Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

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Текущая страница: 42 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

He accepted this with a nod and a sigh. “I apologize. I know you are doing this for my sake.”

“Yeah, well.” Her lips twitched and she slid a glance at him that had at least some glint of real humor. “My motives aren’t entirely pure.”

“No?” He eyed her guardedly.

“I hope that when you see how I labor on your behalf, you will be desirous to mate with me.”

She captured his stilted and careful speech exactly. Tagen smiled helplessly and brushed at her hair. “It’s working,” he told her, slurring the peculiar N’Glish contraction with great care. She leaned into his hand slightly, but did not continue. Quiet descended again, but of an easy sort. And that was fine.

That was very fine.

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Chapter Thirty-One

They stopped for the night at a real mom-and-pop place. The hotel’s yellowing roadside sign boasted cable, air conditioning and a pool, but the pool was empty and bleached by disuse, the A/C was louder than a jet engine, and the cable was limited to Lifetime, the WB, TNT, and Animal Planet. Not having access to local news made Raven nervous, but Kane didn’t move them on.

He was in good spirits, relaxed and even cheerful as he looked over the newly-filled vials in his pack. Ten more, from the other motel. Cozzzy Nook, it had been called. With a raccoon in a nightcap, holding a candle and yawning its way to bed, painted on the side of the building. She’d picked it out. They drove away from it with ten more bottles of brain juice. She hadn’t kept count of how many people had gone into filling them. Too many, that was all. One of them had been hers.

Kane…going from room to room and bed to bed like some demonic Sandman, bringing the bone-snap of death instead of dreams. All those people. But it was the kids that kept coming back to Raven’s mind, the kids that filled her with the sickest swelling of horror. Those poor goddamn kids. Too young, Kane had said simply, but he’d given them a good long look before he’d said it. Too young for Vahst, was what Raven knew he meant. No one was too young to die. So he let the kids sleep while he killed their parents, their big brothers, their big sisters. He let them live so they could wake up there in all that…mess.

Raven shuddered, rubbing at the pebbly fear-flesh that had come out over her arms, and then got up and went to sit on the floor beside the bed where Kane stretched out, working his little bottles of brain juice. She knew it was wrong to be coming to him for comfort—maybe all the way past wrong to obscene—but his hand had such a natural way of coming down to comb through her hair and rest on her shoulder that it was hard to remember that he was the source of the sick danger she was seeking shelter from. And he was laughing at her, she was sure, every time she came crawling to him for reassurance, but she couldn’t help being grateful for it, as much as she despised herself.

“Are you shivering?”

Raven made an effort to stop, banishing the shadowy memory of Kane standing over those two little bumps in the bed, the imaginings of how it must have been to wake up in the morning, surrounded on every side by death. She wasn’t entirely successful.

“Turn off the cold,” Kane told her. His eye wandered, as his eye so often did, to the blonde biker, adding, “And get us some food,” to Raven’s retreating back.

There was a restaurant adjoined to the hotel’s main office. She doubted they’d have steaks on hand, but Raven did the best she could. She called them up, fumbled her way through an order without a menu, and then had to bribe a server with a twenty-dollar tip to get their food delivered sixty feet across the parking lot. She supposed Kane wouldn’t care if she actually left to go and get it in person, but what was twenty dollars, really? Besides, she didn’t want to be alone right now. Not even alone in Wanda’s Waffle House in plain sight of Kane’s hotel room. Death was waiting for her every time she closed her eyes.

Kane was snapping his fingers as Raven hung up the phone. She went to him at once, but it was Sue-Eye he was wanting. “Go practice your letters,” was all she got. He didn’t even look at her when he said it.

It was a friendly little tussle, one that never got quite all the way to real sex, but it didn’t escalate to beatings, either. Listening to Sue-Eye’s breathless praise and Kane’s good-natured growls gave Raven gooseflesh all over again. He was making an effort to get the biker hot, which was something he never bothered with when he was in Heat, something he’d done to Raven only to humiliate her. But Sue-Eye sure wasn’t humiliated, or if she was, she was doing a damned fine job of hiding it.

Raven sat down at the table and picked up a pen, Kane’s alphabet flowing easily down the cheap stationary the hotel provided. Her attention drifted to the bed. She watched silently as Sue-Eye snapped and scratched viciously at Kane’s chest, drawing blood without any sign of caring. Kane gripped the hips that straddled him, his claws tearing holes in the fabric of the woman’s skirt, arching back into the bedding with obvious pleasure. “Harder,” he was snarling. “Like you mean it, ichuta’a!”

