“Bother me? I was more worried about it, um, bothering you.” Imani’s cheeks got even hotter. “I mean…will you be okay with this?”
“Will my feral side be all right, do you mean?” he growled softly. In the dimly lighted hallway, his pale green eyes seemed to glow with a wild, animal light.
“Well, yes.” Imani cleared her throat. “I mean after what happened at the spa—”
“Don’t worry, Mistress,” he growled. “I have more self-control than to go down on you in public in front of a crowd. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, all right.” Imani nodded quickly as the line moved forward. “Then I’ll be fine too.”
“Good.” J’are took a deep breath and tugged at his pain collar with one finger, like a man tugging on a tight shirt collar. “Then we’ll both be fine,” he said, but his voice came out more than half growl.
Oh dear…Imani bit her lip. Though he wouldn’t admit it, holding back his feral side was really taking a toll on the big Nightwalker—she could tell. They needed to get in and out of this party as soon as possible. Imani just hoped Judge Thoughtgood was already here so they could make a good impression and then leave.
At last she heard her name being called.
“Mistress Williams,” another servant, also dressed in lemon-yellow livery announced.
Quickly, Imani took her place on the small stage overlooking a grand ballroom. It was filled with other Mistresses, all with one or more bodyslaves, laughing, talking and mingling as they drank expensive-looking drinks that fizzed and smoked and came in every conceivable color.
“Mistress Williams,” the servant said again, loudly, and J’are dropped to his knees before her, as though on cue. Looking up at her, he placed his hands on her hips and murmured,
“Mistress, I make my obeisance to you.”
Then he pressed his lips to her panties and performed a deep, hot kiss that sent helpless shivers all the way down Imani’s spine. She couldn’t help remembering the way he had tasted her so gently and so thoroughly at the spa…the way he had spread her legs wide and pressed his tongue deep inside her and then lapped her sensitive aching clit…
And then the moment was over and J’are was pulling away.
“Mistress,” he growled, looking up at her again and Imani saw that his eyes were definitely glowing. “I need to taste you again.”
“J’are,” she whispered, her heart thumping as she ran a hand over his short, spiky hair. “You know we can’t—especially not here.”
“Later then,” he growled. “Just once more before we part. Let me lap your sweet pussy and feel you coming all over my face—please.”
“All…all right,” Imani agreed breathlessly, though she knew she shouldn’t agree to any such thing. “But for now, let’s go down to the party.”
“All right.” He rose smoothly and followed her down the short flight of steps into the crowd of drunk, laughing Mistresses.
“Let’s mingle for a minute,” Imani whispered to him. “But if you see Judge Thoughtgood, let me know.”
“She’s right over there.” With his superior height, J’are could, of course, see over the heads of the entire crowd. He put a hand on Imani’s shoulder and pointed her in the right direction.
All she could see was a towering hairstyle—purple this time—but she could tell it must be Judge Thoughtgood.
“Perfect,” she whispered. “Let’s make our way over there and find someone to talk to, so she can see how well you’re behaving. Then we’ll kind of bump into her by accident.”
“All right.” J’are came with her, obediently walking two paces behind as Imani made her way through the crowd.
On the way, she picked up a lime green drink that fizzed and crackled from the tray of a passing waiter, just to look like she was taking part in the festivities. She took a small sip of it and winced—it tasted like someone had mixed lime Kool-aid with Mad dog 2020.
Well, I won’t be drinking any more of that, she thought, fighting not to cough as the tiny sip she’d taken burned the back of her throat. But she kept the drink in hand, the better to preserve the illusion that she was just another guest having fun at the gathering.
Looking around, she could see that J’are’s adopted mother must have had serious money. The ballroom had a black marble floor that had been polished to a shiny, mirror-like sheen. She could see her own reflection in it when she looked down. It was surrounded by black marble columns and filled with huge urns with rare, flowering plants whose exotic scents drifted through the air. Gold leaf ran around the tops of the columns and outlined the walls.
