Chapter 13 #2
“Yes. Hug Mate.” Cassandra muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, “God help me,” and set the stirring rod down on the counter.
Then she held her arms awkwardly out at her sides, as though preparing to embrace a very large, very damp tree. “All right. Come here, I guess.”
Ravik moved at once, going to her the minute she permitted it.
Severin stepped closer, every muscle in his body tight and ready.
If Ravik grabbed her too hard or showed any sign of aggression, he would intervene.
He didn’t know how he would stop a seven-foot-one Beast Kindred in the midst of viral regression, especially without injuring Cassandra in the process, but Goddess help him, he would find a way.
But Ravik didn’t grab the curvy little human. He came to her slowly—carefully—and leaned down to wrap his huge arms around her luscious body.
Cassandra stiffened as his wet chest pressed against her front, soaking the thin silk of her nightgown at once.
The fabric clung to her breasts and belly, molding to every soft curve in a way Sev had no business noticing and absolutely could not seem to stop looking at.
But he was also carefully watching Ravik’s reaction to the hug.
The Beast Kindred bent his head and his face disappeared in her long, brown hair. And then he inhaled…deeply.
The change was immediate.
Severin saw it happen in real time and felt the hair rise along the back of his neck.
Ravik’s shoulders relaxed first—the bunching tension easing out of the massive muscles.
Then his hands, which had been half-curled against Cassandra’s back, opened fully and spread over her with careful, protective gentleness.
Even better, the film in his eyes began to recede, the cloudy white thinning until the gold shone through, bright and unmistakably alive.
He inhaled again and held her more closely to him.
“Mmmmm,” he rumbled—clearly a sound of desire and satisfaction.
Cassandra must have felt the change in the Beast Kindred too, because she stopped holding herself stiffly and looked up at Ravik with wide eyes.
“Uh…you okay up there?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
Ravik lifted his head from her hair and looked down at her. For a moment he said nothing. Then he frowned, as though searching through the fog for something he had misplaced.
“My mate is wet,” he said at last.
Cassandra blinked.
“Yes, well, that happens when a naked man fresh out of the bath decides to hug you.”
Ravik glanced down at himself again and then back at her.
“I should have…dried myself first,” he said slowly, haltingly but speaking in completely sentences again. “I did not mean…to make you uncomfortable.”
Severin’s breath caught and he saw Cassandra’s mouth drop open.
“Oh,” she said faintly. “Well…thank you. I mean, apology accepted, I guess.”
Ravik’s gaze moved past her to the counter, where the pot was giving off fragrant steam. His expression sharpened with interest.
“Does my mate need help preparing food?” he asked. “I can help. Ravik is a good cook when he has proper ingredients.”
Cassandra stared at him.
“You can cook?”
“Yes.” Ravik’s expression grew solemn. “Better than Sev.”
Despite himself, Sev made a sound of protest.
“That is demonstrably false,” he pointed out.
Ravik’s eyes flicked to him. They were almost completely clear now—the bright, animal gold piercing the cloudy white of the viral film like the sun burning away fog.
“You burned the thessa mash,” he rumbled.
“I scorched it once,” Sev said stiffly. “And only because you distracted me when I was trying to cook.”
“You burn it every time,” Ravik said.
Cassandra looked between them, her expression hovering somewhere between disbelief and laughter.
“I’m sorry—are we really having an argument about who makes better alien refried beans while one of you is naked, one of you has really long fangs, and I’m standing here in a wet nightgown with zombie virus in my bloodstream?” she asked.
Sev closed his mouth quickly, feeling a rush of shame. There was no way his fangs should be so sharp right now. Cassandra wasn’t his mate—or Ravik’s mate for that matter. So why did being around the little human make his fangs ache and throb and get so sharp they almost cut his tongue?
It didn’t matter—none of it mattered, he told himself. The main thing was, she was right—this was a ridiculous situation and they needed to move on. Now that his hypothesis had been at least partially proven, there was no need for Cassie to be standing there hugging the extremely naked Ravik.
“Ravik,” he said to his best friend, “You need to put on clothing.”
The big Beast Kindred frowned.
“But mate needs food.”
“Mate also needs you to wear pants,” Cassandra said instantly.
