Chapter 62
RAVIK
Ravik did not like Cherubin Three food.
It wasn’t that it tasted bad, exactly—some of it was fine.
One of the dishes looked like a stack of little golden cakes and tasted faintly of cinnamon, butter, and something smoky that might have been meat if he didn’t think about it too hard.
Another was a thick purple mash that Cassie declared “alien mashed potatoes with delusions of grandeur,” which made the corners of Sev’s mouth twitch.
But most of the food wasn’t just to curb hunger—it all had a purpose—that was the problem.
Everything on the low table in their guest suite seemed to have been chosen by Dr. Verityx for some damn medical reason or other.
There were stamina cakes, protein-rich grains, mineral nectar for Cassie, and a warm amber tonic that Lipshill had explained would improve “seminal output” in Kindred males.
Ravik had almost thrown his cup across the room when he heard that.
He had not done it because Cassie had been watching him with a little frown that seemed to say, “behave!” and because Sev had lifted his own cup and drunk the tonic without complaint.
Of course Sev had—the male would probably drink poison if some medical chart suggested it might help Cassie. In fact, he had basically done exactly that when he injected himself with the cure back in the bunker.
As if you wouldn’t do the same in a heartbeat, whispered a little voice in his head. Look at what you’re already doing—sharing her in bed with Sev, mixing your seed with his in her pussy, letting him touch you both last night when he put your cock in her pussy…
Ravik didn’t want to think about any of that.
He didn’t want to think about the bite either, or the way Sev’s fangs had felt in his throat. He especially didn’t want to think about the way the cure had rushed into him with a blast of pleasure so sharp and deep that his body had lost control right there in the grass with Cassandra watching.
So instead, he ate the strange golden cakes and drank the drink and pretended he didn’t notice the silence between himself and Sev stretching across the suite like a suffocating blanket that kept them both from breathing.
Cassandra sat curled in the center of the huge nest-bed, wrapped in the red silk robe and nibbling at some pale green fruit that smelled sweet and floral.
She looked better than she had when Sev carried her back from the lab, but she was clearly tired.
Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was mussed, and her breasts were visibly fuller under the robe, which made Ravik’s hands curl into fists around his plate.
Not because he was angry with her—gods, no.
Because he wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her, to ease the ache in her body, to put his mouth on her breasts again and drink down the nectar that had flowed when he and Sev had sucked her together.
He wanted to gather her close and tell her she had been brave on that strange table with that weird little living stim-thing inside her and all those feathered lab assistants pretending not to pay attention while she came in front of everyone.
He wanted to tell her she was beautiful…ee wanted to tell her she was his.
But she wasn’t just his, was she?
The thought twisted in his gut.
Sev was sitting on the other side of the bed, close to Cassandra but not touching Ravik.
His broken oculars had been replaced with a thin temporary visor that made his pale blue eyes look sharper and more distant than usual.
He was eating with that distracted expression he got when his mind was somewhere else, probably in Dr. Verityx’s lab, worrying over viral markers and nectar stability and whatever-the-hell else was involved in making the vaccine.
Or maybe he was thinking about the things the three of them had done together…maybe he was remembering sharing Cassie between them the way Ravik was, even though he was trying not to…
Cassoe glanced from one to the other and sighed.
“You know,” she said, pointing a piece of green fruit at both of them, “This food is weird enough without the two of you adding a side dish of awkward male silence to it.”
Sev’s mouth twitched.
Ravik only grunted.
Which made her raise an eyebrow at him.
“Excellent conversation, Ravik. Very emotionally revealing.”
“I’m eating,” he growled.
“You’re brooding,” she accused.
“I can do both.”
“Yes, I’m noticing.” Her voice was dry but her eyes were worried.
Sev looked down at his plate, but Ravik could see he was trying not to smile at the exchange.
That annoyed him—it also made something inside his chest loosen for half a second, because for all the anger and shame between them, they still knew how Cassie sounded when she was trying to make a strange situation bearable.
She had done it on Visslick Prime in the bunker and she was doing it now.
She was an amazing, beautiful woman—a Mature Elite—the kind of female he’d never dreamed he could ever have a chance with.
She was also hurting. Ravik could smell it under the strange foods and the flowery mineral drink. It wasn’t physical pain he smelled exactly—though he knew her breasts still ached. It was the need again. There was a warm, sweet restlessness in her scent that made his shaft hard all over again.