A fountain with a vast white marble statue depicting a female goddess riding some kind of chariot in its center dominated the middle of the room. The goddess held the reigns of four creatures that looked very like dragons to Imani. They reared, their marble mouths open to spout water which had been filled with golden glitter.
Yes, very fancy indeed.
“A vulgar display, isn’t it?” someone said in her ear.
“Excuse me?” Imani turned and saw the pink-haired Mistress she had rescued from under her bodyslave that morning at the Luxx. “Oh, Mistress Yank’doodle!” she exclaimed. “How are you?”
“Very well, thank you, Mistress Williams.” The other woman nodded her head civilly.
“And how is your bodyslave?” Imani asked. “I hope he wasn’t seriously harmed?”
“Oh, he’s built like a brick wall.” Mistress Yank’doodle made a shooing motion with one hand—she was holding a smoking blue drink in the other. “He’s about as smart as one too, but he’s nice to look at and very, er, accommodating, as I’m sure you remember.”
She tittered as though she’d told a naughty joke and for a moment her cheeks went as pink as her hair.
“Oh, yes,” Imani said, smiling. “Um, this is my bodyslave, J’are.”
“My, my, my…” Lady Yank’doodle ran an appreciative eye over J’are, taking him in from head to foot and lingering on his shaft. Her eyes widened when she saw his size. “He must have Kindred blood,” she remarked. “They’re always so well endowed.”
“As a matter of fact, he does,” Imani said. “Um, what were you saying about the fountain, though? Just a minute ago?” She wanted to change the subject away from J’are’s extra large endowment—it didn’t seem right to be talking about how huge he was right to his face.
“Oh, I was just commenting on how vulgar and garish it is! All that gold glitter clogging up the water! And the gold leaf that’s been added everywhere…” She motioned with one hand. “Why, old Mistress Hownow must be turning over in her grave at this outlandish display and the way her old home has been abused!”
“Really?” Imani asked, surprised. “I’ve never been here before but I thought—”
“Thought that it had always been like this? I’m sorry to disabuse you of the notion, my dear Mistress Williams, but it’s not so. No, Natilda Hownow was a simple, honest woman—who also just happened to be extremely wealthy,” she added, looking around. “Not that the one who inherited her wealth is using it very well. Though she’s lucky to have it—before she got her hands on old Mistress Hownow’s estate, she was going straight to the poor house by way of the debtors’ prison, if you know what I mean.”
“Are you talking about Mistress Bittlebum?” Imani asked, surprised. “Our host tonight?”
“Of course I am!” Mistress Yank’doodle exclaimed. “Why, you never saw such a money-grubber in your life. Always lived above her means, she did—trying to reach the top echelon of Yonnite society—though she didn’t have the money to do it. So she begged and borrowed and some say stole, and she was just about to be arrested for non-payment of her debts right before she inherited this place.” She made a sweeping motion with one hand, indicating the vast mansion.
“I heard she didn’t inherit it though—I heard she got it by discrediting Mistress Hownow’s original will,” Imani said, casting an oblique look at J’are, who was standing quietly to
her right with an impassive look on his face.
“Oh my, yes! That was such a scandal, the old lady trying to leave all her property to a male.” Mistress Yank’doodle shook her head and made a tsking sound with her tongue. “She might have made it work if she could have found the right Mistress, willing to take her ‘son’ along with this lot, but none were. He was too big and wild and fierce, you see.” She shivered. “Mistress Bittlebum tried to take him in hand, but of course she couldn’t manage him. So then she sold him to Lady Zangelo—her closest friend and greatest rival, don’t you know? And then he was implicated in her death!”
“Oh, but I don’t think he killed her—I heard he was acquitted,” Imani said quickly.
“Well, if that’s so, then I guess Mistress Bittlebum’s plan went awry,” Mistress Yank’doodle remarked.
“What?” Imani could hardly believe her ears. “You think Mistress Bittlebum meant for the bodyslave she sold to Lady Zangelo to kill her?”
