Chapter 24 #2
Some volatile compound in her skin oils?
Some endocrine marker carried in her sweat?
Human pheromones altered by stress, arousal, age, and the hormonal flux she kept mentioning?
Could her perimenopausal state be creating a biochemical instability the virus couldn’t adapt to?
Could that instability be disrupting the neural lock the Hunger Virus had on Ravik’s Beast-brain?
No—not disrupting, he thought—interrupting. Like static on a signal.
The virus was broadcasting “hunger” and Cassandra’s body was broadcasting “mate.”
And in Ravik, mate was winning…for now.
But why didn’t it last?
Severin flexed his burned hand without thinking and immediately regretted it. Pain shot through his palm and up his wrist, pulling a low hiss from between his teeth.
Cassandra glanced over her shoulder at him.
“Don’t make me come over there,” she warned. “I told you I was going to treat you too in just a minute.”
“I’m fine,” Severin said shortly.
She gave him a stern look.
“You are not fine. Your hand is blistering.”
He shrugged.
“It can wait.”
She arched an eyebrow at him.
“You know, for a scientist, you’re not very smart about burns.”
Despite everything, Severin felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards.
“I bow to your superior expertise, my lady,” he said, inclining his head.
Cassandra lifted her chin.
“You should—I know what I’m doing.”
Then Ravik made a low sound and shifted in the chair, drawing Cassandra’s attention back to him at once. The sound was not quite a whimper, but close enough that it made Severin’s chest ache.
“All right now, let’s take a look at you,” Cassandra murmured, looking over the big Beast Kindred’s naked, muscular body. “Hmm, those fikka beetles really did a number on you, big guy.”
Severin watched as she bent toward him, her red nightgown riding up the backs of her thighs to show her luscious full ass. He looked away at once, then looked back because Ravik was the patient and Cassandra was the one treating him and he needed to observe.
That was all, he told himself—just observation.
The same kind of observation that had made him watch every breath she took last night. The same kind of observation that had made his fangs ache when she looked up at him with flushed cheeks and allowed him to suck her nipples while Ravik filled her with his fingers.
Severin pinched the bridge of his nose with his unhurt hand.
Goddess save him—he was a disgrace.
But he didn’t stop watching.
The burns scattered across Ravik’s chest and thighs were minor but numerous.
The fikka beetles had apparently retained enough internal moisture to build steam under their shells until they burst, turning themselves into tiny edible projectiles.
Or inedible projectiles, considering the state of the Food Prep area and the look Cassandra had given the beetle she’d picked up off the floor.
Most of the marks were superficial—first degree, perhaps shallow second in a few places.
Ravik’s Kindred healing would take care of them quickly.
The burn on Severin’s own palm was worse than most of them, though he had no intention of mentioning that until Cassandra forced the issue, which she almost certainly would later.
The injury to Ravik’s shaft was another matter—Severin didn’t like the way his friend was guarding himself. A burn to the glans or shaft could be agonizing even for a Kindred male, and if Ravik was too disoriented to understand treatment, he might resist any attempt to apply medication.
Which, of course, is what he immediately did.
Cassandra dabbed a bit of the cooling burn salve on one finger and reached toward a red mark on Ravik’s chest but the Beast Kindred jerked back as though she had come at him with a blade.
“No!” His golden eyes went wide as she tried again. “No—hurts! Stings!”
“No it doesn’t—I promise it doesn’t!” Cassandra said quickly. “Look—see? I’ll put some on myself.”
She rubbed the ointment onto the back of her hand and showed him, but Ravik only shook his head, breathing harder.
“No, no!” he rumbled, his eyes wide with fright. “No like it! No want it! Stings!”
Severin’s throat went tight as he watched.
Ravik had endured plasma burns, broken bones, poison darts, shrapnel wounds, surgical extractions without anesthetic, and once, on Varron Minor, a bite from a venomous underground eel that had caused muscle spasms for two full days.
He had never feared pain. He had cursed it, fought through it, mocked it, and sometimes laughed at it.
But the Hunger Virus had stripped away his mind and memories. Ravik wasn’t remembering that treatment helped. He wasn’t remembering that pain could be temporary or necessary. He only knew something hurt and someone was trying to put something on him that might hurt more.
The sight made Severin want to put his fist through the wall…instead, he stood still and let Cassandra handle it.
