Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

I’m good.”
    “I thought you said you were hungry.”
    Trez popped his lids and glared at his brother. Was the guy trying to make him look like an idiot?
    The knowing light in those black eyes suggested, yes, iAm was.
    “No. I’m fine,” he ground out. Subtext: Don’t push it, douche.
    “I was just going to check on my bread.”
    Trez’s eyes shut again, the Chosen’s voice lilting in his ears, the sound of it both raising his blood pressure and calming him down at the same time.
    “You know,” he heard himself say, “maybe I will see if I can scrounge up a meal.”
    She smiled at him. “Follow me. I’m sure we can find something to your liking.”
    As she headed around for the entryway they’d just come through, Trez blinked like the dumb-ass he was.
    It had been a very, very long time since a female had spoken anything to him without a double entrendre…but as far as he could tell, those words, which could arguably be considered a come-on—at least given his lust filter—had held no promise of a blow job or some full-on sex. Or even attraction of any kind.
    Naturally, this made him want her more.
    His feet started in her direction, his body following rather as a dog would its master, with no thought of deviating from the path chosen by her for him—
    iAm grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Don’t even fucking
think
about it.”
    Trez’s first impulse was to rip himself free, even if he left his ownlimb behind in his brother’s grip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
    “Do not make me grab your hard-on to prove my point,” iAm hissed.
    Numbly, Trez looked down at the front of himself. Well. What do you know. “I’m not going to…”
Fuck her
came to mind, but God, he couldn’t use the f-word around that female, even in the hypothetical. “You know, do anything.”
    “You actually expect me to believe that.”
    Trez’s eyes flipped over to the doorway she’d disappeared through. Shit. Talk about having no credibility on the subject of abstinence.
    “She is not available to you, do you understand me,” iAm gritted out. “That’s not fair to someone like her—more to the point, if you tap that, Phury is going to come after you with a black dagger. That is
his
, not
yours
.”
    For a split second, Trez bristled at that—except not because his inner feminist was roaring about females being treated as property, although of course that was wrong. No, it was because…
    Mine.
    From somewhere deep inside of him, that word emanated outward, as if every cell in his body had suddenly found its voice and was speaking the only truth that mattered.
    “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
    At the sound of Rehv’s voice, Trez dragged his consciousness back from the cliff it had unexpectedly found itself flying off of.
    The
symphath
king was coming down the same stairs the Chosen had used, the male’s cane steadying him, his black mink coat keeping his medicated body warm.
    As iAm said something and Rehv replied, Trez refocused on the doorway to the kitchen. What was she doing in there—oh, man. Probably bending down to look at that bread…
    A subtle growl percolated up his throat.
    “Excuse me?” Rehv demanded, purple eyes narrowing.
    Another shot in the ribs brought Trez back to reality. “Sorry. Indigestion. How you been?”
    Rehv cocked a brow, but then shrugged. “I need your help.”
    “Anything,” Trez said, meaning it.
    “There’s a Council meeting tomorrow night. Wrath’s going to bethere. The Brotherhood will provide protection, but I want you both to come on the QT.”
    Trez recoiled. The Council had met regularly prior to the raids of a couple of years ago, and Rehv had never needed backup. “What’s doing?”
    “Wrath got shot back in the fall.”
    What. The. Fuck.
    Trez ground his molars. “Who?” After all, he liked the king.
    “Band of Bastards. You don’t know them, but you may meet them tomorrow night—if you agree to come.”
    “Of course we’ll be there.” As iAm nodded, Trez crossed his arms over his chest. “Where?”
    “I’m having it at this estate in Caldwell at midnight. It’s one of the few that wasn’t infiltrated by the Lessening Society—the family was mostly wiped out nonetheless, however, because they were visiting another bloodline in town at the time the attack went down.” Rehv went over and sat down on the tapestry-covered sofa, twirling his cane on the floor between his legs. “Let me tell you how we’re going