"You really should rest," Qhuinn murmured.
"I can't seem to settle. "
"Try to eat something. "
"Dearest Virgin Scribe, no. My stomach's a mess - and it's so hot in here. "
Qhuinn frowned. "No, it isn't. "
Layla just kept walking, faster and faster - and she supposed it was because she was trying to get away from the images in her head: Xcor looking up at her. Xcor taking her vein. Xcor's big body. . . his massive, warrior body laid out before her and clearly aroused from the taste of her blood -
"What the hell are you thinking about?" Qhuinn asked darkly.
She stopped short. "Nothing. Nothing at all. "
Qhuinn shifted on his stool, and then abruptly shoved his half-eaten food away.
"I should leave you," she announced.
"Nah, it's cool. Guess I'm tetchy, too. "
As he got up from the counter with his dishes, her eyes traveled down his torso and widened. He was. . . aroused.
Just as she was.
Remnants of Autumn's needing, clearly -
The heat wave came over her in such a rush, she barely had time to grab onto the granite counter to keep herself standing, and she coudn't respond as she heard Qhuinn shout her name from a distance.
Need gripped her body, fisting her womb, making her buckle under its force.
"Oh. . . dearest Virgin Scribe. . . " Between her legs, her sex opened, the blossoming having nothing to do with Xcor or Qhuinn or any outside force.
The arousal came from inside of herself.
Her needing. . .
It hadn't been enough. The visits to the Sanctuary hadn't been enough to keep her from being caught by Autumn's -
The next surge of yearning threatened to take her to her knees, but Qhuinn was there to catch her before she hit the hard tile. As he dragged her into his arms, she knew she didn't have much time to be rational. And knew the resolution that abruptly came upon her was at once utterly unfair and totally undeniable.
"Service me," she said, cutting off whatever it was he was saying to her. "I know you don't love me, and I know we won't be together afterward, but service me so that I can have something that's mine. So you can have something that's yours. "
As the blood drained out of his face and his mismatched eyes bulged, she forged on, talking in fast gasps. "We both have no true family. We're both alone. Service me. . . service me and change all that. Service me so that we may each have a future that is at least partially our own. . . . Service me, Qhuinn. . . . I beg of you. . . service me. . . . "
Chapter Sixty-Two
Qhuinn was pretty certain he was in a parallel universe. Because there was no way that Layla was going into her needing. . . and turning to him to see her through it.
Nah.
This was just a mirror image of the way the real world was - a world where the biologically pure stuck to themselves so that they created generations of biologically pure and therefore superior young.
"Service me and give us something that is ours - " The hormones in her cranked up to a newer, higher level, cutting off her voice. It soon came back, however, with the same words. "Service me. . . . "
As he started to pant, it was unclear whether that was the sex in his blood, or the vertigo created by this unexpected cliff he was hanging off of.
The answer was no, of course. No, absolutely not, no children ever, certainly not with someone he wasn't in love with, certainly not with a virgin Chosen.