Chapter 4
SEVERIN
Severin waited at the door of the decontamination suite, which was the very first room in the underground bunker where he and Ravik had been staying for these past five months. The idea being that if someone was found to be infected, they could be cast back out into Dead Zone immediately.
There were some who might say he should have cast Ravik out.
Severin knew it was true. As a Blood Kindred, he was cold and logical—he knew that he should have locked the door against the big Beast Kindred the minute he got scratched by one of the Infected.
But Ravik was his best friend as well as his long-time partner.
They’d been to too many worlds together on too many missions to count and both of them had saved each other’s lives many times over.
Besides, Severin was a Xeno-virologist and if anyone could beat the Hunger Virus, he could—or so he told himself.
So he kept Ravik with him. Even when the big Beast Kindred wanted to go out and die, he talked him out of it.
“I’m going to turn and when I do, I’ll kill you,” Ravik had said dully, eyeing the ugly scratch on his broad chest where an Infected had gotten him during a supply run. “Let me go out now, Sev. It’s better that way—at least one of us will live.”
“Beast Kindred are strong healers and the virus takes months to incubate—that’s how it was able to spread so fast,” Severin had argued. “Everyone on this benighted planet was infected before they even knew they had it. Give me time to work on an antidote—I’m sure I can crack this thing!”
He’d spoken with more confidence than he felt—the Hunger Virus moved and mutated with startling speed.
It was constantly making more variations of itself to fight the various antidotes he developed in the lab.
But Sev refused to give up. Every day he worked from early morning to far into the night, trying new combinations.
He was close to a cure—he could feel it.
But there seemed to be something missing—some ingredient he didn’t have, though the bunker had a fully stocked lab, since it had been a science retreat before it had become their refuge of last resort.
At any rate, he’d been able to slow down the progression of the virus, but not stop it completely. Which was why, little by little, day by day, he had to watch his best friend slowly lose himself to the Hunger.
Every day he asked himself if this was the day that Ravik would attack—the day he ought to send the big Beast Kindred out of the bunker for supplies or spare parts and not let him come back in.
Severin was muscular—though at six-foot-six, he was considered short for a Kindred male—but Ravik was seven-foot-one and outweighed him by a hundred pounds of pure muscle.
If the Hunger virus took over his brain completely and he went berserk and attacked, Sev probably wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
Still, every day when Ravik came to the bunker door, Sev let him back in. He just couldn’t bear to leave his best friend out in the Dead Zone to slowly go mad. He knew it was dangerous—suicidal even—but he couldn’t bring himself to lock the big Beast Kindred out.
And now he’d brought back a captive. Not one of the Visskous, who were native to this benighted planet but a human woman—a Mature Elite—one the Goddess had blessed with the wisdom of maturity as well as full curves.
Also, he was speaking again—just a few words, true—but it had been months since he’d uttered anything but grunts and growls.
Sev was cautiously elated—maybe the latest batch of anti-viral he’d injected his friend with had worked.
But what about the woman he had brought home with him?
She claimed not to be infected, but could he trust her word?
Also, what was a human woman doing here on Visslick Prime, light years from Earth?
Severin didn’t know but he was determined to find out.