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)
So what was happening?
Some volatile compound in her skin oils? Some endocrine marker carried in her sweat? Human pheromones altered by stress, arousal, age, and the hormonal flux she kept mentioning? Could her perimenopausal state be creating a biochemical instability the virus couldn’t adapt to? Could that instability be disrupting the neural lock the Hunger Virus had on Ravik’s Beast-brain?
No—not disrupting, he thought—interrupting. Like static on a signal.
The virus was broadcasting “hunger” and Cassandra’s body was broadcasting “mate.”
And in Ravik, mate was winning…for now.
But why didn’t it last?
Severin flexed his burned hand without thinking and immediately regretted it. Pain shot through his palm and up his wrist, pulling a low hiss from between his teeth.
Cassandra glanced over her shoulder at him.
“Don’t make me come over there,” she warned. “I told you I was going to treat you too in just a minute.”
“I’m fine,” Severin said shortly.
She gave him a stern look.
“You are not fine. Your hand is blistering.”
He shrugged.
“It can wait.”
She arched an eyebrow at him.
“You know, for a scientist, you’re not very smart about burns.”
Despite everything, Severin felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards.
“I bow to your superior expertise, my lady,” he said, inclining his head.
Cassandra lifted her chin.
“You should—I know what I’m doing.”
Then Ravik made a low sound and shifted in the chair, drawing Cassandra’s attention back to him at once. The sound was not quite a whimper, but close enough that it made Severin’s chest ache.
“All right now, let’s take a look at you,” Cassandra murmured, looking over the big Beast Kindred’s naked, muscular body. “Hmm, those fikka beetles really did a number on you, big guy.”
Severin watched as she bent toward him, her red nightgown riding up the backs of her thighs to show her luscious full ass. He looked away at once, then looked back because Ravik was the patient and Cassandra was the one treating him and he needed to observe.
That was all, he told himself—just observation.
The same kind of observation that had made him watch every breath she took last night. The same kind of observation that had made his fangs ache when she looked up at him with flushed cheeks and allowed him to suck her nipples while Ravik filled her with his fingers.
Severin pinched the bridge of his nose with his unhurt hand.
Goddess save him—he was a disgrace.
But he didn’t stop watching.
The burns scattered across Ravik’s chest and thighs were minor but numerous. The fikka beetles had apparently retained enough internal moisture to build steam under their shells until they burst, turning themselves into tiny edible projectiles. Or inedible projectiles, considering the state of the Food Prep area and the look Cassandra had given the beetle she’d picked up off the floor.
Most of the marks were superficial—first degree, perhaps shallow second in a few places. Ravik’s Kindred healing would take care of them quickly. The burn on Severin’s own palm was worse than most of them, though he had no intention of mentioning that until Cassandra forced the issue, which she almost certainly would later.
The injury to Ravik’s shaft was another matter—Severin didn’t like the way his friend was guarding himself. A burn to the glans or shaft could be agonizing even for a Kindred male, and if Ravik was too disoriented to understand treatment, he might resist any attempt to apply medication.
Which, of course, is what he immediately did.
Cassandra dabbed a bit of the cooling burn salve on one finger and reached toward a red mark on Ravik’s chest but the Beast Kindred jerked back as though she had come at him with a blade.
“No!” His golden eyes went wide as she tried again. “No—hurts! Stings!”
“No it doesn’t—I promise it doesn’t!” Cassandra said quickly. “Look—see? I’ll put some on myself.”
She rubbed the ointment onto the back of her hand and showed him, but Ravik only shook his head, breathing harder.
“No, no!” he rumbled, his eyes wide with fright. “No like it! No want it! Stings!”
Severin’s throat went tight as he watched.
Ravik had endured plasma burns, broken bones, poison darts, shrapnel wounds, surgical extractions without anesthetic, and once, on Varron Minor, a bite from a venomous underground eel that had caused muscle spasms for two full days. He had never feared pain. He had cursed it, fought through it, mocked it, and sometimes laughed at it.
But the Hunger Virus had stripped away his mind and memories. Ravik wasn’t remembering that treatment helped. He wasn’t remembering that pain could be temporary or necessary. He only knew something hurt and someone was trying to put something on him that might hurt more.
The sight made Severin want to put his fist through the wall…instead, he stood still and let Cassandra handle it.
Because Cassandra was the one Ravik trusted right now—not him.
That truth cut deeper than the burn on his palm.
Severin had saved Ravik’s life more than once. He had entered quarantine rooms, battlefield triage units, and contaminated ruins for his best friend. He had synthesized anti-toxins from nothing but corrupted tissue samples and prayer. He had spent the last three months refusing to abandon the Beast Kindred when every rational protocol said he should have sealed the bunker door and let the Dead Zone take him.