Chapter 13 #3
“Yes.” Sev took a slow breath, forcing the clinical urgency back where it belonged…behind discipline…behind restraint. “Forgive me. I am not used to miracles arriving in red silk,” he told her. “I didn’t know it before but I believe you are the reason that Ravik is getting better.”
Cassandra’s eyes opened wide in surprise.
“You think that? Really?”
“Yes.” He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair.
“I was looking at my samples in the lab just now and the antiviral I gave to Ravik isn’t working at all—it does hardly anything to stop the spread of the Hunger Virus.
So logically, it must be you—most like your scent—that is bringing Ravik back from the brink. ”
For one long moment she just stared at him. Then she looked down at herself—at the wet nightgown clinging to her full breasts and hips— and made a helpless little gesture.
“Well, this miracle would like a robe. Or a blanket. Or maybe a flamethrower to keep away naked Beast Kindred and overly enthusiastic scientists.”
Ravik growled softly.
“No flamethrower near Mate. That would burn Mate—bad!” he exclaimed.
“I wasn’t going to use it on myself,” Cassandra muttered.
Sev found, to his own surprise, that he wanted to smile—he didn’t, but the desire was definitely there. The situation really was ridiculous—the two of them had been naked and wet for quite long enough.
“I’ll get you a blanket,” he said. “And some clothes for Ravik.”
“While you’re gone, is he going to keep holding me?
” Cassandra asked. Her dropped her voice slightly.
“He’s, er, getting hard,” she murmured and nodded down to where the big Beast Kindred’s pelvis was pressed against her belly.
No doubt his cock was rubbing against the soft silk of her nightgown and causing a reaction, Sev thought, feeling embarrassed for his friend.
Ravik’s arms tightened slightly around her.
“Ravik keeps Mate warm,” he rumbled.
“Yes, I gathered that.” She looked up at him. “But maybe Ravik could keep Mate warm without squeezing Mate quite so tightly?”
At once, Ravik loosened his hold.
“Sorry,” he rumbled, looking abashed.
The word was low and rough and painfully familiar. Ravik used to apologize like that after battle injuries when Sev had to stitch him up—as though being wounded and bleeding all over the place was somehow an inconvenience to everyone else.
Sev’s throat tightened—he had thought he might never hear that version of his friend again.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he said, because his voice was not entirely steady and he refused to let either of them hear it.
He went quickly to the supply room and pulled down a thick thermal blanket from one of the shelves, then grabbed the loose black trousers Ravik always slept in. But as he worked, his mind was racing—darting from hypothesis to hypothesis like a starved creature in search of food.
Cassandra’s scent restored cognitive function.
Cassandra’s blood carried the virus but did not allow replication.
Ravik, a Beast Kindred, responded to scent above almost any other stimulus.
The Hunger Virus attacked bonding pathways.
Was Cassandra’s scent activating Ravik’s mating instincts strongly enough to override the viral command structure?
Was the word “mate” simply Ravik’s infected brain assigning meaning to the stimulus that stabilized him?
Or was there a deeper biological recognition occurring—a true mate-response distorted by infection?
And why in the Seven Hells did Severin’s own fangs ache every time he got too close to her?
He did not like that question, so he chose to ignore it. He would think more about the problem later, he promised himself. In the meantime, he needed to defuse the situation in the Food Prep area.
When he returned to the kitchen, Ravik was still holding Cassandra, though he had turned slightly so his massive body blocked any possible threat from the doorway.
Cassandra had given up struggling and was standing in the circle of his arms with an expression of long-suffering resignation on her face.
“Good news,” she said as Sev entered. “No one has been bitten, mauled, ravished, or turned into a zombie while you were gone.”
“I’m relieved,” Sev said dryly. He had to admit, her sense of humor was growing on him.
“You should be—around here, that counts as a productive five minutes,” she snapped, but there was no anger in her voice.
Sev handed her the blanket first and was pleased when Ravik allowed her to step back just enough to wrap it around herself, though he watched the process with intense concern, as though she might vanish if he blinked.
Then Severin handed him the sleep trousers.
“Put them on,” he ordered. His friend needed to cover up—maybe it was because he’d been pressed against the curvy little human, but his shaft was standing at attention in a painfully obvious way.
Ravik glanced at Cassandra as though looking for confirmation.
She pointed at the trousers firmly.
“Pants. Now.”
Ravik took them.
“Yes, Mate,” he rumbled obediently and Sev watched in disbelief as his enormous, half-infected, frequently stubborn Beast Kindred partner obeyed her instantly.
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.