Chapter 33 #2
“Like something I do not want to describe—especially not while standing in the kitchen after supper.”
Understanding flickered across his face.
“Pleasure?” he murmured. “Is that what you feel when we get too close? “Desire, maybe?”
She closed her eyes.
“I hate this conversation. It’s so freaking embarrassing.”
“Cassandra, you don’t have to be embarrassed. You just—”
“Yes, okay?” she snapped, opening her eyes again. “It’s pleasure and desire. When you touched me, the bite wound sent heat all through me, and when Ravik got close, it got worse…or better.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know anymore.”
Ravik made a distressed sound.
“Cassie is sick?” he asked, sounding worried.
“I don’t know,” she said, and the honesty in her own voice scared her more than the glowing wound. “I don’t know what I am.”
The room went quiet and for a moment, the only sound was the low hum of the bunker’s ventilation system and the faint clink of a bowl settling against another on the counter.
Cassie stared down at her arm, watching the glow pulse beneath her skin, and the terrible truth she had been avoiding all day finally rose up and looked her in the face…
She was infected.
Not like the Visskous and not like Ravik. She wasn’t going to start hungering for living flesh or losing her mind but she was infected just the same.
And the infection was getting worse.
She could ignore an ache between her thighs. She could ignore tight nipples and embarrassing fantasies and the urge to take three showers in one afternoon. She could even ignore the way both Kindred warriors seemed to know exactly what she was feeling every time she got too close to them.
But she couldn’t ignore this—her body was literally glowing.
“Oh God,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Oh God, what am I going to do?”
Ravik took one careful step toward her.
“Cassie?” he said, and there was so much worry in his deep voice that it nearly broke her.
Severin’s expression softened.
“We need to get you to the lab.”
Cassie gave a short laugh that sounded more like a sob.
“There it is. I knew the lab was coming.”
“I need to check your blood,” he said. “And the bite site. If the viral pathway is intensifying—”
“Don’t say ‘viral pathway’ to me right now, okay?” she interrupted. “I don’t need to hear that right now—I’m about an inch away from a full meltdown.”
Severin stopped immediately, holding up his hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture.
“All right, I won’t say it. Forgive me.”
But somehow his apology made her feel even worse. She had expected him to keep pushing—to explain, to lecture, to go full scientist on her until she either screamed or gave in. Instead, he simply stopped because she asked him to.
Damn him.
Damn both of them, really.
Why did they have to be so big and handsome and careful?
Why did they have to smell like exactly what her body wanted?
Why did Ravik have to look at her like she was precious, even now, with her arm glowing and her hormones—or the virus, or whatever the hell this was—turning her into some kind of alien medical disaster?
Why did Severin have to look at her like he was terrified and fascinated and determined to save her all at once?
Cassie pressed a hand to her forehead.
“I thought I could ignore it,” she said. “This…what’s happening inside me, I mean.”
Neither male spoke—they were both just looking at her, listening intently.
“I thought if I just…kept busy, it would go away,” Cassie went on.
“I cooked. I cleaned. I took three showers like some kind of overheated lunatic. I told myself it was perimenopause or stress or maybe just the fact that I haven’t had decent sex in years and suddenly I’m trapped with two Kindred warriors who seem to think I’m the hottest thing in the galaxy. ”
“You are,” Ravik said at once.
Cassie almost wanted to laugh, but she was afraid she might start crying instead.
“Not the point, big guy,” she told him.
“Still true,” he rumbled.
Severin’s mouth twitched, but only for a second.
“Cassandra,” he said gently, “what exactly have you been feeling?”
Cassie looked away.
Heat crawled up her throat and into her cheeks.
It was humiliating—there was no other word for it.
She was a grown woman—a mother, an ex-wife—a current wife if you counted Sskarth—though she didn’t, since he was a cheating asshole.
She had lived through divorce and alien marriage and perimenopause and being thrown out to die.
She ought to be able to say what was happening in her own body.
But saying it to these two males, with her nipples tight under the stupid red nighty and her thighs still trembling from the way the bite wound had pulsed, felt almost impossible.
“I feel…needy,” she said at last, hating how small the word sounded. It didn’t begin to describe the aching void that was growing inside her.
Ravik inhaled sharply and Severin’s gaze darkened, but his voice remained steady.
“In what way?”
Cassie glared at him.
“Don’t be a jerk—you know what way.”
He gave her a level look.
“I need you to say it.”
“Why? So you can write it down in your notes?” she snapped.
“No.” He shook his head. “Because if the virus is affecting your judgment, I need to know how strongly. And because I will not guess at what you want—especially if it’s what I think it is.”
His answer was infuriatingly honorable and Cassie found she couldn’t be mad at him anymore. She swallowed hard.
“I feel like I need to be touched,” she said, the words coming out stiffly. “Like I need…contact. Heat. Both of you close. And I keep thinking about…” She stopped and shook her head. “No. I can’t.”
“You can,” Severin said softly.
Ravik’s voice came from behind her, low and rough.
“Cassie safe with us.”
Her eyes stung unexpectedly.
She hated this—hated how much she wanted to believe him. Hated how badly she wanted to step back into Ravik’s arms and let Severin touch her from the front. Hated that part of her body was already leaning toward them, already aching for more.
