Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

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Текущая страница: 43 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

Kane forced his attention back to his work, to the monotonous business of numbers and ratios, to the formula that would buy him (and his human crew of one) a ship and a future. He would have one more ampule of concentrated Vahst when the program was complete, five by the end of the night, but only if he kept his focus and refrained from pointless fantasy. He had promised himself to Raven, but that was for tomorrow. Vahst was for tonight.

Voices outside, more humans come to take lodgings in the hotel. A man and woman, by the sound of it. Kane listened with half an ear, idly considering the possibility of going out and taking them, adding them to the other humans he had collected in the ampules before him.

“He wouldn’t tell me, Tagen, and he was a total jerk about it. We’re going to have to wait to ask the day guy. Is that okay?”

“It will suffice. I need only you, and sleep.”

Kane shook his head, smiling faintly. Human romance. They were taking the room directly beside him; he could hear them moving behind the wall, hear the insectile hum of their climate controller pumping cold air into their room. He rejected the notion of harvesting them. It would mean waking his females and abandoning the hotel after he had killed, and he was looking forward to a few hours sleep himself. Let them alone, never knowing how close they had slept to Death.

Over the droning of the air-conditioner next door, Kane’s ears soon picked out low sounds, voices but not words, coming in slow rhythm. Mating. His own eyes slipped back of their own will to linger on Raven’s moon-slick form. He could smell her musk, and with the muffled groans and cries of passion behind him, he could easily imagine her body and his thrashing with abandon.

Raven murmured, her sleeping senses adopting the things she heard for her own dreams. Her throat arched, and Kane heard his name pass like a sigh through her lips. Her thighs parted, her hips rocked, seeking a partner.

Kane rose and went to kneel beside the bed. He touched his fingertip to her lips and she clutched at him, sucking and mewling with sleeping eagerness. He could feel himself stiffening.

The humans on the other side of the wall were growing louder, despite their obvious efforts to muffle themselves. The headboard of their bed slammed thunderously into the wall three times before silencing, but the universal language of coupling continued. The female sounded half-crazed by whatever the male was doing to her. Kane’s imagination unfolded a number of possibilities and his cock began to throb.

Kane pulled free of Raven’s hungry mouth and traced his claws down over her undulating body to the equally-hungry parts of her below. Her pussy clamped and sucked at him as eagerly as her mouth; he pumped his hand against her, matching the rhythm of the humans next door, and she cried out and coated him with her pleasure. Behind him, as though spurred on by Raven’s release, the male uttered a single, strained groan, and then there was silence.

Kane stroked his Raven’s thigh, soothing her back into the depths of sleep. Then he turned, stripping out of his clothing, and pulled the sheets away from Sue-Eye. She roused a little, muttering as she groped to cover herself again, and he caught her leg and flung her open. “Not a sound,” he hissed, flicking his eyes warningly at Raven, sleeping Raven. He straddled the bed, his thighs wide apart and his cock jutting greedily, and closed his fist around himself, rubbing Raven’s oils up and down his length. Then he seized her hips and yanked her up to impale him.

She had been blinking, struggling to waken and to sit up. Now she uttered a coughing gasp and dropped back onto the bed, all her body tensing. Kane fucked her hard, his thrusting hips chopping her breath into pants, and watched her fight for silence. He was hurting her, he knew he was.

“Do you want me?” he whispered, unable to resist goading her.

She nodded, her jaw clenched. Her legs came up and locked around his waist; she began to add to his movements, imitating his body’s lust with thrusting of her own.

This was not Heat. When it was done, it was done, and Kane was in the mood to play. He glanced at Raven, found her still sleeping in the glow of her release, and then withdrew from his grimly-willing partner and climbed from the bed. He gestured for her to follow and went into the bathroom, where he could put another door between them.

No sooner had Sue-Eye joined him on the tiled floor than he had shut her in and pushed her facedown against the sink. He slapped her thighs apart, his claws sinking into her shoulder, and shoved his aching cock into her ass.

She wasn’t expecting it and she came alive like a wire, kicking and hammering at him in a panic, but never making more than a single gagging cry. He fucked her ferociously, beating compliance into her constricted passage and forcing her to admit him. The pleasure was exquisite, hot and wild, and he did not give a damn if it killed her.

