Sebastian (Bowen Boys, #5)(33)
“I’m so sorry, baby. I was really rough and I hurt you.” She shook her head and he looked down at her again. “I didn’t hurt you?”
“No, I loved it. I love you.” He watched her for several seconds. Then she laughed. “Well? Don’t you have something to say to me?”
“I love you as well. Yes, I do love you.” He kissed her then, a slow and thorough kiss before lifting his head. “I love you so very much.”
~~~
Wanera sat in the darkness of his lair and watched the flames of the fire dance around. He hurt in places he’d never hurt before, and he was sure that if he would look he’d see that he was injured in some way that was never going to heal. Shifting in his chair, he wondered if the man who had dared touch him was hurting like he was. He certainly hoped so. The knock at his door made him cringe, and when it opened, he glared at the being standing there.
“You’ve a visitor. She said that you called her.” He nodded, glad now that he’d had the being call his healer. He stood up when she told him to.
“What have you been into? You smell of….” She leaned in and sniffed him. “You reek of humans. Have you been topside?”
“I have to see to a breeder. But one of them attacked me. Can you see what he’s done to me, please?”
She snorted but told him to take off his shirt. He did as she said and stood before her in just his trousers. She walked around him three times before she touched him. When she put her hands on his shoulders, then to his neck, he winced from the pain.
“You’ve been more than touched. I think whoever it was drew blood.” She looked closer and then looked up at him. “You’ve been touched by a powerful faerie and he drew your blood. You know what that means, don’t you?”
He shook his head, but she was already pulling her coat back on. “Wait, what does that mean? He drew my blood. So what does that mean?”
“He must have some of it on him, right?” Wanera supposed that could be true and nodded. “Then he can come here and avenge whatever you did to him to make him hurt you. You’re so f*cked.”
She was gone before he could ask her how to treat the rest of his pains. The faerie had his blood and now…. He stood up and went to find his being. The one from earlier was on break, he’d been told, so he had the one sitting at the computer look it up.
“I want to know if a faerie can come to this realm without my permission.” The being shook his head. “Under no circumstances can he come here unless I say he can?”
“No, sire, no one can enter or leave this realm without your permission. They would have to be a fool to come here anyway with you being in charge. No, you are correct.” Wanera turned to leave when the being spoke again. “Unless he has your blood. Then he can come and go as he pleases.”
Wanera turned slowly and looked at the being sitting there with the stupidest expression on his face. He wanted to walk over and burn it off him. He was just getting ready to when he saw something on the screen.
“What was that?” He moved toward the screen that they forever seemed to be watching. “That bright blip, what is that?”
“I do not know, my lord. I was told to call to Bill when it appeared. Shall I do that now?” Wanera had no idea who “Bill” was until he appeared in the room. It was the being that helped him the most. He hadn’t realized that they had names. He just thought they all called each other “being” as he did.
“That is the girl, sire. She is moving again. I have been watching her since you first asked me to. I must say, my lord, that she has gotten considerably brighter in the last several days.”
“She’s mated.” The being nodded and moved to the seat now vacated by the other…he wondered what his name was and realized he really didn’t care. “I think he’s a panther and now he has some of my blood.”
The being Bill turned to look at him. “Mayhap, my lord, he does not know he has it. And if he doesn’t then perhaps he doesn’t know what it will give him. He may be very stupid, sire.”
He doubted that but said nothing, He stared, and the blip didn’t move again. He asked Bill why not. He turned back to the keyboard and punched in a few more keys or whatever he had to do, and an address popped up.
“She works there. It is a pizza shop that a werebear owns and operates. Have you had one of them? Pizza, not bear, my lord.” Wanera’s mouth snapped closed on the story he was about to tell about a she-bear that he’d had once. She had been very chewy and he hadn’t cared for the aftertaste. Then he realized what Bill had said.
“She has a job? What does she need to work for? If she belonged to me, I would never have her work.” He glared at the screen. “Where does her mate go when she is slaving for him?”
“He, too, is at work.” The screen moved at a dizzying speed and stopped when another blip appeared. “He is at his computer store. What I wouldn’t give to go there and see the things he has.”
Wanera looked at Bill. He’d been there, and found nothing extraordinary that would have made his voice sound like Bill’s did when he talked about the things that might be in the store. Wanera looked at the equipment that he was using.
He’d noticed that the computers in the store were much smaller than this one. The screen here was thick and small, and it wasn’t in color. The ones in the store had been in colors so bright that he’d been surprised by them, and at how thin the screens were. He also noticed that the keyboard that Bill used had letters missing; not keys gone, but the letters were no longer visible on them. He decided to have him a new computer set up soon, and tried to think what had been on the shelves. He gave up; there were just too many things he had no idea about.