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)
But Cassandra stirred in her sleep and murmured something that sounded almost like his name…and that was enough to break him.
Severin crossed the room and climbed carefully onto the bed. He lay on Cassandra’s other side, facing her and Ravik, close enough to feel their warmth but not so close that he crowded them.
Ravik watched him with those half-clear golden eyes, studying him in the dim light.
“You’re tired,” he rumbled softly, sounding more himself than he had in ages.
“Yes,” Severin admitted. “A little.”
“Come closer.” Ravik gestured for him. “Help me hold her.”
Severin hesitated. If he was still offering to hold the woman they both wanted between them, then it was clear his friend wasn’t all the way back yet.
Ravik’s brow furrowed and he frowned at Severin’s hesitation.
“Come on—Cassie needs us close.”
Severin felt his resistance melting…mainly, he told himself, because what Ravik said was true. She did need both of them.
He shifted closer until Cassandra was nestled between them again. She sighed in her sleep and turned toward him, one hand coming to rest against his bare chest as though she was reaching for him without knowing it. The touch sent a pulse through his altered blood so strong he had to close his eyes.
Oh Goddess, if only we could hold her between us every night like this—forever!
Then Ravik’s arm settled over both of them, heavy and warm, binding them together in the dim amber light.
Severin lay very still with Cassandra’s hand over his heart, Ravik’s breath slow and deep beyond her, and the secret burning quietly in his veins.
He should tell them but there was nothing to tell until morning, he told himself. No certainty…no result and no proof that he had either saved them or doomed them. Only a theory, a prayer, and the strange golden pressure he felt gathering behind his fangs.
Cassandra murmured in her sleep and shifted closer and Ravik’s arm tightened around them both.
Severin let himself rest his forehead briefly against Cassandra’s hair and breathed in the scent of her—warm woman, honey, exhaustion, and the faint lingering glow of the cure her body had begun to make.
In the morning, he would test her blood and his own. In the morning, he would know whether he had become the carrier of the cure…or the next carrier of the Hunger Virus.
Until then, he lay with the two people he was trying desperately not to love too much and finally drifted off to sleep.
41
RAVIK
Ravik was having the strangest dream. He and Severin had gone to a planet full of lizard people to do science and surveillance—which wasn’t unusual. But while they were there, the lizard people all went fucking crazy and started wanting to eat each other—and him and Sev too.
Then the two of them had run to an underground bunker where there was nothing but shitty lizard people food to eat. Their shuttle had been torn apart by the Infected—those bastards—and one of them scratched Ravik and he…he…what?
He couldn’t remember that part. Or at least, the dream didn’t show him. It was like a fog had drifted over his mind and nothing made sense anymore.
Then a beautiful woman came—a Mature Elite sent by the Goddess herself. Ravik brought her back to the bunker and the three of them were…were what?
The dream wouldn’t show him. He only had a feeling that the woman—Cassie was her name—was incredibly important to both of them. She was…was…
His dream dissolved when someone elbowed him in the stomach.
“Oof!” He opened his eyes and looked around. “What the fuck?” he muttered.
“Sorry—you were snoring right in my ear,” a woman’s voice said.
Ravik looked down and realized it was the woman of his dreams—Cassie. The Mature Elite was looking gorgeous with her tousled hair and sleepy eyes.
“Cassie?” He shook his head. “I was just dreaming of you.”
“You were? That’s nice.” She looked at him speculatively. “You know, you’re sounding a lot less like a caveman this morning.”
“A caveman?” He frowned. “What’s that?”
“I believe the early humans who lived on Earth many centuries ago stayed in caves,” Severin said, sitting up on the other side of Cassie. “They had a primitive way of communicating—that’s what Cassandra is referencing.”
“I still don’t see how…” Ravik shook his head. “Hey, why are we all sleeping together in the same fuckin’ bed?”
Cassie’s eyebrows shot up.
“You mean…you don’t remember last night? The two of you holding me between you?”
“Holding you between us?”
Ravik frowned and tried to think. He had some vague memories but there seemed to be a fog over them that he couldn’t lift.
“Why would we do that?” he asked at last. “Beast Kindred and Blood Kindred don’t share women like Twin Kindred do.”
He saw Cassie and Sev exchange a look—a look that said they knew something he didn’t. But Cassie only shook her head.
“Never mind. It’s just good to see that you’re feeling better today.”