Ah gods, she was humping back at him, her face in the mirror set with determination. There were tears in her eyes, and her knuckles were white where they gripped the countertop, but she was showing him her best all the same. “Tell me,” he hissed, thrusting brutally hard.

“I want you,” she said, the words ripped from her in gusts. “I love your cock. Let me suck it. Let me fuck it. Give me your cock, Kane. Give it to me as hard as you can.”

He did, amused, and she keeled over with a gasping scream and bit her hand. She was a tough little bitch, he’d give her that. And if she proved resilient as well, he might just keep her.

His end was coming. Kane backed up, grabbed her by the hair and shoved her down on her knees. He aimed his cock at her eyes and came, shooting cum in a flood over her face and hair. She opened her mouth for it, humiliation and hate still shining in her eyes.

Panting, grinning, Kane hunkered down and put his gaze level with hers. “Did you cum?” he asked.

Her expression became uncertain. She nodded.

“Let me feel.” He extended his hand.

Sue-Eye tensed and slowly parted her thighs. Kane pushed two fingers roughly inside her, invading her, watching her closely as her face fought not to contort. It was a little wet. Just a little.

“You’re a liar,” he said cheerfully, withdrawing his hand. “I quit too soon. And here you are, unfulfilled.”

She waited, her eyes narrow and unsure.

“I’m in a good mood,” he said. “I’ll let you cum. Go on.”

She only sat there, her body taut with expectation of pain, with the gaze she thought was guarded showing all her hostility and doubt.

“Go on,” he said again, and then tipped his head to one side, pretending to consider her. “Or don’t I excite you anymore?”

Her hand rose and slipped between her thighs, lightly rubbing.

“Wider,” he said. “I want to see. I want to smell it.”

She tensed again but obeyed, splaying herself for him so that he could see her folds as she parted them, see the little nub at the high cleft of her as she rolled it beneath her thumb. She stroked slow, then fast, then slow again, her movements playing out without passion, but he could smell her musk growing. Kane smiled as her breath began to coarsen. Her eyes lost their fire and her face began to twist. Her hips made two brittle half-thrusts and she locked up tight, cumming in silence.

Kane pulled her hand away from her cunt and tested her for himself. She was damp, but still not much. He pushed suddenly up to the soft place just beyond her pubic bone and rubbed hard, shocking orgasm out of her in a cry and a clenching rush.

“There,” he said, pulling free of her again. “That’s better.” He held up his hand.

She stared a it for a second, and then leaned forward and licked at his fingers, cleaning him of her oils. Her face was buckled with shame.

“Do you want to come with me when I leave this world?”

She froze, his fingers sunk deep in her mouth. He saw hope in her eyes, but of a despairing kind. She knew his nature. She did not believe him.

He smiled, showing all his teeth. “Yes or no?” he asked. “I won’t even tell you whether or not I’m serious. You tell me. Do you want to come with me when I leave Earth?”

She nodded.

He pulled his fingers from her with a wet pop and wiped them dry on her arm. “Good to know,” he said, and got up and left her there on the bathroom floor with his cum drying in her hair.

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Chapter Thirty-Two

Raven was awakened by Kane’s hand on her thigh, shaking her with rough humor. She was only half-covered in a sheet, but she still managed to get bound up in it in her efforts to get out of bed. She struggled, expecting a slap at any moment for taking too long, but Kane was moving away to wake Sue-Eye.

“Are we leaving?” Sue-Eye asked sleepily.

“First, we eat. Then we drive. I want a new car and more money. And no Heat today. Today, I am for Raven.” He half-turned, grinning at her as she finally got her ankle free. “Are you excited?”

She was, actually. And more importantly, it was plain to see that he was excited. She smiled and stood up. “I could take you right now,” she said. “I’ll wait, but I’m not happy about it.”

“I’ll make you plenty happy,” Kane growled, his grin widening. The smile was not entirely pleasant, but there was nothing cruel about it, either. “And you, ichuta’a, ” he said, turning that cheerful eye on Raven’s rival. “Your usefulness to me is ended.”