Raven wrote the alien word mechanically. Her letters were very neat. Kane was a stickler for penmanship these days. A soft thump from the bed drew her gaze again. Kane had flipped the blonde around and had her pinned facedown and writhing, his hand hard at work between her thighs. He was grinning at the back of her tossing head, all tooth and cruel humor, bringing her right to the edge, and then just keeping her there while she begged him to let her cum.

The man had a mean streak, that was for damn sure, but it was a sadism Raven didn’t want aimed at anyone but her. She sketched out more letters in obedient silence, making neat rows left to right, just to keep her hands busy. She needed to keep her hands busy. The urge to go over there and snatch that blonde bitch bald was very, very strong.

“Please, please fuck me!” Sue-Eye was practically screaming by now. “Please, Kane! Please!”

His laughter was answer enough, but he gave Sue-Eye a slap to the ass and a spoken, “No,” anyway. He took hold of her and tossed her roughly but playfully off onto the floor. He dropped down onto the bed and pulled his pack back onto his lap. He held out his hand with a Caesar’s arrogance, calling, “Get this off me, ichuta’a,” and Sue-Eye scrambled to him on her knees, sucking at his fingers as if they were cocks.

Raven tried not to pay too close an eye, but Kane missed nothing. He grinned, sudden and sharklike, and she quickly dropped her gaze to her paper and wrote blindly.

“Oh, get off me!” A slap. “If I want a blowjob, I’ll ask for one. I’m not shy. Don’t!” he snapped, so suddenly that Raven looked around, but Sue-Eye was just crouching there by the bed. Kane was glaring, though, one hand curled into a warning fist. “If I want your pussy touched, I’ll touch it myself or tell you how. You’re all done, ichuta’a.”

“B-but—” Sue-Eye’s hands were clenching spastically at either side of her. “Please!”

“No.” Kane slid his finger along the seam of his pack and opened it to his computer. “Sit down. Cool off. Food will be here any minute.”

“Then will you…?”

“Maybe. Raven.”

She didn’t miss the biker’s brief scowl and she didn’t think Kane did, either, but he let it go and crooked a claw to call Raven over. He typed several minutes without giving her any attention whatsoever, but then turned his pack around and pointed at the faintly metallic-looking stripe along the outer edge of the pack’s lid. “Touch there,” he said.

She pressed her fingertip to the strip, her entire body stirring with the same electric lightness that she had felt when he first showed her how to write his alien letters.

“Slowly,” Kane murmured. He took her wrist and guided her down the width of the shiny track. His computer hummed loudly all the while and beeped as soon as she reached the end of it. Kane pushed her hand away, pecked at the keys a little more, and then shut his pack with a snap and gestured to it.

Raven could feel a smile twitching at her lips. She ran her finger down the seam just as he had so often demonstrated, feeling the slow burn of Sue-Eye’s gaze on her back the whole time. The pack opened for her immediately and Raven’s heart leapt with unreasoning pride.

This meant something. He could fuck who he wanted to fuck, but this was the telling thing right here.

“You understand,” he said conversationally as he turned the pack back to face him, “if I ever see you playing in there, I’ll break that finger right off.”

“Got it,” she said happily.

“Go practice your letters.”

As Raven was seating herself, the knock of dinner’s arrival sounded at the door. Sue-Eye received it, paid the extortionist’s fee, and parceled out waffles and fried chicken. As soon as Kane had his, he gave the order for their clothes to come off. Sue-Eye stripped with exuberance, coming to his side without an invitation.

It was a risky move on her part, one that had won her a smack on more than one occasion, but Kane chose to sit her on the bed beside him this time. He even rested a hand on her thigh while he typed and ate, the surest sign of his rare good mood.

And why shouldn’t he be in a good mood? It had been another good hunt, another good idea from own personal yes-girl. The elation at being granted access to Kane’s case quickly faded into dread as she watched Kane lean over and nip at Sue-Eye’s bare shoulder. Raven’s appetite congealed on itself. She stared down at her paper and its lines of alien writing.

I hate that blonde haired bitch, she wrote, and stared at the letters until they blurred with eyestrain. Sue-Eye was a bitch, too, in the purest possible sense. A whiny, obsequious, tail-wagging, slobbering bitch-dog.

“Can I, Kane? Please?”

“No.”

