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)
Severin looked at her longingly.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
The admission was so simple and so unlike his usual careful explanations that for a second she didn’t know what to say.
“I’m okay,” she said at last. “Really. For now, I feel…quiet.”
“Quiet is good,” Ravik said, his arms still around her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Quiet is very good.”
Severin leaned forward and brushed his lips over her forehead. The kiss was brief and gentle and made her heart ache.
“I’ll be close,” he murmured. “If the need returns, call me.”
Cassie managed a tired little smile.
“If the need returns, I have a feeling both of you will smell it before I can say a word.”
Ravik buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply.
“Ravik smells Cassie,” he informed them. “Will let Sev know if she’s needing again.”
“Well thank you, but if you smell anything before I can get some sleep I might just shoot myself,” Cassie said dryly. “This stupid virus makes you tired.”
Severin’s mouth twitched, but his eyes were still serious.
“Rest if you can,” he said. “I’ll test the sample and come back as soon as I know more.”
Cassie nodded, too exhausted to argue.
As he climbed carefully off the bed with the sealed wand case in hand, she felt Ravik shift behind her, settling them both back against the pillows. He tucked her close, his body warm and massive and protective around hers, and Cassie settled against him with a sigh of relief.
She watched Severin pause at the doorway and look back at them.
For a moment, no one spoke, then Ravik’s hand lifted from her hip and reached toward him—not quite touching, because Severin was too far away, but the gesture was there. It was an invitation…a question…a silent pull that Cassie felt in her own chest.
Severin’s expression flickered from determination to regret and then back again.
“I’m sorry, Ravik,” he said to his friend. “I want to hold her between us too—especially after the sharing we had. But I need to work.”
Then he turned away and disappeared into the corridor, carrying the glowing sample that might save them all.
Cassie closed her eyes and leaned back into Ravik’s arms. Her body was finally quiet and she was at peace.
But somewhere deep inside, she had a feeling everything had just gotten much more complicated.
40
SEVERIN
Severin carried the sealed case back to the lab as though it contained something explosive—in a way, perhaps it did.
The portable collection wand lay inside its sterile casing, filled with Cassandra’s glowing honey. He could still see it through the clear sample chamber—pearly-gold and faintly luminous, threaded with tiny sparks of light that moved sluggishly through the fluid as though it was alive.
Which was impossible, of course—human sexual secretions did not glow. They did not produce light and they didn’t carry enough active anti-viral compounds to make a Hunger Virus sample recoil like a shadow exposed to flame.
And yet, Cassandra’s did.
Severin placed the case on the lab table with more care than he had used handling volatile plasma charges. His hands were steady, but only because he had spent most of his adult life forcing them to be steady while working with volatile chemicals and samples. Inside, the rest of him was not steady at all.
He could still feel the heat of the mating chamber clinging to his skin…could still hear Cassandra’s broken cry as she came around the wand. And he could still see Ravik holding her open and safe in his arms while Severin filled her with cold science and hot hunger and tried not to admit that the two had become hopelessly tangled in his mind.
Gods, he was in trouble.
Not just because he wanted her and not just because he wanted Ravik near her—wanted the three of them tangled together in that huge Visskous nest-bed as though the three of them belonged together. Desire was dangerous, but desire could be controlled.
But this was something else—Cassandra’s body was changing and Ravik was coming back. And the cure—the real cure, not another temporary suppression or failed anti-viral—was finally taking shape in front of him.
When he had it completed, if it brought his best friend back completely, Severin knew he would pay for this night’s pleasure. Ravik was right—Beast Kindred did not share mates. And while his friend seemed willing enough to share right now, Severin was certain he wouldn’t be happy when he remembered it and fully comprehended what they had done together later on.
But in order for any of that to happen—and in order for the three of them to get off this Goddess-forsaken, infected planet—he had to complete the cure.
Carefully, Severin withdrew a micro-sample from the wand’s collection reservoir. The glowing honey clung to the slender pipette, viscous and faintly warm, though it should have cooled by now. He placed a drop on the slide, added a prepared Hunger Virus sample from a Visskous host, and sealed the cover before sliding it under the scope.