Sue-eye’s face turned to stone, the very picture of hardened unconcern cloaking her while the slightest uprise of one eyebrow indicated a polite interest. Anyone looking at that face might think the blonde was genuinely oblivious to what could damn well be a very bad thing about to happen. But there was more than just Sue-Eye’s face on display. Raven could see the fine hairs along Sue-Eye’s arms spiking out, could see color sapping itself visibly from her skin. Her nipples stiffened and stood out in bluish peaks; Kane’s eye wandered to watch this, and the smile that Raven could glimpse from this angle broadened.

“Now tell me,” he said mildly, as he reached to brush his thumbclaw over one hard nub. “Is this because I excite you, or just because I terrify you?”

Sue-Eye did not reply. Her eyes were windows from which nothing peeked out. Her lips were almost white.

Kane glanced at Raven. “She’s ignoring me,” he remarked, and shrugged one shoulder. He turned back to Sue-Eye, his hand still massaging lightly at her breast. “And after all we’ve meant to each other, too. I’m hurt, ichuta’a.”

“You excite me,” Sue-Eye said. Her voice was cracked, stretched thin with chilled anticipation.

“Ah.” Kane’s head tipped slightly. “So,” he went on musingly. “If I were to reach down and feel out your pussy, you’d have musk for me. Shall I check?” His hand drifted, claws down and raising white lines, to her belly and stopped again.

Sue-Eye was silent, watchful, utterly motionless.

“If I find you wet on my fingers, ichuta’a, I’m going to let you walk out that door,” Kane told her, his voice soft and gentle. “And if I don’t—” His hand scratched down another few inches and stopped again. “—I’m going to open you from your pussy to your chin.”

Sue-Eye wasn’t even breathing anymore. The whites of her staring eyes had gone grey.

Kane’s hand moved, his thick fingers sliding just between her slackly standing thighs to squeeze her smooth mound. His shark’s eyes never left her face. His teeth were brilliant in the stretched slice of his smile.

Raven realized she was holding her breath only when her lungs began to burn, but she still couldn’t seem to remember how to start again. She was frozen, watching all this play out from the safety of some living room somewhere. Sue-Eye was a bitch, but no one should die like that, and no one should have to watch someone die like that. ‘It’s going to smell. I’m going to smell it,’ she thought remotely, and the edges of her vision blurred to grey.

Suddenly, Kane straightened up and gave Sue-Eye a blistering slap to her thigh that broke both his humans as effectively as cannon-fire. Raven tried to leap back from a splash of blood that never happened and dropped onto the bed, too dizzy to stand up again. Sue-Eye merely staggered, catching wildly at Kane’s coat, and then hanging from him on bent legs and staring up at him glassily.

“Just kidding,” he said, and bent to nip precisely at the tip of her nose. “You’re coming with us.”

All the air came out of Sue-Eye in a woof and she dropped the rest of the way onto the floor, her hands slackly splayed before her. She looked at him, shivered hugely, and stared down at the carpet.

“Is that any way to thank me?” Kane asked, feigning surprise. He gave her thigh a nudge with the toe of his boot. “Anyone would think you weren’t pleased.”

“I am,” Sue-Eye said at once. “Thank you, Kane.”

“Unless…” Kane slid one shark-empty eye back to Raven. “I’ll leave it up to you, shall I?”

His posture was relaxed, but the hand that she could see was curled expectantly. He meant it. She could tell him to kill her and he would.

Raven’s eyes shifted past him to Sue-Eye. The blonde looked back at her. All her reserves of manufactured indifference had been expended on Kane and Raven got to see the glossy shine of perfect horror stamped full across her. ‘Bet you’re sorry you fucked with me now,’ she thought absently, but she already knew what she was going to say. She’d started out here in a good mood, and she wanted to hold on to that good mood. She could pretend to consider, but that was the limit of Raven’s talent with torture. If she was going to have to have sex with this man later on, she couldn’t watch him disembowel someone first.

“Well?” Kane pressed. He bent and got a grip on Sue-Eye’s arm, hauling her to her feet roughly, but then almost cradling her under one arm as he waited for Raven’s answer. He could go either way, clearly. “I think I could find a use for this ichuta’a when I leave Earth. Unless, of course, you object?”

Raven raised her eyebrows. “Why would I object?” she asked, and Kane’s eyes narrowed. “She’s been very helpful. Besides,” she added, stepping closer to him. “There are some things I’d love to do to you that take two girls.”

