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 stepped into the trousers and pulled them up, though he did not bother fastening the waistband properly until Cassandra cleared her throat and made a pointed gesture to where the crown of his thick cock was poking out of the top of the sleep trousers.
“All the way,” she said. “Come on, big boy—cover up.”
Ravik looked down, adjusted himself with no apparent embarrassment whatsoever, and fastened the trousers.
“Better now, Mate?” he rumbled.
Cassandra covered her eyes with one hand and shook her head.
“Yes, that’s better.” She sighed. “I’ve seen more alien male anatomy today than any woman should have to see before dinner.”
“You are the one who insisted on pants,” Ravik said.
“I insisted on pants because of the, er, anatomy,” she said.
Ravik considered this, then nodded solemnly.
“Mate is wise.”
Cassandra made a sound that might have been a laugh and might have been a sob and shook her head again.
“I only wish you were right about that, big guy,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be here in the first place if I was ‘wise.’”
Severin looked away before either of them could see the strange expression that crossed his face. He was feeling things he couldn’t quite name. Something in him warmed when Ravik had praised the little human…and something in him ached when she laughed. He didn’t know what to do with either reaction, so he pushed them aside.
“What are you making?” he asked, trying to distract himself from the flood of unfamiliar emotions.
“Supper,” Cassandra said. “Or my best attempt at it. I found kareth pearls, fen pods, loompa root, dried sserka strips, and broth stones. I was going to make something like soup or stew, because apparently even in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, men still wander into kitchens asking to be fed.”
“Ravik can help,” Ravik said at once.
“Yes, so you mentioned,” she said and the corners of her mouth twitched.
“I am a good cook,” the Beast Kindred insisted.
“So you also mentioned.” Cassandra nodded.
“He is not,” Sev said, frowning.
Ravik gave him a wounded look.
“I am better than you.”
“You think everything is improved by adding smoked fire-root and twice as much salt as necessary,” Sev pointed out.
“It is,” Ravik said earnestly.
“It is not,” Sev asserted, but he couldn’t help feeling a tiny bubble of joy in his heart. This was an old argument between them—one he had feared they would never have again.
Cassandra held up both hands to stop them.
“All right, enough—before this turns into some kind of alien cooking competition, let’s all remember that I am starving, infected, exhausted, and wearing a blanket as formal dinner attire. So unless one of you has a better idea, we are making bunker stew and everyone is going to pretend it’s delicious.”
Ravik nodded.
“Bunker stew is good.”
“You’ve never had it before,” Sev pointed out.
“Mate makes it. It is good,” Ravik rumbled with utter certainty.
Cassandra stifled a laugh as she turned abruptly back to the pot.
“Fine,” she said to Ravik. “Then you can open those tins of fen pods, since apparently you’re the helpful one.”
Ravik moved at once, picking up the tins and tearing the lids off with his bare hands before Sev could tell him to use the opener.
Cassandra stared, her eyebrows climbing high.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” she remarked.
“Efficient,” Ravik said solemnly.
“Messy,” Sev corrected, watching yellow oil drip all over the counter.
Ravik ignored him and looked to Cassandra for approval.
“I am helping Mate, just like she asked.”
The curvy little human sighed and pushed a folded cloth toward him.
“Wipe it up, big guy,” she ordered, pointing at the spill.
Ravik obeyed at once, without complaint.
Sev stood at the edge of the kitchen, watching the impossible domesticity of the scene unfold. Cassandra stirred the pot with her blanket wrapped around her shoulders and Ravik wiped the counter with great seriousness while the room filled with the warm, savory smell of broth stones dissolving into kareth pearls and fen pods.
It should have been absurd—it was absurd, he told himself.
But after months of fear, failed experiments, rotting death outside the bunker, and Ravik’s steady decline into silence, the sight of his friend standing in a kitchen and “helping” to make stew felt almost unbearable.
Because it meant hope…dangerous, fragile, scientifically inexplicable hope.
Severin looked at Cassandra again. She was muttering to herself as she added the green herb mix, her hair still damp from Ravik’s embrace, her cheeks flushed, her curves swathed in one of their gray thermal blankets like some annoyed household goddess who had accidentally wandered into their Food Prep area and started cooking for lack of anything better to do.
The scene made Sev realize all over again that the antiviral serum he’d concocted hadn’t saved Ravik.
Cassandra had.
And Sev was beginning to fear that Ravik was not the only one who needed her.
14
CASSIE
The Bunker Stew was delicious, if Cassie said so herself. The alien ingredients seemed to go together in a way they never had when she’d tried to cook for Sskarth. Then again, she hadn’t tried very hard. Her ex had been wealthy enough that they could afford to eat out most of the time—which was what many Visskous did.