But I’d served my time. Ten years was long enough. I was one of the few warriors lucky enough to survive, to return home to the comforts of a mate who, at this very moment, tugged her burgundy cloak closed around her lush body and turned away from me to enter the bathing chamber.
I followed her—as if I had a leash about my neck and she were tugging me along—and showed her how to operate the controls, to summon hot water and scented oils for her silken flesh. I noticed a new display of s****l toys along the wall, large and small, arranged to look like a tree with branches. Courtesy, no doubt, of my loyal staff, upon hearing I had taken a mate.
She barely glanced at them, and I forced my gaze back to the less tempting floor, marble tub, the dark ivory lighting recessed in the walls, anywhe
