“Well…” Dragon sighed and ran a hand over his black hair, which was still slicked close to his skull. “All right,” he said at last. “On the condition that she is never out of your sight, Mother,” he said to Res. Tizlah. “I’m serious—Bobbi isn’t just some Pleasure Girl to be picked up and discarded on a whim. She’s special to me and I mean to keep her. She’s mine.”
The last word was delivered in a deep, rumbling voice that Bobbi could feel in her bones. It had a strange double echo to it—almost as though another entity was speaking through the big Kindred. Which was a strange thought, but that was what came to her mind when she heard that, wild voice.
“Mine,” Dragon said again and, as he spoke, he gave her a burning look that made her tremble.
My God, he really means it, she thought faintly. He’s determined to keep me here and not let me go for anything!
She had known that the Kindred were possessive of their women, but she had never seen such an outright example of it before—especially not aimed at herself. She had never had a man look at her that way—with such burning, intense desire. Her ex-fiancé could barely be bothered to glance up from his work when she came in the room. But Dragon was looking at her with a single-minded intensity, like she was the only woman in the universe for him.
He’s looking at me like he wants to eat me up! Bobbi thought, putting a hand to her rapidly beating heart. Like he’s the big bad wolf or something!
Suddenly, she remembered something her friend Kat had told her—something about how Kindred males had a biological need to taste their women.
“They eat pussy like nobody’s business, doll,” Kat had told her with a giggle. “They can’t help themselves—they crave it like us curvy girls crave chocolate cake!”
They’d been having a girl’s night out and her friend had been drinking a few too many Margaritas, which made her extremely blunt. She had gone on for some time, soliloquizing about how her two Twin Kindred husbands, Lock and Deep, took turns going down on her, while Bobbi just shook her head and sipped her drink. At the time, she’d thought that Kat was just tipsy, but now she wondered…could it be true?
Uneasily, she tried to push the thought away. Why in the world would she think of something like that now? Dragon hadn’t been raised in the Kindred society, which apparently held the act of orally pleasuring a woman in high regard. He’d been raised by Saurians so he probably never even thought of such things—especially not in connection to her. Right?
“I’ll take good care of her, Son,” Res. Tizlah said, breaking the fraught silence which had somehow fallen after Dragon had Claimed Bobbi as his own again in that deep, wild voice. “She won’t be out of my sight for a moment—I swear it.”
“Well…all right then.” Dragon gave the two of them one last, intense look. “I’m trusting you to keep her safe, Mother Tizlah.”
“I will.” Res. Tizlah patted Bobbi’s arm. “Come on, dear,” she said, giving Bobbi that lipless smile again. “Let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll set you to work peeling and chopping bullah bulbs. We need a three hundred of them for tonight’s feast.”
“All right. Goodbye, Dragon—I’ll see you tonight.”
Bobbi was turning to go but before she could, Dragon put one big hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him. Leaning down, he put his forehead against hers and looked into her eyes intently.
“Be well, Bobbi,” he rumbled softly. “I will see you tonight at the feast.”
His burning bronze gaze set Bobbi’s heart pounding all over again. What was this forehead-to-forehead staring thing about, anyway? Was it the Saurian version of a kiss goodbye? That would certainly make sense, since the lizard people had no lips and so probably didn’t kiss in the traditional way. But still, it was intense. She wanted to look away, but somehow she found she couldn’t—she was held by his eyes and couldn’t stop looking at him.
“Goodbye, Dragon. Er, be well,” she answered uncertainly. “I’ll…I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
He stroked her cheek once and then rose to tower over her again.
“Tonight at the feast,” he repeated. Then he stepped aside, allowing Res. Tizlah to lead Bobbi out of the room and down a long, echoing corridor which was covered in blue and black tiles on all sides.
20
Bullah bulbs turned out to be huge, sulfurous root vegetables that smelled like extremely strong onions mixed with raw garlic. Each bulb was about as big as a head of cabbage and they ranged in colors from deep blue to bright violet.
Bobbi set to work with a will, stripping away the tough, outer layers of each bulb and then chopping them into fist-sized pieces with an enormous knife, before dumping them into a huge stewpot big enough to take a bath in. She kept going despite the strong fumes coming up from the noxious vegetables, which made tears run down her cheeks.