Chapter 3
RAVIK
Smells good…smells right. Mine—must keep safe. Must not let go. Mine…my mate…MINE.
Such were the thoughts running through Ravik’s diseased brain as he jogged through the Dead Zone territory, making sure to keep a firm grip on the struggling female over his shoulder.
She was shouting something—something he was sure he ought to understand. It seemed to him that mouth noises used to make sense. They still did sometimes, when they came from Severin. When his partner spoke, Ravik listened and he could still understand him…most of the time.
But the human woman over his shoulder—he thought she was human anyway—was making noises that didn’t make sense to him.
He only knew that she smelled right—smelled like a female who could be his mate—and so he had to take her.
He didn’t remember much of the past or how he and Severin had gotten here or why they had come in the first place, but the scent of a female who could be a mate was undeniable.
And there was something special about this one, too—something that drew him to her.
Mature Elite.
The words flashed in his mind and were gone again before he could grasp them and find out what they meant. He only knew she was special and important and he had to keep her safe from the Infected, who roamed the Dead Zone.
Several times on the way back to the bunker, an Infected tried to get in his way—tried to take his woman.
Ravik strong-armed them out of the way, punching and shoving his way through and moving quickly to keep their grasping hands from latching onto his female.
He heard her scream in terror several times, but there was no note of pain in her tone, so he kept going.
At last, after looping around the territory to make sure none of the Infected were following, he came to the hidden entrance of the Bunker.
There was a loompa tree standing to one side, its spreading purple branches hiding the steel panel.
Ravik brushed them away and stepped up to the ocular scanner. He pressed the call button and waited.
After a moment, a green light came on and he heard a familiar voice.
“Ravik? Is that you? What do you have over your shoulder?”
Ravik put the struggling female down. Keeping a firm grip on her, he turned her so she was facing the hidden camera. Then he dug deep inside himself, trying to find the words.
“Wo-man,” he said at last. “Hu-man. Mate.”
“You spoke!” Severin’s voice sounded surprised. “You haven’t spoken for three solar months, at least!”
“Woman,” Ravik repeated, more sure of himself this time. “Mine,” he added, for good measure.
“Well, we’ll just see what she says about that,” Severin remarked.
At that point, the human woman began making mouth noises again—this time she seemed to be speaking to the camera.
“Grabbed me…need help…from Earth,” were a few of the words that Ravik actually caught.
He frowned, trying to put them together.
They almost made sense. In fact, his head felt less fuzzy than it had in weeks.
There was something about the human woman—something about her scent that seemed to clear his mind.
He listened intently, hoping to find out more about her but she was speaking so rapidly now, Ravik couldn’t follow.
“Infected?” he heard Severin ask.
The woman shifted from foot to foot and tugged at the arm of her short, silky robe, which barely came down to mid-thigh. She had gorgeous thick thighs and a juicy behind, Ravik noticed—he had always loved a woman with a big ass.
The thought surprised him because in the past few months, he hadn’t thought about women at all.
As the gray fog crept over his brain and the white film covered his eyes, he thought less and less about anything.
But now, standing so close to the human woman and breathing in her sweet, unique scent, he could feel the fog lifting and his interest in women and life in general coming back.
What was happening to him?
He had no answers and before he could make sense of the situation, he heard Severin say,
“All right, Ravik, I’m opening the door. Bring her in to the decontamination suite.”
Then the steel door slid open and he was pushing the little female inside. Maybe Severin would know what was happening to him—he hoped so because he had no hope of figuring it out himself.