Raven glanced covertly into the dark mirror of the TV screen and saw Sue-Eye’s hand hovering over Kane’s crotch. He was pretending to ignore her as he tossed his chicken bones to the floor, but pretend was clearly the operative word. He was enjoying himself, enjoying the torture of his ichuta’a, and if he knew how much it bothered Raven, he’d be enjoying that, too.

“Please? I want you so bad.”

Kane sniffed at his waffle, and then dropped the Styrofoam box holding the rest of his dinner on the carpet. “Go take a shower,” he ordered, balancing his computer on his thighs. “And I warn you, ichuta’a, if you like your hands, you’ll keep them off your cunt. I’ll know if you cum.” He drew in a deep breath pointedly and showed his sharp teeth in a grin. “And I won’t be happy about it.”

Sue-Eye stood up obediently. “Can’t I blow you at least? Please. I need your cock.”

“Maybe later.” He flicked his claws at her, all his attention on his computer. “Now go on. I’m working.”

Raven couldn’t stop herself from looking up as Sue-Eye went by. She was caught, chilled by the gleam of victory carefully hidden in the other woman’s eyes. There was a plan at work here, and it was going in Sue-Eye’s favor.

Raven returned her eyes to her work, but her movements were all by rote. Sue-Eye was making herself noticeable. She was making herself useful. How long before she made herself indispensable?

Kane had said he would take Raven with him when he left Earth. Saying wasn’t the same as promising, but she still believed him. Kane didn’t have to lie, not when he could just give her one to the stomach to shut her up. Raven was by now almost entirely convinced that he would never kill her, not unless she did something dramatic like stab him, but he still had moods and he was still pretty quick about slapping her around. Questioning him about whether or not he really meant it when he said he’d take her with him might just annoy him enough to earn her a few bruises.

God, her DNA was scattered over half a dozen crime scenes by now. She’d rather be killed than be left behind to have to explain everything. At least Kane’s way was quick. Looking at prison, at gang rapes and stabbings and everything that went with it, right up until she was plugged into that last hot wire, Raven felt like throwing up.

It wouldn’t happen. Not now. Not after he finally got her the way he wanted. He wouldn’t throw her away now.

Raven ran a hand up her side, her fingertips lightly brushing over the metal outlining her breasts, the metal stiffening her nipples. Silver and gold. He’d made her his treasure. You didn’t do that to someone you were just going to abandon.

But then again, why not? It wasn’t like he’d paid for any of the jewelry. Raven gripped at her own arm, twisting around to see her new tattoo clearly. E’Var, it said. She could read it now. He’d put his name on her and taught her to read it.

“What are you doing?” Kane. He was smiling at her crookedly, his hands hovering over the keyboard of his computer.

Raven looked at him, but thought of Sue-Eye. Sue-Eye and her games. Sue-Eye, who thought she was winning them. Raven thought so, too, and it was a terrifying thought to have. Hesitantly, unsure of just what she was doing, she said, “My period’s almost over. I think I’ve stopped bleeding, but…you know…I just want to be sure.”

“Mm.” He waited, his body relaxed and his expression lazy and sly-a great golden cat with the bird already under his paws.

Raven made a few scratches with her pen, avoiding his gaze. “I see her with you and I…I’m actually jealous.” The words stung, even in her own mouth, and she hated them for being even a little bit true. She shook her head. “I…miss you. How wrong is that?”

“Very,” he said gravely.

She put her pen down and faced him, her heart hammering. “Can I ask for something?”

Kane’s eyes flicked towards the wall separating them from the bathroom where water from Sue-Eye’s shower drummed endlessly. His smile broadened. “Oh, let me guess.”

“When I am done,” Raven interrupted. “My period, I mean. When I’m all the way done, will you let me…let me…” Her nerve was failing. Heat crawled and burned in her cheeks. She didn’t know what she was saying, and he was going to see right through her anyway. But he was gazing at her again, unblinking and horribly aware of her, and she had to say something. “Will you let me do things?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Things that I want?”

His head cocked, his features scored with surprise. She’d caught him off-guard and that had to count for something. Clearly, he’d thought she was going to ask him to get rid of the competition.

Kane stared at her, his thoughts unspooling hidden behind his shark-black eyes. Finally, he folded down the monitor and closed his pack, resting his hands atop it. “Things,” he echoed. “Such as?”

This was dangerous. When he’d thought she’d lied to him about the reason for her bleeding, he’d been ready to kill her. This was worse. If he suspected her of anything at all—

She couldn’t stop now, or he’d know for sure she’d been trying something.