Because Cassandra was the one Ravik trusted right now—not him.
That truth cut deeper than the burn on his palm.
Severin had saved Ravik’s life more than once.
He had entered quarantine rooms, battlefield triage units, and contaminated ruins for his best friend.
He had synthesized anti-toxins from nothing but corrupted tissue samples and prayer.
He had spent the last three months refusing to abandon the Beast Kindred when every rational protocol said he should have sealed the bunker door and let the Dead Zone take him.
And yet Ravik looked at Cassandra for safety.
Not because he loved Severin less, though—because something in her body called to him—soothed him and fought back the virus.
But what was it? Severin was itching to run experiments but of course he couldn’t—not yet.
Cassandra turned suddenly and looked at him. He realized belatedly that she had caught him staring with what must have been a grim expression on his face.
“Hey—I need your help for a minute,” she said sharply.
“Hmm? Oh, sorry.” Severin came back from his thoughts to pay attenion. “You need my help? Because I don’t think I’m strong enough to hold Ravik down while you treat him,” he said. “I’ll try, of course, but—”
“No, that would only make him more upset,” Cassandra said impatiently. “What I need is your knowledge—is this stuff safe to ingest?” She waved the tube of burn ointment at him.
Severin frowned.
“Are you saying you want to eat some of that? Why?”
“No, I don’t want to eat it—I just want to make sure it won’t poison me if I get some in my mouth. Don’t ask why—just answer the question,” she added, because he could feel his brows drawing together and knew he must look like he wanted to ask several questions.
Which he did—many questions.
Questions such as—Why would burn salve be in your mouth? What exactly are you planning to do to my half-infected best friend? And why does the thought of you doing almost anything with your mouth make it nearly impossible for me to think straight?
Severin pushed the thoughts aside and held out his unburned hand.
“All right, let me see the tube.”
She gave it to him and he scanned the ingredients briefly, then nodded and handed it back.
“It should be fine. There’s nothing that would be poisonous to a human in the ointment. It’s mostly a cooling mineral gel suspended in sterile oil, with a low-grade dermal regenerator and a topical analgesic. It might numb your lips slightly, but it shouldn’t harm you.”
“Good, thank you.” Cassandra nodded and took the tube back from him.
Then she squeezed out a small amount and—keeping her back to Ravik—smeared some on her lips. When she turned back towards the Beast Kindred, they were shiny with the ointment.
“Okay, big guy,” she said softly. “I won’t try to put the ointment on with my fingers. But what if I kiss it better?” She pointed to one of the red burn marks on his broad shoulder. “Hmm? Would that be okay? Can you let your mate kiss you?”
Severin’s mind went blank.
Not completely blank, though. Somewhere in the distance, the scientist part of him observed that she had found an elegant solution to the problem.
Ravik refused the ointment from her fingers, but he might accept the same medication if it was delivered through affectionate contact.
Cassandra had already demonstrated that her scent, taste, and touch improved Ravik’s cognitive function.
Adding a soothing, nonthreatening gesture might both calm him and treat the injuries.
It was excellent thinking—brilliant, really.
Unfortunately, the male part of Severin’s brain had noticed only that Cassandra’s lips were slick and shining and that she intended to put them on Ravik’s body.
His fangs sharpened uncontrollably and his shaft got hard so fast it made him dizzy.
He clenched his uninjured hand into a fist and forced himself to remain still.
Ravik needed this—Cassandra was helping him.
And Severin had no right—absolutely no right—to feel anything except gratitude.
He definitely should not be feeling lust at the idea of watching the gorgeous, curvy Mature Elite put her mouth on his best friend.
For his part, Ravik looked confused at first, but when Cassandra pursed her lips, Severin saw the light of comprehension dawning in his golden eyes.
“Mate…kiss…better?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, exactly. Mate kiss better.” Cassandra nodded. “Can you hold still and let me?”
After a long moment, Ravik nodded.
“All right.”
“Good.” Cassandra nodded in apparent relief.
She leaned down—though she didn’t have to lean very far at all, since even with him sitting and her standing she was barely taller than him—and pressed her lips to the red burn mark on his shoulder.
Severin stopped breathing.
It was just a kiss, he told himself—just a healing kiss, absurd as that sounded. A practical method of applying salve to a patient who was too frightened and regressed to accept treatment any other way.