She couldn’t be dependent on them—hadn’t her time with both Sskarth and Mitch taught her that men weren’t to be trusted? She needed to be self-sufficient and yet this damn virus was undermining her self-control and ruining her independence at every turn.
“I keep thinking about sex,” she whispered.
“Not just normal sex. I keep imagining both of you. In the bed…in the lab. Touching me…watching me. Filling me.” Her face flamed.
“And I know that’s too much information, but there it is.
It’s like my brain is stuck on a dirty loop and my body won’t calm down. ”
Ravik’s breathing deepened but this time he didn’t say anything.
Severin looked as though he was carved from ice, but Cassie could see the strain in him—the tight line of his jaw, the way his fangs had lengthened, and how one hand had curled into a fist at his side.
“Since when?” he asked.
“Since this morning. It got worse after…” She glanced at Ravik, then away. “After I swallowed his seed.”
Ravik made a low sound that was half growl, half groan.
Severin closed his eyes briefly.
“When you told me in the shower that your body felt strange, was it like this?”
Cassie frowned.
“Yes, but not as strong. It’s been building all day.
” She looked down at her arm again. The glow had faded slightly now that both males were keeping a careful distance, but the pulse was still there.
“And now my zombie bite is doing mood lighting, so I’m guessing we’ve moved past ordinary perimenopause symptoms.”
“That would be a reasonable assumption,” Severin said.
Cassie shot him a look.
“If you say anything about needing samples right now, I may throw a knife at you. We’re in the kitchen—I have lots at hand.”
“I do need samples,” he said carefully.
She stared at him.
“Severin…”
“But not because you’re some kind of specimen,” he added quickly. “Because you’re frightened and something is happening to you that I don’t understand yet. I need to understand it so I can help you.”
The anger drained out of her again, leaving only exhaustion and need and fear…which was arguably worse.
Because she could fight anger. She could make jokes around embarrassment. She could push back against coldness and cruelty and being treated like a defective inconvenience, the way Sskarth had treated her.
But the gentleness she felt from both of the big Kindred kept getting under her skin.
Cassie wrapped her arms around herself, partly to cover her breasts and partly because she felt suddenly vulnerable.
“What if you can’t help me?” she asked Severin. “What if I’m so infected by the virus that I just…burn up? I mean from fever or heat or need?”
Though could you die from sexual need? She was afraid she might find out if this kept up.
The questions hung between them.
Ravik growled softly, but this time it sounded less like desire and more like worry.
“Sev helps,” he said. “Sev always helps. He helped me—he can help Cassie.”
Severin looked at him for a moment, and something moved through his eyes—pain, gratitude, fear. Then he looked back at Cassie.
“I will find a way to help you, sweetheart,” he said softly. “I swear by the Goddess I will.”
“You sound very sure,” of yourself, she said. She was trying to for a light tone but her voice came out sounding desperate instead.
“I am not sure.” His voice was quiet. “But I am determined.”
Cassie laughed weakly.
“Well, that’s something, I guess.”
He spread his hands.
“It is all I can offer right now.”
It was more than Sskarth had ever offered.
The thought came out of nowhere and Cassie felt it in her bones.
Sskarth would have looked at her glowing bite wound with revulsion and called it instability.
Mitch would have accused her of being dramatic.
But Severin looked at her like a problem he would break himself trying to solve, and Ravik looked at her like a mate he would tear the universe apart to protect.
And still, under all the fear and tenderness, her body kept pulsing.
Need…Need…Need.
Cassie shut her eyes for a second. It was like a neon sign flashing in her brain and lighting up her whole body with desire.
She couldn’t keep pretending everything was okay—not when her arm was glowing…not when Severin’s expression had gone grave, and Ravik was watching her with worried golden eyes and breathing like it hurt him not to come closer and hold her.
Cassie had to admit it—she was tired of being brave all by herself.
“All right,” she said, opening her eyes again.
Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to keep going.
“I need help. I don’t know what kind of help exactly.
I don’t know if I need medicine or another cold shower or to be locked in a room until my body stops acting like it belongs in one of my spiciest why-choose romance novels.
But something is wrong with me and I can’t ignore it anymore. ”
Severin took one careful step toward her.
“Then we will help you,” he said.
Ravik nodded, his eyes fixed on her face.
“Cassie says what she needs,” he rumbled. “We listen.”
Her throat tightened. Their words shouldn’t make her want to cry…
or maybe they should have. Maybe after years of men not listening, of being dismissed and used and tossed away when she became inconvenient, the idea of two enormous Kindred warriors waiting for her to tell them what she needed was enough to crack something open inside her.
The bite wound pulsed again, warm and bright beneath her skin and Cassie drew in a shaky breath.
“Then take me to the lab,” she said. “And Severin?”
“Yes?”
She lifted her chin, trying to sound braver than she felt.
“If you need samples, take them. If this is the virus, I want to know what it’s doing to me.”
His pale blue eyes held hers.
“I’ll do my best to find out for you.”
“I know you will,” she whispered.
When Severin held out his hand and she took it without hesitation. And when Ravik moved closer on her other side, she didn’t pull away. She let them flank her—one warm and massive and the other cool and controlled—as they led her down the narrow hallway toward the lab.
Her body was still aching, her arm was still glowing, and the need was still there, pulsing in her blood like a second heartbeat.
But at least for the first time all day, she wasn’t trying to face it alone.