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)
Cassandra lowered her head against his chest again.
“I love both of you, too,” she whispered.
Severin closed his eyes and held her tighter.
“I know.”
“I think I loved you from that first night in the bunker,” she said, her voice muffled against him. “When I slept between you and Ravik and both of you kept me warm. I was scared and confused and infected and I had no idea what was happening to me, but lying there with both of you on either side of me felt…right. Like I had been cold for years and suddenly I wasn’t anymore.”
The words pierced him like a knife and Severin kissed the top of her head because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“I wish he could see it,” she whispered. “I wish Ravik could understand that the three of us belong together.”
“He sees more than he wants to.” Severin looked toward the door again, hating the certainty in his own voice. “But Ravik is stubborn. Once he decides something, he holds to it like a male holding a battle line. He believes leaving is the honorable choice now, and convincing him otherwise is impossible.”
Cassie lifted her head sharply.
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry. I have to speak the truth.” He shook his head. “We’ll have to on without him.
“No.” Tears spilled over her cheeks again. “Don’t you dare be calm and practical about losing him! Don’t tell me we’ll do the best we can without him like that’s something either one of us can survive. We need him!”
Severin felt his heart fist in his chest—she was right and he knew it.
He had been reaching for cold logic because the alternative was despair. If Ravik was gone, they would have to go on without him. Cassandra still needed treatment and the vaccine still mattered. The Mother Ship, the Visskous survivors, every world that might someday encounter the Hunger Virus—all of them still mattered.
But none of that changed the hollow feeling inside him.
“We’ll have to do the best we can without him,” he said, though the words tasted like ashes in his mouth.
Cassandra shook her head, crying harder now.
“It’s not just the vaccine,” she said. “I know the vaccine matters. I know people could die and I know we have to try. But it’s not just that, Severin. The three of us belong together. Why can’t he see that?”
“I do see it—now.”
Severin’s heart stopped and Cassandra went utterly still in his arms. They both looked up.
Ravik stood in the open doorway.
For one impossible moment, Severin thought he must be imagining him. The Beast Kindred filled the doorway, broad-shouldered and dark-haired, his golden eyes fixed on them with a rawness Severin had never seen there before. He looked shaken, as though he had been through a battle. His hair was wind-tangled, his face tight, and his hands were clenched at his sides.
But he was there—he had come back.
Severin’s heart gave a painful leap, hope surging so fast and hard he had to crush it down before it drowned him. Ravik had come back, yes, but that did not mean he had changed his mind. He might have returned for his belongings. He might have returned to say goodbye properly.
Severin forced his voice to stay steady.
“Did you forget something?”
Ravik’s gaze moved from Cassandra to him.
“Yes,” he said, his voice rough. “This.”
He crossed the room in three long strides.
Cassandra made a soft, broken sound and started to rise, but Ravik was already there. He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her hard, right on the mouth, with all the hunger and fear and love he had been trying to outrun.
Cassandra threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back, crying against his lips.
Severin looked away for half a second—not because he didn’t want to see it but because he wanted too much.
Then Ravik pulled back, breathing hard, and turned to him.
Everything in Severin went still again as he stared into his best friend’s face. He had no idea what was coming.
Ravik looked at him for a long moment. His golden eyes were bright, almost feverish. This was something there. Fear, maybe? But Severin also saw decision in those golden depths.
Ravik had made a choice.
“Sev,” he said quietly.
Severin stood slowly. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Ravik stepped closer, and Severin felt every inch of the distance between them disappear like a wall crumbling after years of standing too long. He could see the pulse in Ravik’s throat, the faint tremor in his jaw, the uncertainty in his eyes. Ravik was afraid…but he was still moving forward.
Severin met him halfway.
The kiss was nothing like the one in the Tenebrian pleasure house.
That one had been half-drunk, half-dared, and half-denied before it was over. This one was sober and deliberate but also filled with passion. Ravik’s mouth was warm and firm against his, rougher than Cassandra’s—familiar and shocking all at once. For a second, neither of them moved. They simply stood there, lips pressed together, breathing the same air.