Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(88)

Layla’s face appeared above his. “Sire . . . perhaps we should cease.”

Qhuinn narrowed his stare on her, and saw her properly for the first time since she’d shown up.

God, she was a looker, all that pale blond hair swept up high on her head, her face stunningly perfect. With strawberry lips and green eyes that were luminous in the lamplight, she was everything the race valued in terms of DNA—not a defect in sight.

He reached up and brushed at her chignon. So soft. No hair spray for her; it was as if the waves knew their job was to frame her features and they were eager to do their best.

“Sire?” she said as she tensed.

He knew what was under that robe of hers: Her breasts were absolutely stunning and her stomach flat as a board . . . and those hips and the silky smooth sex between her thighs were the kinds of things that a naked male would fall on glass shards for.

He knew these particulars because he’d seen all of it, touched a lot of it, and had his mouth in a few choice places.

He hadn’t taken her, though. Hadn’t gone very far, either. As an ehros, she had been trained for sex, but with no Primale to service the Chosen in that way, she was all academic learning, nothing in the “field,” as it were. And for a while he’d been happy to show her some of the ropes.

Except it hadn’t felt right.

Well, she’d felt a lot that she’d thought was right, but her eyes had had too much in them and his heart way too little for things to keep going.

“Will you take my vein, sire?” she whispered huskily.

He just stared at her.

Those red lips of hers parted. “Sire, will you . . . take me.”

Closing his lids, he saw Blay’s face again . . . but not how it was now. Not the cold stranger that Qhuinn had created. The old Blay, with those blue eyes that were somehow always pointed in his direction.

“Sire . . . I am yours for the taking. Still. Evermore.”

When he finally looked at Layla again, her fingers had gone to the lapels of her robe and she had spread the halves wide, showing him her long, elegant neck and the wings of her collarbones and all that glorious cleavage.

“Sire . . . I want to serve you.” Inching the sateen fabric even farther apart, she offered him not just her vein, but her body. “Take me—”

Qhuinn stilled her hands as they went to the tie around her waist. “Stop.”

Her eyes dropped to the duvet, and she seemed to turn to stone. At least until she pulled herself out of his hold and roughly rearranged the robe.

“You shall take my wrist then.” Her hand was shaking as she yanked up her sleeve and stuck out her arm. “Take from my wrist what you so obviously require.”

She did not look at him. Likely could not.

And yet here she was . . . shut down from a disgrace she had never earned and he had never meant to call out of her . . . still offering herself to him—except not in a pathetic way, but because she had been born and bred to serve a purpose that had nothing to do with what she wanted and everything to do with social expectation . . . and she was determined to live up to the standard. Even if she wasn’t wanted for who she was.

Christ, he knew what that was like.

“Layla—”

“Do not apologize, sire. It belittles me.”

He took her arm because he got the impression she was about to get to her feet. “Look, this is my fault. I should never have started the sex stuff with you—”

“And I say unto you, ‘stop.’” Her back was ramrod straight and her voice strident. “Do let me go, will you.”

He frowned. “Shit . . . you’re cold.”

“Am I.”

“Yeah.” He ran his hand up and down her arm. “Do you need to feed? Layla? Hello?”

“I have been over on the Other Side in the Sanctuary, so no.”

Well, that he could buy. If a Chosen was over there, she existed without existing, her blood needs suspended—and apparently refreshed: For the last couple of years, Layla alone had been servicing the Brothers who couldn’t feed from their shellans. She was everyone’s go-to Chosen.

And then it dawned on him. “Wait, you haven’t been up north at all?”

Now that Phury had freed the Chosen from their rigid and confined existence, most of them left the Sanctuary they’d been stuck in for aeons and went to the Adirondack great camp to learn about the freedoms of life over on this side.

“Layla?”

“No, I do not go there anymore.”

“Why?”

“I cannot.” She waved the conversation away and pulled up her sleeve again. “Sire? Are you taking my vein?”

“Why don’t you go there?”

Her eyes finally met his and they were flat-out pissed. Which was a strange relief. Her meek acceptance of everything made him question how smart she was. But going by her expression now? There was a whole lot of something underneath the mantle she wore—and he wasn’t just talking about her perfect body.

“Layla. Answer me. Why not?”

“I cannot.”

“Says who?” Qhuinn wasn’t totally tight with Phury, but he knew the Brother well enough to bring a problem to the guy. “Who.”

“’Tis not a who, and worry not.” She pointed to her wrist. “Partake so that you are as strong as you need to be, and then I shall leave you in peace.”