Eliana Read Free Page B

to any further treatment. She wore her pain as a badge of honor and likely wouldn’t be rid of it until she was ready.
    Doc let herself out. Kon heard murmured voices in the hallway before Evan let himself in. “Doc just gave me the update. How are you after tonight’s excitement?” He draped a hand across Kon’s shoulder.
    “Ready for bed.”
    “Why don’t you stop by my suite? Have a drink. I’ll give you a massage and you can unwind a bit.”
    “I meant my own bed.”
    “Kon.” Evan cocked his head and gave him a disapproving look. “I just don’t think Dane would be good for you to be around tonight. You need to relax and decompress, not take a beating.”
    Kon grabbed Evan’s arms, leaned forward, and kissed him on the cheek. “You worry about me too much, Chief Warden.” Beneath his grip he could sense Evan’s longing welling up. After he’d lost his cambion, the Warden’s Council had forbidden him to take a permanent partner. Unless Evan was called upon to be a surrogate for someone, his nights were spent alone. “Don’t do this. Not tonight.”
    “I was frightened when I couldn’t see you.”
    “I’m fine. Not a scratch on me.”
    “I’d never forgive myself if anyone hurt you.”
    Kon was too tired to deal with Evan’s trauma. He knew perfectly well why Evan asked for him when they hunted incubi, and it wasn’t because Kon was the best shot or best tracker. “Go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Evan went, but not without one last kiss. “Good night, then. You were good out there tonight. Really good.”
    “Go.” Kon shoved him out the door. Setting aside his frustration, he went to check on Eliana one last time. She was asleep. Dreaming. The burns on her face were already fading, thanks to Doc’s treatment.
    “Sleep well, my brave one,” he said.

Chapter Three
    Duty discharged, Kon headed to the suite he shared with his lover. Dane was already waiting for him, smacking the handle of a leather flogger against his palm. Shirtless and wearing only a pair of denim cut-offs, shadows curled around his muscles in the dim light. “You’re late,” Dane said.
    The prickle of anticipation traveled through Kon’s body. A release was exactly what he needed—if Dane saw fit to give him one. “I’m sorry. Evan and I killed an incubus and rescued a damsel in distress. I had to wait for the doctor.”
    “That’s a poor excuse for neglecting your cambion.” Dane used the flogger to gesture at the ground. “Undress, then kneel for your punishment.”
    Kon removed his clothes and dropped them on the floor. He knelt, knees spread, hands on his head, and gazed at his cambion. There was admiration as well as hunger in Dane’s eyes.
    “She’s a good-looking damsel, I hope.”
    “Gorgeous.”
    Dane’s voice hardened. “Were you thinking lustful thoughts about her?”
    He hadn’t been. She was too young and ill besides. Though, now that Dane mentioned it, her fierce, determined personality had pricked his interest—and his attraction. “I am now.”
    “I thought you were done with women.” His voice held a note of harshness unrelated to their play. Dane wasn’t the jealous type. If anything, he enjoyed it when Kon slept with someone else, because it gave him the opportunity to “punish” Kon for his straying. But the one time Kon had taken a relationship with a woman seriously, the trysting had gone badly, and Dane had become even more protective.
    “Eliana’s different.”
    “That’s what you said the last time. I don’t trust your judgment.”
    Thwack . The flogger struck Kon lightly on his chest, eliciting a tingling heat. Dane was merely warming up. They shared the trickiest of relationships between a Warden and his Ward. Kon never called Dane “Master.” It was a line neither of them would cross, because, as a Warden, Kon was and always would be the true master. Dane lived his life at the mercy of his incubus half and its need to feed on sexual energy, and Kon had