Page 33 of Queen Takes Queen
“Two can play that fucking game,” Mehen retorted, drawing my attention to him. He jerked his T-shirt over his head and tossed it over his shoulder. “Problemsolved.”
And yeah, I liked looking at him too. All those iridescent scales across his shoulders and down his arms reminded me of his formidable power asLeviathan.
Daire tossed his shirt and his fingers settled on his fly. “Awesome, nakedsupper.”
Rik growled and jerked his head at Gina standing in the doorway, covering her mouth as shelaughed.
“Oh. Right.” Daire winked at me, quirking his lips to show off his dimples, but he kept his pantson.
Nevarre only wore his kilt. Though he did have the long tail of his plaid wrapped around his shoulder, most of his chest was bare. Leaving Xin and G, daring each other to keep their shirts on, or take themoff.
“No more stripping, please,” I said as Rik pulled my chair out for me. I’m pretty sure I was nipping badly with nothing but a thin silky robe on, but oh well. I sat down and watched as my Blood then took their seats too. Rik sat on my right, close enough our shoulders touched. Daire sat on his other side, far enough up the table that he could give sultry looks to both Mehen and Ezra, though luckily, they weren’t sitting close enough to do more than glare at eachother.
Gina sat on my left with a leather case that she discretely set down on the floor beside her chair. She caught me looking though and smiled. “It can wait until afterdinner.”
Lines about her eyes and mouth concerned me. She looked upset. Or ill. “Are you sure everything’s allright?”
She nodded and patted my hand. “Of course. What I felt was a mere fraction of what you endured. I’ll be fine after somesleep.”
Oh shit. I never thought about what my human servants would feel. “I’m so sorry! I should have warned you, but when I realized exactly what was going down, it was too late. Is Frankokay?”
“I’m fine, honestly. It just feels like I had the worst migraine of my life and I still feel fragile, like my skull is an eggshell. Frank texted me that he was going back to his room and lie down awhile, but would be back at five in themorning.”
I wasn’t bleeding, so I couldn’t heal her, but I listened unobtrusively to her bond a moment, trying to feel if there were any internal injuries or lingering problems I could fix. Other than weariness, I didn’t feel anything elsewrong.
My stomach growled, which my Blood took as the “let’s eat” command. Rik immediately grabbed the large wooden bowl of salad greens in front of us and started loading up my plate. Lasagna and garlic bread were passed around, making my mouth water. Winston had also made seafood alfredo, spaghetti with a simple tomato sauce, and some kind of stewed or roasted meat that I wasn’t familiarwith.
I tried some of everything and was not surprised that it was all fantastic. “Winston, you’ve outdone yourselfagain.”
“My pleasure, my queen, but I did have some help. Until we hire a few more staff, we have an arrangement with a caterer in town. Their osso bucco isfantastic.”
“How many people should wehire?”
Gina picked up a wine bottle and offered me some. I nodded and she poured us both some white wine. “We’re still talking about that. Winston thinks he only needs one or two people, but I keep insisting we need at least five to manage such a largehouse.”
With Winston’s age, I fully agreed with Gina. “I’m not even sure that five is enough. I mean, look at how much these guyseat.”
Guillaume paused with a huge mound of spaghetti headed toward his mouth, and Daire had an entire loaf of bread torn apart, half in eachhand.
“Pass that meat back over here,” Ezrabellowed.
Mehen grabbed the platter before Winston could pass it and dumped the remaining meat onto his plate. “Sorry, it’s allgone.”
Ezra growled, rising up partway out of hischair.
Mehen only grinned at him. “Bring it on, bigman.”
Winston laid his napkin down and pushed his chair back. “Now, now, not to worry, there’s another entire pan in the kitchen. I know how Bloodeat.”
He popped into the kitchen and when he returned, Ezra took the whole pan from him and started eating out ofit.
“Hey, I wanted some more of that,” Dairesaid.
“Come and get it, pussycat.”
Daire let out a rumbling purr and started to get up. I could only imagine what kind of show that could get us into, so I quickly changed the subject to something that would definitely distract him. “So, where are we goingshopping?”
Turning back to me, his eyes lit up. “Rodeo Drive?London?”