“Well, how else was she going to get out of her debts? She’d borrowed more from Lady Z than anyone else put together,” Mistress Yank’doodle took a sip of her smoking blue drink and grimaced appreciatively. “I mean, she would have had to sell this whole place just to pay the interest on the loan she took with Lady Z! And she certainly didn’t want to do that—she’d finally made it to the tippy-top of society when she came into old Mistress Hownow’s property. She wasn’t about to lose her place after all that scrambling to get there!”
“You certainly seem to know a lot about it,” Imani remarked.
“Oh, well we have the same bank manager, Mistress Bittlebum and I. And you wouldn’t believe what a terrible gossip she is—the bank manager, I mean.” Mistress Yank’doodle widened her eyes. “It’s just scandalous what she lets slip out.”
“I’m sure,” Imani murmured, nodding.
“Oh, there’s Mistress Bittlebum now! Will you excuse me, Mistress Williams? I have to go pay my respects,” Lady Yank’doodle said.
“Of course. It was, uh, nice talking to you.” Imani nodded her head.
“Nice chatting with you, too, my dear!” The pink-haired Mistress gave her a bright smile and then hurried over to where Mistress Bittlebum was standing in the middle of a crowd of other Mistresses, all talking at once.
There were more than just Mistresses around her, however, Imani saw. There were also seven or eight of the huge pink morphids in a ring around their Mistress.
As she watched, Imani saw something strange going on. Though Mistress Bittlebum was mostly talking to her friends, she often addressed a comment to a particular morphid as well—or maybe it was an order. Because when she spoke to them and pointed, they went bounding off, presumably to do her bidding.
“Look at her—holding court where my mother used to drink her evening tea.” J’are’s deep voice was bitter but he kept it low, for Imani’s ears alone.
“I’m sorry, J’are.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it comfortingly.
“Mother Hownow would never have allowed those filthy morphids in her house,” he growled, still looking at Mistress Bittlebum. “Look at the way she has them going all over the place!”
“She certainly does.” Imani frowned as she watched Mistress Bittlebum’s interaction with her alien servants more closely. How was she controlling them? She and J’are had both said they had a hive mind and only obeyed their queen—or the person they acknowledged as their queen, anyway. Was that how they saw Mistress Bittlebum?
“Look,” she murmured to J’are. “Every time she gives one of them an order, she touches them. Look—she did it again.”
As they watched, Mistress Bittlebum ran a hand over her lemon-yellow hair. Then, as she leaned forward to give an order to one of the morphids, she passed her hand over its antae as she spoke. It was a barely-there touch, but to Imani, it seemed to have some significance. Was she using the touch to direct them somehow? She knew that honeybees and ants used scent to give each other directions. Maybe Mistress Bittlebum was doing the same thing somehow.
“She’s definitely acting as their queen,” she murmured to J’are. “Look at the way she orders them around. Did you hear everything that Mistress Yank’doodle was telling me just now?”
“Caught some of it. Why?” He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Because I’d like to see if we can’t do a little digging, now that we’re here. It’s clear from what Mistress Yank’doodle told me, Mistress Bittlebum did have a motive to kill Lady Zangelo.”
J’are’s eyebrows went higher.
“So we’re back to thinking Bittlebum is the one who killed Mistress Zangelo?”
“She has the morphids,” Imani pointed out. “And the motive. She tried to use you as her weapon but when you didn’t cooperate, she had to find another way. Maybe we could find something to prove that.”
“Maybe…” J’are frowned. “If anyone would be arrogant enough to keep evidence of a crime in her domicile, it would be Mistress Bittlebum.”
“Do you think you could stand to stay here longer than we originally planned?” Imani asked him softly. “It would be poetic justice if we could pin Lady Zangelo’s murder on the woman who stole your inheritance.”
His eyes flashed.
