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)
Ravik was beginning to hate the word “Triune.”
Sev looked at him, his blue eyes unreadable.
“I won’t bite you again without your consent,” he said flatly. “Not for science. Not for the vaccine. Not for anything.”
The words hit Ravik hard. He wanted to throw them back in Sev’s face. Wanted to say his consent hadn’t mattered at the tower, that Sev had taken what he wanted, that he had used Ravik like a female and called it a cure.
But the lie stuck in his throat because he remembered now. He remembered the fog rolling over his eyes. He remembered telling Sev to do it before he hurt Cassie—before he killed them both.
He remembered choosing the bite because the alternative was worse but this would be different—this would be a clear choice, made in a clear mind. And it would mean forever—a lifetime of being mated to anther male and sharing a mate with him. Once he went down this path, there was no going back.
That was the terrifying part.
Ravik looked at Cassie again. Her hands were clenched in the folds of her robe and her breasts were full beneath the silk, no doubt aching because of the medicine she had taken to save people who might never know her name. The Visskous had thrown her out to die, and here she was, willing to let her body become the thing that saved them.
She deserved better than his cowardice.
But did she deserve to be trapped in a bond with a male who couldn’t even face what he wanted?
Ravik looked at Sev.
His best friend stood on the other side of the bed, pale and still, the temporary visor hiding nothing. Ravik could read him too easily. He saw hope…fear…guilt…love, though neither of them was ready to call it that out loud. Sev would do it if Ravik agreed. He would bite Cassandra, bite Ravik, bind the vaccine, and probably break his own heart doing it if Ravik walked away afterward.
And Ravik would walk away—he had to.
Except if they Bonded, he wasn’t sure he could.
“I’ll give you anything else,” he said hoarsely. “My seed. My blood. My protection. My life if I have to. But not that.”
Cassie’s lips parted.
“Not your heart?” she whispered.
The question hit him like a blade between the ribs and Ravik couldn’t answer. Because the truth was, she already had part of it and so did Sev. Maybe they had for longer than he wanted to admit. Maybe that was why this hurt so fucking much—because the bond wasn’t something they were trying to force on him. It was something already alive inside him, pushing at every locked door he had built to keep it out.
He took a step back.
“I can’t,” he said. “I just fucking can’t.”
Cassandra’s face crumpled into grief before she managed to control it and Sev went very still.
Dr. Verityx made a soft, sorrowful chirping sound, but for once he did not offer any clinical explanation or scientific justification.
Good—Ravik couldn’t take any more fucking science.
“I said I’d help make the vaccine,” he growled, though his voice felt raw now. “I didn’t say I’d let Sev Bond with me.”
“No one is forcing you,” Sev said quietly.
“No,” Ravik said. “You’re all worse than forcing me. You’re making me fucking want it.”
The words were out before he could stop them and the room went deathly silent.
Ravik felt their eyes on him, searching…questioning.
He shook his head, furious with himself now. Furious and ashamed and suddenly desperate to get out of that room before he said anything else that would tell on him—tell the truth, that he wanted what was forbidden.
He had to leave before Cassie reached for him and Sev looked at him like there might still be a chance.
“No,” he said again, though he wasn’t sure who he was saying it to anymore. “I’m done.”
He turned and strode toward the door.
“Ravik!” Cassie cried and he heard her heart breaking in the sound of his name.
He stopped with his hand on the panel but didn’t turn around.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, I love you—Severin loves you. Why can’t we all love each other?”
That nearly broke him but he told himself he couldn’t turn back.
“I’ll do anything else,” he said, his back still to them. “Anything but that.”
Then he opened the door and walked out before either of them could stop him. The corridor outside was bright and green and full of soft bird-like voices and the distant hum of medical equipment. It felt unreal after the warmth of the suite, after Cassie’s tears and Sev’s silence and the awful truth he had let slip.
You’re making me want it.
Ravik clenched his fists and kept walking.
He didn’t know where he was going—he only knew he had to get away before wanting became a choice he couldn’t take back…
A choice that would last forever.
63
RAVIK
Ravik didn’t know how far he walked, he only knew that he found himself at the docking area where the silver long-range shuttle had been left for them to return to the Mother Ship after the vaccine was made.