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)
He had agreed because of her, he told himself—that was all. Because he couldn’t stand to see her crying and know he was the cause of her pain.
He was going to Cherubin Three because Cassie needed him and because some doctor with a ridiculous name had decided her body could make a vaccine in her breasts if she got enough of his seed and Sev’s too. He was going because she was his mate in the only way that mattered, even if they had not Bonded. He was going because she was suffering and he would rather cut off his own fucking arm than stand there and do nothing while she sobbed on the other side of that fucking glass wall.
He was not going because of Sev.
He was not going because Severin had looked at him with those pale blue eyes and said he cared for him more than anyone else in the universe, except maybe Cassandra.
He was not going because those words had touched something deep inside him and nearly knocked the breath from his chest.
“Fuck,” Ravik muttered, shoving away from the table. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”
He strode to the far side of the room and back again. His body wanted action—a fight—a target. Something he could hit until it stopped moving. Instead, all he had was silence and too much time to think.
He had told them they would go their separate ways afterward.
Good—that was the only way. They would go to Cherubin Three, make the vaccine, save whoever needed saving, and then be done.
Cassie could be cured and Sev could go back to his lab. Ravik could return to Single Male barracks or take a long-range assignment so far from the Mother Ship that he wouldn’t have to see or smell either one of them ever again.
That was the plan.
It sounded like death.
Ravik rubbed both hands over his face and cursed under his breath.
No, it sounded like sanity, he assured himself. It sounded like honor. It sounded like the only way to stop this thing before it got worse—more twisted. Because if he stayed—if he let himself keep touching and pleasuring Cassie while Sev touched her too—then sooner or later he was going to want more than the cure demanded.
Hell, he already did—that was the real problem.
He could tell himself he was angry because Sev had bitten him. That was true enough. He could tell himself he was furious because Sev’s essence had made him come like a helpless male in front of Cassie. Also true. He could tell himself that the whole thing made him feel violated, exposed, and used in a way no Beast Kindred male should ever be used.
It was all true.
But underneath all that was something worse…he had liked some of it.
Not the fear. Not the infection. Not waking up with his memories in pieces and finding out he had been half-feral for months. But the rest? Cassie in his arms…Cassie opening for them both…Sev’s voice guiding him…Sev’s hands on Cassie’s body while Ravik watched…Cassie’s mouth around both of them, her hands pressing their shafts together…
Fuck yes—he’d liked that. All of it.
His cock stirred again, traitorous and hard.
Ravik snarled and turned away from the memories, trying to shove them down, shove them away.
“Stop it,” he growled at himself. “Fucking forget it, why can’t you?”
His body didn’t listen—it remembered.
It remembered Cassie’s soft mouth and hot tongue, but it also remembered the slide of Sev’s shaft against his own. The shock of it…the wrongness…the heat. The way his body had tightened, not in disgust but in pleasure. The way Sev had made a low, broken sound when Cassie took them both, and how that sound had gone straight through Ravik like a blade made of fire.
It wasn’t the first time they’d shared.
The thought came before he could stop it, and with it came the old memory he had spent years burying under ale, shame, and silence…
The Tenebrian woman’s name had been Lirana. Or maybe Liranna. Something soft with too many vowels, spoken in a purring voice that made a male think about silk sheets and dark rooms and the way a skilled tongue could feel sliding over bare skin. Ravik had been drunk on Goldsheill ale that night—too drunk, if he was honest, though not so drunk he couldn’t remember what happened—every single, searing detail.
They had been on shore leave after the Karridian campaign, and the entire lower pleasure district had been glowing with blue lamps and music that thrummed through the bones like a second, more primal pulse. Tenebrian women were famous for their dark violet skin, silver eyes, and clever hands, and Lirana had seemed delighted to find two Kindred warriors looking for distraction after months of blood and dust and battlefield stink.
“Both of you?” she had purred, looking from Ravik to Severin with open, hungry appreciation, her gaze lingering on the breadth of Ravik’s shoulders and the lean, dangerous lines of Severin’s form. “How fortunate I am.”