“I wouldn’t mind that a bit. Yes, I think I can hang on.” He shifted uncomfortably. “If we can just get out of this crowd. My feral half doesn’t like crowded environments—makes him feel trapped.”
“Let’s go say hello to Judge Thoughtgood, like we intended to in the first place. Then I can ask someone where the bathroom is and we can slip away,” Imani suggested.
He nodded.
“Lead the way, Mistress. I’ll be perfectly well behaved.”
“Excellent. Come on.” Imani took his leash and they threaded their way through the crowd until she came to Judge Thoughtgood, who was wearing all purple tonight.
“Ah, Councilor Williams,” she said, inclining her head to Imani, which made her tower of purple hair bend forward alarmingly. “And how are you and the Nightwalker enjoying the party?”
“Very much, your Honor,” Imani said, smiling as naturally as she could. “As you can see, J’are is having no trouble at all here, even though it’s very crowded.”
“It is crowded.” Judge Thoughtgood fanned herself with one hand. “I don’t know when I’ve been so warm! I thought Mistress Bittlebum said she was only inviting fifty or sixty guests but it seems like all of Opulex is here!”
She seemed much looser and more relaxed than she had in court, Imani thought, eyeing the judge. Maybe the fizzing pink drink in her hand had something to do with it. If it was anything near as strong as the one she had tasted, a little bit of it would go a long way towards lowering inhibitions.
“Mistress, your ribbon has become untied. May I fix it for you?” J’are murmured.
Looking down, Imani saw that one of the little black slippers she was wearing—which did, in fact have long satin ribbons which laced around her ankles—had become untied.
“Why thank you, J’are—of course you may,” she said, smiling at him.
Gracefully, the big Kindred dropped to his knees and began to retie her ribbon. When he finished, he kissed the top of her foot gently before rising again.
The overly submissive display made Imani uncomfortable but when she looked up at Judge Thoughtgood, she understood why J’are had done it. She was smiling and nodding approvingly as he rose to his feet.
“Well, Councilor, it seems that beauty has tamed the savage beast,” she remarked to Imani. “I never would have believed when he was brought into my courtroom, snapping and snarling, that this male could be made into a halfway decent bodyslave!”
“He was just upset by his time in the hole, er, the detention center, your Honor,” Imani said earnestly. “He’s not a bad-tempered male at all—but he was fighting for his life down there and it made him half crazy. Now that he’s with someone who understands and cares for him, he’s a completely different person.”
“Thank you, your Honor!” Imani nodded gratefully. “We’ll be there, first thing.”
“I’ll see you then.” Judge Thoughtgood nodded dismissively. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see someone I must talk to.”
“Yes, of course. And thank you again.” Imani got out of her way and watched as she stalked off to speak to another Mistress with a tower of white hair swaying above her head. Maybe all judges on Yonnie Six wore their hair three feet high, she thought.
But she was too excited to care much about judicial hairstyles at the moment. She turned to J’are and grabbed his hand.
“Did you hear that? You’re going to be free to go! All we have to do is show up in court one more time!”
“Thank the Goddess.” He nodded, a look of relief coming over his face. “We should go back to the hotel and celebrate,” he added, giving Imani a half-lidded look.
That look—a look of pure lust—reminded Imani that she’d agreed to let him taste her “just one more time.” A shiver of desire ran down her spine…but it was accompanied by a feeling of guilt. No matter how badly she wanted to let the big Nightwalker lap her pussy again, she knew she really shouldn’t do it.
“We can’t go yet,” she said, stalling for time. “We agreed to try and find some clues here, remember?”
“Right.” He nodded reluctantly. “Come on, then—the easiest way out of the ballroom is this way.”
Imani breathed a sigh of relief as they edged their way out of the crowd. She had put off doing anything else that was unprofessional and wrong—at least for a little bit. And in the meantime, she really did want to see if there was anything in the vast house tying Mistress Bittlebum to Lady Zangelo’s murder.
Unleashed by the Defender: A Kindred Tales Novel Page 16