Raven stood up and went to the foot of the bed. “Things,” she said, crawling cautiously onto the mattress.

Kane pushed his pack to one side, freeing the broad field of his chest for her to climb, and she obliged him, touching her lips to his warm flesh as she moved up his body. She could taste him, the clean male sweat of him, and it was not an unpleasant sensation. When she placed her hand over the alien place his heart beat, she realized she really had missed him.

“Things,” she breathed, and let her lips just brush his. “Things that humans do.”

“Be careful,” he warned her, his voice low and amused. “I bite.”

“So do I.” She let her teeth close and pull at his lip, and then she slid her tongue past the double-row of his sharp teeth. He did not respond, but he did not discourage either, and she melted against him, exploring his strange mouth with sensuous abandon.

“Humans are very strange,” Kane said, once she’d drawn away. But he was smiling.

“Will you let me?” she asked, letting her hand caress his face. It was a handsome face, she realized, for all that his eyes were so awful and empty. She kissed him again, and this time, his tongue came to meet hers. Her hand drifted down, across his chest, over his hard stomach, toward the stiffening core of him, but then away and down the inner slope of his thigh.

He chuckled into her mouth and pulled his face away. “You’re teasing me,” he said with gentle menace. “That can be dangerous.”

“Humans do that,” she said, licking at the hollow of his throat. “When they want to take their time.”

“Is that what you want? To take your time?” He twined his hand lazily in her hair, and then pulled her down into his kiss. It was a deep kiss, hungry and unskilled, but kindling real desire in her nonetheless. “To play with me?” he murmured, breathing into her mouth.

“Yes. Will you let me?” she asked again. She began to move her hips in small circles, just brushing against the front of his pants, light as a feather. The sensation was pure silver, tiny strokes of lightning arcing up through her, and she closed her eyes to enjoy it.

“I don’t know.” His hand came up and slipped beneath her skirt, cupping her bare pubis. His thumb pressed against her clit as he stroked up into her folds. She leaned into his touch, wanting him to feel the excitement that pulsed lightly through her womb, but he withdrew and grinned up at her. “Say please.”

“Please.” She tried to slide her hand beneath the waist of his pants, but he caught both her wrists and held her in just one of his hands. She could feel him erect against her belly, but he would not let her touch him.

“Say, d’shorr,” he murmured. His eyes were sparkling and his smile, cruel.

“D’shorr,” she echoed obediently, and tried unsuccessfully to pull out of his grip.

With his free hand, Kane cupped her breast. He squeezed, just hard enough to send a shiver up her spine. “D’shorr, Kane,” he growled, tracing small circles over her nipple. “Tamya y sa d’shorr.”

She repeated as best she was able, stumbling over the alien words as she leaned into the rough caress. There was a throb deep inside her, light at first, but growing more insistent as Kane continued to taunt her with his careful touch.

Kane’s claws grazed lightly down the curve of her rubs, and then he slipped between her thighs again. He rubbed his palm back and forth over her aching pussy, grinding against her but fulfilling nothing. “D’shorr, Kane. D’shorr en chok-sa. Say it, Raven. Ask me nicely.”

She tried, tumbling brokenly from her mouth as she struggled to find release against his teasing hand. “D’shorr, Kane. D’shorr en…en…tamya.” She gasped as he finally parted her, stroking up deep and slow as she shivered and clenched around him. “Tamya!”

“That’s terrible.” His hand left her pussy. His fingers invaded her mouth. She reacted unthinkingly, sucking at the salt of her own oils, and struggling to free her wrists from his iron grip. She pushed against his rigid shaft, managing only to sink a greater heat deep into her womb. He bent his head and licked at her breast, tonguing her nipple and tugging carefully at the metal imbedded there. “I don’t think you mean it.”

“D’shorr…d’shorr…” She couldn’t remember the rest. Her hips were rocking, sliding along the restrained length of him and driving her further into frustration. She wanted him, for the first time, she really wanted him and he was playing with her. A half-sob escaped her, even as she shivered with desire. “Kane, please, don’t do this to me!”

Suddenly, she was spinning. He flung her down on the mattress, slamming her hands together over her head, and pressed down on her from above. “What have I told you?” he growled, his teeth against the thin hollow of her throat. He thrust his knee between her thighs, parting them without grace and without resistance, and rubbed hard at her in the rhythm of sex. “What have I told you about telling me don’t?”

“Please!” she cried, writhing beneath him. “You said you’d let me!”

