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Scourge had joined Marquise in her inspection, pulling Walt’s head back to inspect his teeth. Marquise glanced over her shoulder at me. “He’s not very enticing.”
“He will be. He’s been around dragons and drinking silver.”
She wrinkled her pert nose. “That explains the stink. We’ll have to sweat him for days just to get started.”
Scourge twined black fingers in Walter’s brown curls. “I have some ideas. A new regimen to try. It will be fun.” He whispered something in Marquise’s ear, running his tongue along the perfect white shell of it while Walter quailed at their feet.
“No permanent injuries.” I called out. “No scars. No sex.”
“Gwynnie!” Walt found his voice at last. He cast a significant look at Marquise and nodded. I pointed at Scourge with raised eyebrows and Walt’s face fell almost comically. Why do so many guys breeze past the fact that they might not be the only ones doing the fucking?
“Not fair, Lady Sorceress.” Scourge strolled over to me, lethal, looking me up and down as if he could see through my gown. “You know, fromintimateexperience, that we are in this for the side benefits. Why would we agree to such a travesty of a bargain?”
“You agreed to it with me.” I made myself hold my ground, though I longed to back up a step—or fifty miles.
Scourge smiled, black tongue flicking out to moisten his lips and stroked hot fingers down my bare arm. “A special favor. And one I regret…so very, very much.”
“Yes.” Marquise joined us, hand on Walt’s head, urging him to crawl beside her like a puppy dog. His eyes had glazed over with an uncertain combination of terror and titillation. “You’ll have to sweeten the pot, Lady Sorceress.”
That phrase again. I made myself unclench my jaw.
“I can pay you.”
They looked insulted. “We’re not poor,” Marquise sniffed.
“Then what?”
They exchanged speaking glances. “A night in our bed—anything goes,” Scourge said.
“Or a favor to be owed in the future.”
“Or we get full use of this sweet boy.”
The sweet boy in question was still on all fours, staring at the lush grass.
“What was the special favor?”
Scourge stroked his chin. “Lord Rogue promised to take my place, should it become necessary.”
“Take your place how?”
Now he slid his thumb between his black teeth, ducking his chin coyly—an alarming expression on his severe face. “Oh, I think you know.”
“He’s with her because of you?”
“No,” Marquise giggled, running a hand over my shorn hair, “because of you, sweet girl!”
I didn’t even mind the chill her caress gave me, so tightly did my stomach clench. “Explain.” It came out as a demand, which seemed to shock Scourge, but I didn’t care.
“I don’t answer to you.”
“No?” Pulling on the crystallizing magic of the staff, I clamped down on both their minds, using a tweaked version of Rogue’s mind spell. “How about now?”
Marquise stepped back, hiding behind Scourge and burying her face in his shoulder while his face twisted in a rictus of varying emotions as he tried to fight the compulsion.
“My, how we’ve grown,” he snarled at me.
“Yes, your efforts to break me weren’t as effective as you thought.”