Kane’s smile faded slightly and he gave Sue-Eye a push off to one side. “Somehow, I didn’t expect that,” he remarked.

“It’s like she said. She’s been a bitch longer. I’m learning a lot.” Raven pressed herself against his chest and he let her, although he didn’t make a single welcoming move, not even when she kissed him. But when she moved her mouth to his ear and breathed, “I’m learning more from you, I think. How much do you think you’ll get when you sell her?” he finally bared his teeth in a grin.

“Fifty crona,” he muttered back. “Easy.” He drew the word out into a purring sort of snarl and bit her gently on the neck. His arm came up, pulling her tight against him, but only for a moment. “We eat,” he said, pushing her away. “Ichuta’a, thank Raven for letting you stay.”

Raven met the simmering hatred and helpless confusion in Sue-Eye’s face without flinching. Clearly, Kane wasn’t the only one caught off-guard by her response. She waited.

“Thank you,” Sue-Eye said.

“You don’t sound like you mean it,” Raven said, and was emboldened by Kane’s tolerant laughter.

Sue-Eye’s mouth thinned. “Thank you,” she said again, and did a much better job of disguising the flat hostility. Her gaze flicked past to Kane. “Shall we kiss and make up?” she inquired.

Raven’s stomach clenched, but she didn’t dare look to see Kane’s answer. She was afraid of making any move that might seem to him like encouragement, but she was afraid even more, even now, that if he saw her reluctance, he’d make her do it just to show her he was still boss.

Kane was quiet for what felt like a very long time. Suddenly, a snarl. “No,” he said sourly. “No. We eat. Then we go. And keep your hungry hands off her, ichuta’a. Today, I am for Raven. Today, she is for me. If you want to fuck, I’ll find you someone else.”

It was gratifying to see Sue-Eye pale so fast. “No,” the blonde said. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you, Kane.”

“Good.” He walked between them, giving Sue-Eye a slap on the ass and letting his other hand caress Raven’s thigh as he passed. “Get dressed, both of you. Let’s move.”

*

The sounds of people moving around in the next room woke Tagen early. Grendel, shut away in the bathroom the previous night so that it could not complicate the matter of mating by leaping onto the bed at inopportune times, acknowledged the muffled commotion by sending out several minutes’ worth of yowling complaints. There was no use in trying to quiet the animal. Knocking on the wall would only encourage its vocalizations. When the cat finally quieted, Tagen pulled Daria into the curl of his body and resettled himself, filling his nostrils with the scent of her. The crowd next door finally left, and he shut his eyes and prepared to find sleep again.

Daria’s fingertips fluttered over his hand on her belly. She made a sleepy sound of pleasure and turned to him, smiling. “I could get used to waking up like this,” she said.

So could he. He had never slept with a mate before, unless one counted Heat-seasons of the past when he had collapsed of pain and exhaustion atop a heap of sweat-soaked, faceless bodies. Recreationally, however, sex ended when it ended. He found the human habit of lying together afterwards a soothing one. Hot, but soothing.

“Do you want to get up?” she asked. “Scare up a little breakfast maybe? There’s a waffle house right next door.”

“My brave human,” Tagen growled, his eyes still shut.

“I could keep from freaking out too badly,” she protested. “Long enough to order, anyway. We couldn’t eat there, of course.”

“Of course.”

“It’s your hands I’m thinking of when I say that, you know, not my nerves.”

“You think of everything.”

“Want me to go?”

“No.” His arm tightened on her waist.

Her tone turned teasing. “Want me to load up the car?”

“No.”

“Want me to—”

“I want you to lie quiet.”

“—bite you on the chin?” she finished.

He thought about it. “I’m not certain,” he said finally. “Perhaps you should, and I will thus know for myself.”

She shifted around until she faced him fully, and then wrapped her arms around him and let her teeth graze lightly over his sensitive throat, nipping agreeably until she worked her way to her target. She bit slowly, sending a shiver down through his senses, a far more effective wake-up than even his neighbor’s leave-taking had been. She drew her teeth a little apart without removing them from his flesh and let her tongue flutter at him before biting again, just a little harder this time.

