Chapter 47
RAVIK
Ravik stared at the herd of Infected coming across the broken ground and tried to make his mind work like it used to.
Count the enemy. Look for weapons. Look for cover. Look for high ground. Protect the female. Protect Sev, even if Sev was a lying bastard who had just bitten him and pumped his essence into Ravik’s bloodstream like Ravik was his fucking mate.
The thought made his jaw clench so hard his teeth ground together.
No. Not now, he told himself.
Now was not the time to think about that. Now was not the time to think about the way his body had arched and bucked under Sev’s bite, or the way pleasure had ripped through him so hard he’d come in his trousers like some untried youngling with no control over his own fucking shaft.
Now was also not the time to think about the fact that Sev’s essence was still in him—moving through his blood, warm and strange and not entirely unpleasant.
Fuck!
He hated that part most of all.
The cure had worked—he could feel it. The fog was gone now, burned away by whatever Sev had injected into him through those sharp Blood Kindred fangs of his.
His mind was clear for the first time in what felt like forever, and that should have been a reason to thank the Goddess and maybe even thank Sev.
Instead, all he could feel was rage and shame and a sick twist of humiliation.
Because his memories were coming back…gods, the memories. They were coming back in pieces—bright and sharp and completely fucking unwanted.
Cassie lying naked between him and Sev in that huge Visskous mating bed, her skin flushed and her thighs spread while Ravik’s mouth was on her…Sev’s arms around her and Sev’s long fingers on her breasts…Sev’s voice low and commanding as he told Ravik where to touch and how to pleasure her.
Ravik’s grip tightened around the shock blade.
The worst thing was, he had listened—listened and obeyed.
That was the part that made heat crawl up his neck—that he had listened to Sev.
Not because he had been forced and not because the Hunger had made him mindless.
He remembered enough to know that wasn’t true.
No, he had listened because Cassie needed them both and because some deep, shameful part of him had liked Sev telling him what to do and how to make her come.
Another memory pushed up through the back of his mind and nearly made him stumble.
Cassie on her knees, her mouth swollen and wet, her hands wrapped around both their shafts. She had pressed him and Sev together—pressed their cocks side by side and licked across both of them like they belonged that way.
Ravik remembered the heat of his own shaft rubbing against Sev’s…remembered the sounds Sev made when Cassie took them into her mouth together…remembered how his own body had not recoiled.
You didn’t recoil because you fucking liked it, whispered a taunting little voice in his head. You liked the way it felt to rub against him while Cassie licked you both. Hell, you fucking loved it.
But even worse than the shameful memory was the fact that his body was reacting to it even now. His cock stirred in his stained trousers, and Ravik nearly snarled aloud.
There were hundreds of Infected coming toward them, Cassie had just been hurt because he and Sev were both fucking idiots, and they were all probably going to die.
And yet his shaft was hardening because his traitorous mind had decided to remember the way Cassie had sucked him and Sev at the same time.
Fuck. Something was definitely wrong with him.
Maybe the cure hadn’t worked after all, he thought desperately.
Maybe the Hunger was still in him—twisting him into some kind of perverse version of himself.
Because Beast Kindred didn’t share mates.
Beast Kindred didn’t rub themselves against their best friend and like it.
And as a Beast Kindred he shouldn’t have the memory of Sev’s hands and Cassie’s mouth and feel shame because it made him want more.
He could fight the Infected, Ravik told himself. He could fight Sev. He could fight the whole fucking planet if he had to. What he didn’t know how to fight was the memory of wanting them both.
“There’s nowhere to run,” Sev said, breaking into his thoughts.
Ravik forced his mind back to the battlefield.
Sev stood a few feet away, blood still drying at the corner of his mouth, his broken oculars gone, his pale blue eyes narrowed against the distance.
Without the lenses, he looked strange. Younger, maybe—more exposed.
Ravik didn’t like seeing him that way—which pissed him off because he was still furious with the male.
Cassie was standing between them with one hand pressed to the side of her head where she’d been clipped by the punch meant for Sev. Her face was pale, but her chin was lifted and she had that charge baton in a death grip like she was ready to take on the entire herd herself if she had to.
Guilt punched through Ravik harder than Sev’s fist had.
