Virile by Virile (Evernight) Page B

erections. Adara understood in that moment about feminine power and ducked her head before they read that epiphany on her features.
    Hard on the heels of such a revelation followed the despair of sadness. Ronnie attained that response too, or she wouldn’t have been brought here, and compared to Ronnie, Adara was a cow. So it had to be about the lack of available pussy as she feared, and winning her in a game was the novelty—and free too. She held the tears back fiercely as she ignored everything these men had done to challenge her assumption and plodded back to the kitchen. Breakfast was there, and she’d get on with her sexual duties. Her body might like some of it.

Chapter Six
     
    “If you have had enough, little one, go with Kellis.” Thorn hadn’t taken his eyes off of her the entire meal. She knew he was trying to read her but discovered that feeling shitty kept him at bay. And it was easy to feel like crap because she’d compared herself to Ronnie and knew where that put her in the scheme of things.
    They fed her from their plates, selecting only the nicest bits. The eggs were a strange shade of peach but tasted much like the eggs she ate at home, if richer, and the bread was heavy with grains and their substitute for butter. There were no cows on Virile, except for her, and whatever creature produced the milk for the cheese and butter was apparently more goatlike. The crisp meat tasted like bacon but wasn’t—some kind of wild critter she didn’t think she could pronounce, and the little brown pieces were bunny. She refused to open her mouth for that. Thorn could beat her again before she’d even consider it.
    The goblets with the refreshing liquid she couldn’t identify were only partially filled and she could have used more, but Thorn gave her a drink then swallowed the rest. He again drank from the same spot she did, and her spine tingled with warning.
    Given her misery, Adara’s appetite was dampened and she managed only a few bites of everything. After the juice, the fruit tasted the best and the coffee at least gave her some reason to live, sweetened with cream from the goat creature. The brothers were patient with her—she sat on Thorn’s lap, aware of his arousal—but her response was overlaid with sadness.
    She nodded in response to his question and quickly answered before he could chastise her. “I’m full.”
    She didn’t let herself think about going with Kellis who drew her to the floor and tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. The back of her felt chilled once away from Thorn’s heat. A clatter of plates behind them signified a clean up in progress, and she thought to ask Kellis what they’d done before having a housekeeper. Anything to avoid thinking about where he was taking her and what he was going to do with her.
    “We shifted for ourselves. We’ve been alone a long time, my love.”
“How long?”
    He hesitated. “A long time, decades.”
    “Kellis?”
    “Yes, Adara?”
    “How old are you and Orion? And Thorn?”
    “Time is computed differently on our world.”
    Anxiety swamped her. “Differently? You mean I’m here for the month, but it’s a different count here?”
    “No,” he soothed. “Thirty days in your planet’s manner of time.”
    He looked disappointed somehow, and she couldn’t figure it out. And he wasn’t telling her his age either. She knew better than to ask, for she sensed a will as implacable as Thorn’s behind his charming exterior. Then they entered another room, just down the hall from the bedroom. Oh. My. Gods.
    Kellis urged her forward when her feet would have stumbled. The air felt cool and clean, and her nipples hardened as she felt the chill. It was a really big room. It had to be to hold all the furniture, items she’d seen before—in Sammy’s dungeon—and a couple that were totally unfamiliar.
    There was the ubiquitous cross and a spanking bench. A whipping chair sat front and center in one corner, and another chair that