Chapter 52
RAVIK
Ravik stalked away from the clear barrier before he said something he couldn’t take back.
Not that he hadn’t already said plenty—too much, probably.
More than enough to put that wounded look in Cassie’s eyes and that stunned, hollow expression on Sev’s face.
But if he stayed there another second—if he kept looking at Cassandra with tears on her cheeks and Sev sitting beside him like a male who had just taken a blade to the chest and was pretending it didn’t hurt— Ravik knew he was going to break.
So he left…or tried to, anyway because there wasn’t anywhere to go.
That was the problem with quarantine. The room on his side of the barrier was large enough to move around in, but not large enough to escape anything that mattered. It had a sleeping platform, a fresher, a small sitting area, and a nutrition dispenser stocked with plenty of food cubes.
On the other side of the transparent wall, Cassandra had almost the same setup, except she had no Sev and no Ravik—no one to hold her when the need got bad.
That thought made his chest ache so he pushed it away.
No. He wasn’t thinking about that.
Ravik paced instead, because pacing was better than punching the wall and getting sedated by the medical team.
He could feel the security sensors following him as he moved.
Probably monitoring heart rate, adrenaline, aggression levels, viral markers, and whatever else Commander Sylvan and his people were tracking.
Fine—let them watch. Let them see he was in his right mind now.
Physically, anyway.
His body was cured—the milky fog was gone from his vision. His thoughts were his own again—sharp and clear and ugly. That was the problem.
When he was half-lost to the Hunger Virus, everything had been simpler.
Cassie was his mate. Sev was his best friend.
Cassie needed both and Sev belonged close.
There had been no shame in it then—no old rules dragging chains of shame through his head—no voice from his childhood growling that Beast Kindred did not share mates.
Now the voice was back…and so were the memories.
Ravik stopped pacing and gripped the edge of the small metal table bolted to the floor.
His knuckles went white as he gripped it.
He could still hear Cassie’s voice cracking when she asked if he would do this for her.
Could still see her crying behind the barrier, one small hand pressed to her heart as she told him the need was tearing her apart.
He had agreed because of her, he told himself—that was all. Because he couldn’t stand to see her crying and know he was the cause of her pain.
He was going to Cherubin Three because Cassie needed him and because some doctor with a ridiculous name had decided her body could make a vaccine in her breasts if she got enough of his seed and Sev’s too.
He was going because she was his mate in the only way that mattered, even if they had not Bonded.
He was going because she was suffering and he would rather cut off his own fucking arm than stand there and do nothing while she sobbed on the other side of that fucking glass wall.
He was not going because of Sev.
He was not going because Severin had looked at him with those pale blue eyes and said he cared for him more than anyone else in the universe, except maybe Cassandra.
He was not going because those words had touched something deep inside him and nearly knocked the breath from his chest.
“Fuck,” Ravik muttered, shoving away from the table. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”
He strode to the far side of the room and back again. His body wanted action—a fight—a target. Something he could hit until it stopped moving. Instead, all he had was silence and too much time to think.
He had told them they would go their separate ways afterward.
Good—that was the only way. They would go to Cherubin Three, make the vaccine, save whoever needed saving, and then be done.
Cassie could be cured and Sev could go back to his lab. Ravik could return to Single Male barracks or take a long-range assignment so far from the Mother Ship that he wouldn’t have to see or smell either one of them ever again.
That was the plan.
It sounded like death.
Ravik rubbed both hands over his face and cursed under his breath.
No, it sounded like sanity, he assured himself.
It sounded like honor. It sounded like the only way to stop this thing before it got worse—more twisted.
Because if he stayed—if he let himself keep touching and pleasuring Cassie while Sev touched her too—then sooner or later he was going to want more than the cure demanded.
Hell, he already did—that was the real problem.
He could tell himself he was angry because Sev had bitten him.
That was true enough. He could tell himself he was furious because Sev’s essence had made him come like a helpless male in front of Cassie.
Also true. He could tell himself that the whole thing made him feel violated, exposed, and used in a way no Beast Kindred male should ever be used.
It was all true.