“I never said that, Raven,” he told her, almost singing it. His tongue lashed up the side of her neck and plunged into her mouth in a parody of the mating he would not otherwise allow. His free hand moved over her breasts, pinching and caressing, and his knee pumped at her with deliberate slowness as he kissed her. Then he pulled out of reach, nipping once at her jaw, and grinned down at her savagely. “Ask me nicely, Raven.”

“Please!”

“Wrong.” He bent and closed his mouth over her nipple, the pleasure so immediate and exquisite that it hurt. He rolled the sensitive bud with his tongue, bit very lightly, and then pressed against her and sucked hard, bringing her just to the cusp of an explosive orgasm. He drew back, glancing down at his knee, still rocking against her. “You certainly seem to be enjoying this,” he observed, “but you still won’t ask me nicely. I think I’m done here.”

“D’shorr, Kane!” She was almost screaming it, her hips thrusting up at his knee. “Tamya y…y…chok-sa d’shorr!”

He chuckled. “Close. But you’ll have to do better. Let’s have one more, and if you can get it right, I’ll give you something special. If you can’t…oh well.” He moved toward her mouth, then out of reach again as she strained up to meet him. “Your lesson, Raven,” he said sternly. His whole body stilled, his eyes grew sharp and hot. “Se ven garrug-ta,” he said, all playfulness gone. “Se garrug y sildurra Kane.”

What was she telling him? Breathless, aching with need, she couldn’t make herself care. But she could say the words.

He closed his eyes to hear them, his face at once stony and tense with some violent, hidden emotion. When he opened his eyes again, they burned. “Very good,” he said quietly, and got up.

“No!” She surged forward, clutching at his arm. “You promised!”

Kane stepped away from the bed, but not out of her grip. “Show me,” he said. He unfastened the front of his pants, still staring down at her with that strange, hot expression. “Show me, and tomorrow, when you’re sure your period is done, I’ll let you take whatever you want from me.”

Raven dropped to her knees, reaching for him in a fever of lust. Her loins were throbbing, but it never occurred to her to satisfy her own need. She had eyes only for what he offered, and she was shaking with the unthinking need to please him. “Se ven garrug-ta,” she said, and took him into her mouth, worshiping him with ardent hunger.

His hand rose and rested on her head. “Sur Raven,” he murmured.

Gratitude bloomed in her, as fierce and all-consuming as orgasm. She lathed him in a storm of passion, licking up and down his cock, her fingers digging into his buttocks. When he began to rock against her, it was a reward that filled her whole body with warmth. She took him as deep as she could, swallowing rapidly along his shaft, and then pulled back to tongue his glans and milk him in her fist. “Se ven garrug-ta,” she moaned, again and again, devouring him between each recital. “Se ven garrug-ta. Please cum in me, Kane. Please! Se ven garrug-ta! Cum!”

His breath coarsened, the muscles of his stomach jumped and tightened, and his hand on her head clenched. “Say it!” he growled, thrusting harder.

“Se ven garrug-ta!” She swallowed him desperately, grinding towards him as he thrust into her. She welcomed the pain in her jaw, the dull ache at the back of her throat. She could not keep her hands still on his body, and at every opportunity, she pulled back to kiss and squeeze his throbbing cock and say it again. “Se ven garrug-ta!”

He threw back his head and howled, spasming in her hand, and Raven took him in with a cry of delight. She felt him splash into her mouth and she swallowed eagerly, drinking the heat that poured from his core and burning in the grip of a fierce, possessive joy. When she had taken everything, she bent around his leg, tracing kisses down his thigh to rest her head on his foot.

Kane leaned against the wall, breathing hard, staring down at her. “You’re mine!” he said, almost snarling. “Mine!”

“Yes.” She hugged his leg, her eyes closed and her face pressed against his lethal talons. “You’ll let me have you tomorrow. You promised, Kane.”

“That’s right.”

“I missed you.”

His hand came down to comb once through her hair. “I…missed you, too.” He spoke haltingly, a man unused to making such admissions, and followed up by pushing her away. “Back to your work,” he said, fastening himself into his clothes again.

Raven rose from the floor, the warmth of his cum still glowing in her belly, and there was Sue-Eye. She was standing just outside the bathroom door, still wrapped in a towel. Her hair was wet, her face pale. They held each other’s eyes for just a second.

Raven smiled.