He had hurt her.
Not on purpose—never on purpose. But she had gotten between them because he had lost control, and now she was hurt and dizzy and still trying to stand upright because she was too stubborn to admit she needed help.
Ravik wanted to pick her up and carry her somewhere safe but there was nowhere safe to go. But they sure as hell couldn’t just stand here.
“We have to go up,” he said, looking at the communications tower.
The tower rose above them in a tangle of black metal and cracked crystalline supports, its upper platform half-hidden in mist. It looked old and damaged, but it was still standing.
A ladder ran up one side, and above that was a maintenance platform with a broken shield screen and a relay dish angled toward the bruised sky.
Sev followed his gaze.
“The tower structure may not hold all three of us,” he objected. “And the ladder doesn’t look very strong, which is why we were originally going to send Cassandra up to send the signal.”
“It’ll hold,” Ravik growled.
“You don’t know that,” Sev said, frowning.
“I know the ground is about to be crawling with Infected if we let that herd reach us,” Ravik snapped. “Unless you have another miracle cure hidden in your trousers, we climb.”
Cassie made a choked sound that might have been a laugh, which was insane considering the circumstances. Ravik’s gaze cut to her and his heart fisted in his chest. She was trying to smile, but the effort made her wince.
That’s your fault, an accusing little voice whispered in his head.
Ravik pushed it away.
“Can you climb?” he asked her, hating how rough his voice sounded.
“I can climb,” she said at once.
“But you’re dizzy.”
“I’m less dizzy than I was.”
“That’s not good enough when you’re climbing up the side of a fucking tower,” Ravik growled, frowning.
Her mouth tightened.
“Don’t start with me, big guy. I am not in the mood. I can climb just fine and that’s that.”
The fact that she was still giving him attitude should have reassured him and it did—a little. But she was also swaying slightly, and Ravik didn’t like that one fucking bit.
Sev noticed too, of course.
“I’ll climb first and secure the platform,” he said. “Cassandra goes after me. Ravik, you follow her and keep anything from coming up behind us.”
Ravik wanted to argue. He wanted to say that he should go first with Cassie over his shoulder because he was the strongest and because his place was between Cassie and danger.
But the truth was, Sev needed to reach the relay panel.
He had the tech knowledge and the signal data he’d already sent in that long pulse to the Mother Ship that morning.
If anyone could get the tower broadcasting again, it was Sev.
Which meant Ravik had to trust him. That had never been a problem in the past…but that was before he knew his best friend was sharing a mate with him and letting the two of them do…other things together while Ravik was out of his mind.
Still, he didn’t have much choice.
“Fine,” he said at last. “But if that ladder shifts, I’m grabbing her.”
“Please do,” Cassie said. “I’m not proud—I’d rather be grabbed than fall.”
Sev glanced at her.
“Are you certain you can climb?”
“No,” she said. “But I’m going to anyway, because the zombie parade is getting closer and I really don’t want to be the featured snack.”
Ravik looked toward the herd again. They were closer and moving a hell of a lot faster than he liked.
The Infected didn’t run like sane beings.
They lurched and crawled and sprinted in uneven bursts—some on two legs, some on all fours, and some dragging broken limbs while still somehow keeping pace.
Their white eyes gleamed through the mist and their lipless mouths hung open, clicking and hissing as they scented the air.
They were coming straight for Cassie, he thought—or maybe for all of them.
Ravik could smell blood—his own, Sev’s, and Cassie’s faint sweetness under the fear.
He could also smell something else in the air now—something sharp and golden coming from Sev.
The cure, maybe. It was in Sev’s blood and essence, and it had changed his scent enough that Ravik couldn’t stop noticing it.
He fucking hated noticing it but what he hated even worse was that some part of him wanted to move closer and breathe it in.
“Move,” he ordered, pushing the intrusive thoughts out of his head.
Sev went first, reaching the base of the ladder in a quick crouching run.
He tested the first rungs, then climbed with the efficient speed of someone who had spent too many years escaping bad situations—which they both had.
Ravik watched him go, noting the slight stiffness in his shoulders and the way he favored one side where Ravik had hit him.
More guilt twisted in his gut and he shoved it down.
No time for that.