Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
As if you wouldn’t do the same in a heartbeat, whispered a little voice in his head. Look at what you’re already doing—sharing her in bed with Sev, mixing your seed with his in her pussy, letting him touch you both last night when he put your cock in her pussy…
Ravik didn’t want to think about any of that.
He didn’t want to think about the bite either, or the way Sev’s fangs had felt in his throat. He especially didn’t want to think about the way the cure had rushed into him with a blast of pleasure so sharp and deep that his body had lost control right there in the grass with Cassandra watching.
So instead, he ate the strange golden cakes and drank the drink and pretended he didn’t notice the silence between himself and Sev stretching across the suite like a suffocating blanket that kept them both from breathing.
Cassandra sat curled in the center of the huge nest-bed, wrapped in the red silk robe and nibbling at some pale green fruit that smelled sweet and floral. She looked better than she had when Sev carried her back from the lab, but she was clearly tired. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was mussed, and her breasts were visibly fuller under the robe, which made Ravik’s hands curl into fists around his plate.
Not because he was angry with her—gods, no. Because he wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her, to ease the ache in her body, to put his mouth on her breasts again and drink down the nectar that had flowed when he and Sev had sucked her together. He wanted to gather her close and tell her she had been brave on that strange table with that weird little living stim-thing inside her and all those feathered lab assistants pretending not to pay attention while she came in front of everyone.
He wanted to tell her she was beautiful…ee wanted to tell her she was his.
But she wasn’t just his, was she?
The thought twisted in his gut.
Sev was sitting on the other side of the bed, close to Cassandra but not touching Ravik. His broken oculars had been replaced with a thin temporary visor that made his pale blue eyes look sharper and more distant than usual. He was eating with that distracted expression he got when his mind was somewhere else, probably in Dr. Verityx’s lab, worrying over viral markers and nectar stability and whatever-the-hell else was involved in making the vaccine.
Or maybe he was thinking about the things the three of them had done together…maybe he was remembering sharing Cassie between them the way Ravik was, even though he was trying not to…
Cassoe glanced from one to the other and sighed.
“You know,” she said, pointing a piece of green fruit at both of them, “This food is weird enough without the two of you adding a side dish of awkward male silence to it.”
Sev’s mouth twitched.
Ravik only grunted.
Which made her raise an eyebrow at him.
“Excellent conversation, Ravik. Very emotionally revealing.”
“I’m eating,” he growled.
“You’re brooding,” she accused.
“I can do both.”
“Yes, I’m noticing.” Her voice was dry but her eyes were worried.
Sev looked down at his plate, but Ravik could see he was trying not to smile at the exchange. That annoyed him—it also made something inside his chest loosen for half a second, because for all the anger and shame between them, they still knew how Cassie sounded when she was trying to make a strange situation bearable.
She had done it on Visslick Prime in the bunker and she was doing it now.
She was an amazing, beautiful woman—a Mature Elite—the kind of female he’d never dreamed he could ever have a chance with.
She was also hurting. Ravik could smell it under the strange foods and the flowery mineral drink. It wasn’t physical pain he smelled exactly—though he knew her breasts still ached. It was the need again. There was a warm, sweet restlessness in her scent that made his shaft hard all over again.
Ravik wanted to help her but he was terrified of what helping would require. He and Severin had already gone so far down the path of damnation—it felt like one more step would ruin him forever.
The door chimed before he could continue that line of thought, which was probably for the best.
Cassandra looked toward the door panel and Sev set down his cup at once.
“Enter,” he called.
The door slid open and Dr. Verityx stepped inside, still wearing his green lab coat and looking entirely too cheerful for a male who was probably about to ruin all their lives.
His golden eyes were bright, his feathers were sleek, and he had a data tablet tucked under one feathered arm. Behind him, Lipshill hovered briefly in the corridor before chirping something about “additional nourishment being available upon request” and disappearing again.