Ravik looked down at her. For some reason, her words seemed to carry more weight than Sev’s had. After a moment, he nodded.
“If Mate wishes it, Ravik will wear pants.”
“I wish it very much,” she said. “In fact, I cannot express how much I wish it.”
“Then I will wear pants.” Ravik looked at Severin. “Sev, bring pants.”
Severin stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“Bring pants,” Ravik repeated, as though this was a perfectly reasonable request. “Mate wants Ravik to wear them but Ravik does not want to stop holding Mate. So Sev can bring pants.”
Cassandra pressed her lips together, but a laugh escaped anyway. It was small and startled and quickly smothered, but Sev heard it and so did Ravik.
The Beast Kindred looked down at her again, his expression softening in a way Severin had not seen in months.
“Mate laughs,” he said. “Mate is laughing.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Cassandra warned, but her voice had gone softer too.
Severin watched them and felt something twist sharply in his chest.
It wasn’t jealousy, he told himself. Or at least, it shouldn’t have been. Ravik was his best friend. His brother in every way that mattered.
Severin had spent the past three months watching the strongest male he had ever known slip piece by piece into silence and hunger and fog. He should have been overjoyed to see him standing here—speaking, teasing, responding like himself again.
And he was—the relief was so intense it almost hurt.
But underneath the joy was something else—something colder and sharper. Something Sev had no wish to examine too closely.
Because Ravik was looking at Cassandra as though she was light after months of darkness.
And Cassandra, despite her fear and exasperation and all her sharp-edged protests, was looking back at the big Beast Kindred as though she had forgotten for a moment that she was supposed to be afraid. As though she might be feeling something…
Severin looked away and forced himself to focus on the science—that was safer. He ticked off the facts in his head.
The anti-viral had failed under the scope.
Ravik had regressed after leaving Cassandra’s presence.
He had sought her out—guided by scent—and once he held her and inhaled deeply, his cognition returned almost instantly.
The white film had receded from his eyes and his speech had markedly improved.
His memory had sharpened—he’d remembered about Sev burning the mash and that had been months ago.
Also, social awareness had reasserted itself.
There had to be a reason for all that and it plainly wasn’t the serum.
It was her—Cassandra.
Or more precisely, it was something her body was producing—some volatile compound carried in her scent. Pheromonal, perhaps. Maybe endocrine-driven, since she was female and that was one of their primary hormones? He didn’t know enough about human physiology to speculate further than that.
All he knew was that somehow Cassandra’s scent had cut through the fog. It had not merely attracted Ravik—it had called him back from the brink.
“Severin?” Cassandra said warily and he realized he was staring at her in what was probably a most disconcerting way—like she was a science experiment.
She shifted in Ravik’s arms, pulling away a little and Sev saw her as a woman instead.
The wet red silk clung to her soft curves and her cheeks flushed a becoming pink.
Her hair was damp where Ravik had buried his face in it, and several strands clung to her throat.
She looked exhausted, frightened, annoyed, and alive in a way that made his fangs ache with sudden, inexplicable sharpness.
Not only that, but his shaft was getting hard too.
He had to make himself look away from her luscious body at once.
“I need samples,” he blurted.
Cassandra’s eyes narrowed.
“Samples of what? You already drew my blood.”
“I know, but I need more. Also I need samples of your hair, skin, breath condensate, perhaps a cheek swab for some epithelial cells—”
“No.”
The word cracked through the kitchen like a slap.
Sev stopped talking and looked at her in surprise.
“No?” he asked, frowning.
“No.”
Cassandra pulled back from Ravik—not far, because the Beast Kindred’s arms were still around her—but enough to look Severin directly in the eyes.
“No more samples tonight. No more needles. No more stripping, swabbing, sniffing, scrubbing, poking, prodding, or whatever else you have in mind. I know you’re trying to save your friend and I know you’re trying to cure the zombie virus and that’s all very noble and important, but I am a person—not a walking test tube in a slutty red nightgown and my eyes are up here, please. ”
Severin flinched internally, though he kept his face still. His eyes had wandered downward again and he forced them back to her face.
The curvy little human was right again, he realized—it was becoming a rather inconvenient habit on her part.
“You’re right,” he said stiffly, because a true male admitted his errors.
Her suspicious expression faltered.
“I am?” she asked.