least here I had a lock. But out there? They were faster, stronger, and deadlier at night.

It was time to find some drifter work again.

The pipes groaned, then went silent. I was zipping up a fleece when D’abel stepped out of the steamy bathroom naked.

I opened my mouth to yell at him, but found myself staring instead.

There was nothingthere.

“You–” I paused, glancing up at his face, the long tendrils of silvery hair that slipped down his torso. He stood without embarrassment, iridescent scales reflecting the pastel room as they slid over a perfect abdomen and tight waist. I teetered between the horror that he might have been castrated and the fascination that he wasn’t human at all. “Did something happen to–”

D’abel ran a hand down his smooth groin, following the flow of his pearly scales. “I am whole in this aspect. B’adruokh are not human, my lady.”

For once, he wasn’t goading me on. I blinked away, zipping my fleece up to my neck.

“Sorry. It was rude of me to ask.”

“All of me is yours.”

I froze, my hand reaching for the room key on the vanity.

“Forever.”

D’abel took my wrist in his hand and pressed my finger into the divot between his abs where he would have a belly button if he were human. As soon as my flesh met his scales, an electric hum raced up my arm and tugged on my sternum.

I ripped my hand from his grip and with a flash of rage, smacked him so hard across the cheek that it echoed. A red welt appeared on his cheekbone immediately. He was neither shocked nor affronted, but simply looked down his white lashes at me and waited, accepting the reprimand with an elegance that boiled my blood.

“If I ever touch you, it’s because I choose to,” I snapped in a thin tone.

“Are you not curious?” he asked.

“No.” I lifted my chin, refusing to retreat as he leaned over me and his long tresses brushed my chest.

“I am. I am curious about how we will fit together someday. And after eight centuries of imprisonment, I have hope that someday is soon.”

“Then use your imagination and go fuck a pillow,” I sneered. “I’m not any different from other human women.”