Tagen drew in a breath, released it in a growl, and said, “Do I kiss as well as you bite?”

“I don’t know. You’re an awfully good kisser.” She ran her teeth across the curve of his jaw, over his chin, to bite him on the other side. She did that thing with her tongue again, too, and even sucked briefly, bringing blood right to the fore before biting down.

Tagen groaned with pleasure, his hips arching up, and then drew back and smiled at her. Her hair was fetchingly mussed and her eyes were gleaming with good humor. He was struck all over again by her alien beauty, her delicate features, and that alluring half-mask of white lace. On impulse, he tucked his head and kissed her scars, tasting her, letting himself explore her with the same sense mystery and intensity of that first time. When he finally worked his way to her mouth, she received him eagerly.

As her hands scratched sensuously down his chest, it occurred to Tagen that when he got around to filing an official report, there were one or two details he might have to gloss over. Any of the admiration and respect he might garner for accepting this mission on a hostile world would diminish greatly as soon as his supporters learned he’d spent so much of his time sexing with this beautiful human.

But the threat to his career was, literally, light-years away. Daria was here now, her mouth was against his, her hands were winding their way down his body to his stiffening shaft, and her musk was a perfume of immediacy in the air he breathed. Not for all the medals in the Fleet would he unhand her now.

The pleasures of her slender body far outweighed her size, but in the coolness of early morning, he could exert the formidable control it required to test them fully. He forced himself to be content with just the touching of her, ignoring the strident demands of his own body to thoroughly engage hers. And he spoke to her, telling her all that he loved about the needful flesh of her-the swell of her breasts so perfectly filling his palms, the feel of her lips moving with his, the silken slide of her legs twining around him, the scent of her hair as it curtained them both. There was never enough to tell her; there was always something more that deserved to be said aloud. He whispered to her of the miracle she was, the seductress, the goddess, using his language when he did not know enough of hers, until finally she could not resist his words. Once she had accepted them, she became the essence and ideal; she opened to him as a goddess and he joined with her in that otherworldly bliss.

The sex could not have lasted as long as it seemed, but the sex was almost incidental. The passion eclipsed even sensation. He imagined he could feel her pleasure as much as his own, and what he gave her, he gave with increasing wonder until his thoughts were themselves wiped clean by the pure light of consuming fulfillment.

She lowered herself with that serene smile until she lay curled atop him, and her weight on him was a pleasure all its own. He did not have to ask if she had come to passion; he could still feel the hum of her release passing through her and into him. He held her, still joined to her, and dozed.

“Now do you want to eat?” Daria said drowsily, her breath puffing warm on his chest.

“Yes,” he said. “Now, I do.”

“Well, now I don’t feel much like moving, so you’re out of luck, spaceman.”

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her back, feeling her hair like a cloak over his skin. Her heartbeat and his were aligned. He drifted, content, and finally slept.

*

They traded up the car at a piss-stop just out of town. It was easy enough. A single driver followed Kane into the male’s privy. Kane followed him out, nodding to his females to come close after. A claw to the human’s throat took whatever vocal complaint he may have made, and then Kane was pushing him into the backseat and sitting beside him. Raven had the wheel and Sue-Eye the front. No one else noticed.

Humans. They never noticed anything.

They drove for a while, Kane holding folds of the human’s shirt to its neck to keep the mess at a minimum, until it was time to pull over and finish the job. Kane paused then, with his hand on the back of the human’s head, to consider Raven. She needed to know better how to do this, but he supposed he could let it go for today. She’d done it for him before, but it had been a punishment then and it would be a punishment now. He didn’t want her to feel punished. Today was her day to have him. He wanted her in as good a mood as a human could possibly be.

Kane broke the bone himself and harvested the gland, idly wondering what use to put her to once she was crew. He found it a little remarkable that Urak had never tried to teach any of his slaves simple ship functions. For that matter, beyond a few simple commands such as ‘eat that’, ‘stop’, ‘be quiet’, and ‘fuck me’, Urak hadn’t even taught his humans Jotan. He’d been fascinated by them all right, but more for what their Earther habits were, not what they could be taught to do for a Jotan. But then, maybe Urak had simply never gotten his claws on the right sort of human. If his father had ever lit on Raven, it would be whole worlds of difference, Kane was sure.