But underneath all that was something worse…he had liked some of it.
Not the fear. Not the infection. Not waking up with his memories in pieces and finding out he had been half-feral for months.
But the rest? Cassie in his arms…Cassie opening for them both…
Sev’s voice guiding him…Sev’s hands on Cassie’s body while Ravik watched…
Cassie’s mouth around both of them, her hands pressing their shafts together…
Fuck yes—he’d liked that. All of it.
His cock stirred again, traitorous and hard.
Ravik snarled and turned away from the memories, trying to shove them down, shove them away.
“Stop it,” he growled at himself. “Fucking forget it, why can’t you?”
His body didn’t listen—it remembered.
It remembered Cassie’s soft mouth and hot tongue, but it also remembered the slide of Sev’s shaft against his own.
The shock of it…the wrongness…the heat. The way his body had tightened, not in disgust but in pleasure.
The way Sev had made a low, broken sound when Cassie took them both, and how that sound had gone straight through Ravik like a blade made of fire.
It wasn’t the first time they’d shared.
The thought came before he could stop it, and with it came the old memory he had spent years burying under ale, shame, and silence…
The Tenebrian woman’s name had been Lirana.
Or maybe Liranna. Something soft with too many vowels, spoken in a purring voice that made a male think about silk sheets and dark rooms and the way a skilled tongue could feel sliding over bare skin.
Ravik had been drunk on Goldsheill ale that night—too drunk, if he was honest, though not so drunk he couldn’t remember what happened—every single, searing detail.
They had been on shore leave after the Karridian campaign, and the entire lower pleasure district had been glowing with blue lamps and music that thrummed through the bones like a second, more primal pulse.
Tenebrian women were famous for their dark violet skin, silver eyes, and clever hands, and Lirana had seemed delighted to find two Kindred warriors looking for distraction after months of blood and dust and battlefield stink.
“Both of you?” she had purred, looking from Ravik to Severin with open, hungry appreciation, her gaze lingering on the breadth of Ravik’s shoulders and the lean, dangerous lines of Severin’s form. “How fortunate I am.”
Ravik had laughed, the sound rough in his throat, and told her he and Sev weren’t Twin Kindred.
Beast and Blood didn’t share that way. But the ale had been a warm, molten weight in his blood and Lirana’s hands were already on his chest, her thumbs circling his nipples through the thin fabric of his shirt, while her silver eyes slid to Severin in an unmistakable invitation.
“Then don’t share,” she had said, her voice dropping to a husky whisper. “Simply enjoy me at the same time.”
It had sounded reasonable then—maybe because Ravik was drunk and hungry and tired of being alone—his body a live wire of pent-up need.
Severin had been quieter, as always, but he hadn’t left.
That was the part Ravik remembered too clearly.
Sev had stayed—pale and elegant in the blue lamplight—his eyes sharp and unreadable as Lirana led them both behind a curtain into a private room full of low cushions and warm, scented air, thick with musk and desire.
At first it had been about her. That was what Ravik had told himself afterward.
It had been Lirana between them…Lirana’s hot, wet mouth sliding down his shaft while her clever fingers worked him to a throbbing hardness…
Lirana’s hands pulling Severin down to the cushions beside her while Ravik kissed the side of her throat, tasting salt and perfume.
She had laughed and touched them both, guiding their hands to her bare breasts…her narrow waist…the slick heat between her thighs, pulling them closer as though there was nothing strange about having one male on either side of her, their bodies forming a cage of heat and muscle around her.
Then Severin’s hand had brushed Ravik’s hip.
It had been an accident—Ravik had told himself that for years.
They were both crowded close to Lirana on the cushions, both trying to reach her, both half-drunk on ale and sex and the hot, sweet scent of her arousal hanging in the air.
Of course Sev’s hand brushed him. Of course his long, elegant fingers had slid over the bare skin of Ravik’s hip, just above the line of his trousers, and held there for a moment when Lirana tugged them both nearer, her back arching.
But the touch hadn’t felt like an accident.
Sev’s hand had been warm and sure, his fingers pressing into the hard muscle above Ravik’s thigh with deliberate pressure.