*

It was night at last, the curtains open to admit a little moonlight, and the humans were finally asleep, each on their own bed. Kane sat at the hotel table in the darkness and watched over them as he prepared his Vahst. He had ten more ampules after the hunt at the motel, ten that would make five once he had them worked into the final product, and each one would fetch him close to one thousand crona once he was back home. After all the time he’d spent here, all the petty distractions, he was really coming down to the end of it.

This was the tedious part of the chemist’s trade: He had to empty the ampules two at a time into the analyzer, and then program the exact formula it required to achieve that magical transformation from human dopamine into the Jotan sex-endorphin known as Vahst. Heat. Ha. Kane had never sampled his own merchandise, but he knew it wasn’t very damned much like real Heat. It triggered the mating urge, that was all; it heightened pleasure and made the user feel he was burning all the while. For the first few times, it could also enable the user to fuck like he was in Heat, cumming over and over and over for hours, but without the brutal agony of true-cum waiting like molten lead in his tsesac. For the first few times. Afterwards—once the chemicals had finished frying the user’s brain, that was—Vahst was needed just to mate at all. Eventually, long use and chemical scarring would ensure that even true Heat would never be enough to put power in the piston. A Vahst-addict could lie screaming, his tsesac swollen with white-hot hell, and never be able to achieve the erection to fuck it out. That was a bad way to die, a ruptured tsesac.

Which was what such a man deserved for taking the shit in the first place. Kane had no sympathy at all.

Raven rolled in her sleep, kicking off the light sheet that covered her and lying nude in the dim moonlight. She was dreaming of him, relaxed, smiling, the scent of musk rich around her.

Bottle that, and he could make a fortune.

Kane felt his lips stretch in a smile, and he forced himself to return his attention to the chemicals he was supposed to be mixing and reducing. His Raven. So few days ago, she had wept with betrayal when her body took pleasure from him. Now she came to him begging to mate. Kane did not consider himself a gullible man, but there had been proof enough of her desire painting his hand when he touched her. ‘I missed you,’ she’d said, and said it with such a rueful humor that it had to be true.

And he’d missed her. He’d missed having her body tucked beneath his arm, missed the feel of her metal pressing against him, missed her cunt and her hands and her wonderful mouth. The other human, Sue-Eye, was adequate enough a vessel to serve Heat when it came on him, but she was no Raven and never would be, for all her pretenses.

Raven wanted him. He had not broken her; her will was as strong as ever, her mind as quick. He had won her instead. He had taken her away from her reality, dominated her with fear and pain, and then forced her to feel pleasure. Now she was his, his to take, his to train, his to shape into whatever form he willed. Sue-Eye was nothing to him, a receptacle of necessity who might yet prove profitable. Raven now, Raven would be crew someday, and his for all time.

The papers where she practiced her letters were here at his elbow. Kane ran his gaze idly over her writing. She was learning quickly. Oh, it was mindless mimicry now, but understanding would come. She was eager to be schooled, that was the important thing. The now-familiar formations of their names dominated the page, of course. She could not seem to be content with just the alphabet. And there, near the extreme edge of the paper, she’d carefully shaped words in Jotan letters that made no sense at all. Kane thoughtfully translated each to human characters and then to N’Glish and slowly the meaning of it came out.

‘I hate that blonde haired bitch’. Kane bared his teeth in a smile of ferocious approval. If she wanted, he would give Sue-Eye to Raven for killing. But that, as Uraktus may have put it, was a wide stripe of if. Raven had a good head on her slender human shoulders, but she had no taste for killing.

Yet. There was a time, and not too damned distant, when she’d had no taste for Kane.

To hear her voice, smoky with desire, begging him to take her had been a savagely satisfying thing. He had toyed with her, touching her as humans do while coaxing his language from her lips, but it had proved a dangerous game.

I belong to you, she’d said, and suddenly Kane was no longer playing. I belong to commander Kane. I belong to you.

Tomorrow, he had promised to give her his body as her playground. His loins tightened even now at the thought. She wanted to take her time, to mate with him in human fashion. He meant to be ready for her, drained of Heat and receptive. He’d embrace her if she wished it, caress her, taste her. He would do all the things he had seen humans do as they mated in the video feeds. He would even attempt to use his mouth on her sex, if she asked him (he could imagine the taste, salty and heavy with musk, the metals he had put in her sharpening the flavor, and he licked his lips now without realizing it). He would be gentle while she wanted him to be gentle, and then he would wrest control from her as she lay in his arms. He would bring her back to that crazed and shaking hunger he had given her this night. And he meant to make her scream as she came.