Arcanthus turned his head toward the board and grumbled, “Damn it. I knew I shouldn’t have let you use my favorite color, Samantha. It was bad luck.”
“For you,” Samantha said with a snicker. She didn’t take her eyes off her mate as she reached forward and placed down her own card without hesitation. Four spaces—four ofArc’sspaces—flipped to crimson.
Impossibly, Arc’s look of feigned indignation only strengthened. “Give me anothergurosh. If I’m going down, I’m going to enjoy it however I can.”
Razi produced a fresh bottle of the stuff and passed it across the table to Arcanthus as Sekk’thi assessed her options.
“She is your master in the game, sedhi.” Sekk’thi tilted her head and shuffled her holographic cards, choosing one from her hand and placing it on the dwindling unclaimed space. “We must assume she is in control elsewhere, as well.”
The innuendo implicit in her tone produced smirks from everyone but Samantha herself; the terran looked down, her cheeks pinkening.
“Samantha is my master whenever and wherever she chooses,” Arcanthus replied smoothly, sliding a hand onto her thigh. “Hence the installation of sound dampeners in our bedroom and workshop.”
“Just need them in every other room and we can all sleep in peace,” Urgand said.
Samantha’s cheeks darkened to a red that rivaled her color on the gameboard, though there was a soft, loving smile on her lips as she peeked at Arcanthus from the corner of her eye.
Arcanthus grinned. “I strive to please. Samantha, that is. Not the rest of you.”
“Idolead him around by a leash, after all,” Samantha said.
Though it didn’t diminish his amusement, Drakkal felt for Arcanthus in that moment—and was even a bit envious. All Drakkal wanted to do was please his mate. But Shay needed to choose himfirst.
“About time someone put him in his place,” Drakkal said with a chuckle.
Arcanthus’s grin took on a fiendish slant. “Just wait, azhera. It’ll be you in a collar eventually. I already picked out a nice one to gift your lucky female.”
“No collar for me, sedhi,” Drakkal replied, baring his fangs in a grin of his own. “My female will need a saddle.” Saying those words aloud conjured a mental image of Shay riding astride him, her golden hair unbound around her pale shoulders, and her delectable breasts bared to his hungry gaze. It sent a jolt of heat straight to his cock.
Razi—looking much too large for his seat—leaned forward and continued his careful examination of the gameboard with a furrowed brow. “Where are you going to find a saddle small enough for your hand?” he asked casually.
For a moment, silence reigned around the table. Drakkal stared at Razi. Though he was sharp, the big cren rarely took part in such banter; he often caught everyone off guard when he offered insults like that.
Arcanthus broke into laughter so intense that it began almost soundlessly, and he was quickly joined by Urgand and Sekk’thi. Only Samantha restrained herself, pressing her lips together to contain laughter that shook her shoulders. At least she had the decency to cover her mouth and hide some of her mirth.
Drakkal’s attempt to hold in his own laughter resulted in a snort. “Kraasz ka’val,Razi. If your head weren’t so hard, I’d knock some sense into you,” he said with a grin.
For what might’ve been the first time that evening, Razi looked away from the game to meet Drakkal’s gaze. He was smirking around his pronounced tusks. “Afraid you’ll break your hand?”
“Yeah, and I don’t want to spend a night all alone,” Drakkal replied.
That only intensified the laughter from the others. This time Samantha joined in, too.
Razi finally made his move, and Urgand, who’d carved out his own respectable little pocket of territory, placed a card decisively once the cren was done.
A faint buzzing ran through Drakkal’s neural link with his prosthesis, and an instant later, his holocom chimed with an incoming call. He often received calls from the security team—usually to report that there was nothing to report, just the way he preferred it—so he didn’t bother checking the comm ID on the display. He quickly chose a card and played it.
Two of Arcanthus’s hexes flipped to Drakkal’s orange brown.
“This is what all our years of friendship mean to you?” Arcanthus demanded.
“Quite whining, cub,” Drakkal said as he lifted his left arm and accepted the call. “Yeah?”
“I’m in. Pick me up tonight.”
The call disconnected before his distracted mind fully registered what had just happened. He knew that voice, he’d been waiting to hear it, but that didn’t ease the shock of Shay calling him.
I’m in.