Ravik wanted to help her but he was terrified of what helping would require. He and Severin had already gone so far down the path of damnation—it felt like one more step would ruin him forever.
The door chimed before he could continue that line of thought, which was probably for the best.
Cassandra looked toward the door panel and Sev set down his cup at once.
“Enter,” he called.
The door slid open and Dr. Verityx stepped inside, still wearing his green lab coat and looking entirely too cheerful for a male who was probably about to ruin all their lives.
His golden eyes were bright, his feathers were sleek, and he had a data tablet tucked under one feathered arm. Behind him, Lipshill hovered briefly in the corridor before chirping something about “additional nourishment being available upon request” and disappearing again.
“Ah, excellent, excellent,” Dr. Verityx said, looking at the dishes on the table. “You are eating. This is good. Very good. Nutritional support is essential during high-output nectar production and repeated seminal contribution.”
Cassandra closed her eyes.
“Doctor, I am begging you not to say ‘seminal contribution’ while I’m eating,
she said dryly.
“My apologies.” Dr. Verityx blinked at her. “Would reproductive donation be preferable?”
“No.”
“Cream production?”
“Also no.”
“Then I shall simply say contribution,” the owl-doctor said.
“Thank you.” Cassie sighed. “I guess I’ll take it.”
Ravik’s mouth twitched despite himself.
Then Dr. Verityx’s feathers shifted, and his expression became more serious.
“I have preliminary results from the nectar collected this morning. They are extremely promising, but alas, the nectar is not yet sufficient for full vaccine development.”
The humor in the room vanished abruptly.
Cassandra set down her fruit.
“Not sufficient? If you knew what the three of us did together—” She broke off abruptly, her cheeks going pink.
“Not yet,” the doctor said quickly. “But please do not be discouraged. The sample is extraordinary. It neutralized multiple Hunger Virus cultures, including the Ravik-adapted strain and two Visskous variants. It also showed early immune-training behavior, which is precisely what we need for a vaccine.”
Sev leaned forward, suddenly all scientist.
“But it degraded,” he guessed.
Dr. Verityx’s head swiveled toward him.
“Yes—exactly. After a brief period of broad-spectrum activity, the sample began to lose cohesion. The attack markers remained strong, but the carrier structure destabilized.”
Sev’s face went still.
“I…see,” he said slowly.
Ravik didn’t like that look on the Blood Kindred’s face one fucking bit. Something was happening, he could tell—something he wouldn’t like when he finally understood it.
“What does that mean?” Cassandra asked.
“It means the nectar knows what to kill,” Dr. Verityx said. “But not how to remain stable long enough to teach another body how to resist infection before exposure. A true vaccine must not simply destroy the Hunger Virus. It must create lasting immune recognition.”
“And we’re missing that?” she asked.
“Not entirely. You have the foundation,” Dr. Verityx said, sounding excited again.
“Commander Ravik’s cream provides powerful recognition-and-attack markers.
Commander Severin’s cream provides healing precursors and Blood Kindred carrier fragments.
Your body is combining them beautifully in your mammary glands.
But the final binding element is not present in sufficient strength. ”
Sev’s hands closed slowly around his cup.
“My essence,” he said.
Ravik’s entire body went cold. Fuck—not the essence again!
Dr. Verityx bobbed his feathered head.
“Yes. Your essence is the living carrier medium. Your seed contributes useful precursor markers, but the binding agent itself is produced in the essence glands and delivered most effectively through the fangs.”
Cassandra looked at Sev, then at Ravik.
“Delivered,” she repeated slowly. “You mean biting. The way Severin bit Ravik to cure him of the virus in the first place.”
“Yes,” Dr. Verityx said. “A bite from Commander Severin appears necessary to bind the vaccine response.”
Ravik pushed away his plate.
“I don’t like where this is fucking going.”
“It’s going where it needs to in order to make the vaccine.”
Sev didn’t look at him as he spoke, which only made Ravik angrier.
“Fuck that,” he growled.
“Commander Ravik,” Dr. Verityx said calmly, “I understand this is culturally and emotionally difficult, but the data is clear.”
“You don’t understand shit,” Ravik growled.
“Ravik,” Cassie said softly.