Ferocious, far-thinking, fuckable Raven. Who had begged him so prettily for the privilege of mating with him in human fashion. Kane could see for the first time the attraction in indulging some of those Earther habits Urak had been so keen on. He had seen enough of the human’s mating programs on the tee-vee to know humans could be incredibly creative when the urge was on them. So could Jotan, for that matter, and there were things he knew of that he would greatly enjoy schooling his Raven in someday.

Ah, but this was Raven’s day. And for now Kane settled for telling Raven nothing but the right names for his instruments as he worked the harvester. Once they got back to space, he’d find out what her strengths—other than the purely sexual—were, and train her up for them. He noticed that Sue-Eye tried to repeat him as well, and he met her efforts with a faint smile.

“Not for you, ichuta’a,” he said, gesturing for her to join him in the backseat. “You already know everything you need to. Go, Raven.”

Raven aimed them west along the highway and Kane leaned back in the seat, his hand on Sue-Eye’s thigh and a feeling of comfortable excitement nestled in his gut. He was making damned good time. Two more big hunts and he would be full and ready to find his ship. The speed with which he was moving now more than made up for the shitty beginning he’d had. Raven alone almost made up for that.

Mm, and soon he could put thoughts of Vahst aside for the night and give himself over to her. He didn’t even know the last time he’d been so keyed up about a tussle in the sheets. He wondered what she had in mind, exactly. His hand stroked a little up Sue-Eye’s thigh, although his eyes were fixed on Raven’s reflection in the little console mirror. Sue-Eye tentatively returned the gesture, bringing his attention to her.

He considered slapping her, then settled back and left her hand where it was. “Which eye is your good one?” he asked.

She locked up tight, terror etched in every inch of her.

Kane smiled, lazily running his hand higher. He loved that look on her. She’d gotten too used to him too damned fast; he liked to give her a reminder now and then that she was really not very safe with him. “I think you’d better answer me,” he said.

Slowly, she brought up her free hand and let her fingertips brush the thin skin below her left eye. He could see the pulse in her throat beating faster.

Kane leaned in, examining the right. He saw no scarring, but the pupil did not expand when he blocked her light. “What happened to this one?” he asked.

“Someone hit me.”

“Did you deserve it?”

She didn’t answer right away. Kane ran his gaze over her and saw she genuinely appeared to be thinking about it.

“No,” she said at last. “I didn’t. I didn’t even deserve to get hit and I sure didn’t deserve to lose my eye.”

“You didn’t lose it,” he pointed out. “It’s still there.” And if it was just the nerve that was damaged, he could fix it up easy when he got home. Or grow her a new eye, if it came to that. Still, the damage wasn’t visible. It wouldn’t affect her price, anyway. “What did you do that got you hit?”

“Apparently, I brought him the wrong kind of beer. It was the only kind we had, and he bought it. Asshole.”

“Your dead commander?” Kane guessed.

She started to shake her head, and then laughed and nodded. “Sure, why not? My first dead commander, only I don’t really think he’s dead, I just like to believe it.”

Kane grunted, his interest ebbing. Raven was watching them in the mirror. Her eyes were so sharp and clear. “Say your lesson,” he told her.

“Se ven garrug-ta.”

I belong to you.

Kane smiled, squeezing Sue-Eye’s thigh with the anticipation of having his Raven. “Find us a hotel,” he ordered.

“What, already?” She made a play at surprise, but her eyes shining in the mirror were teasing.

“I’m only giving you one day,” he told her, and then leaned in close to growl, “But I’m going to give you the whole day.”

“You’re too good to me.”

“I know it.” His hand slipped up Sue-Eye’s thigh unthinkingly and lightly rubbed. “What are you going to do first?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” She tossed her hair, slapping him deliberately with purple. “And I wouldn’t tell you even if I had.”

He snapped his teeth at her and leaned back with a smile on his face, stroking the flesh of the female at his side. He could smell musk in the air, Raven’s and Sue-Eye’s both, and it made a sweet perfume. He supposed he should really care more about losing a day’s work, and he knew damned well what Urak would have thought of him throwing off a chance to hunt for a little sexplay, but he didn’t care. There was nothing around here now but road and the distant blocks of human houses, but sooner or later, they would come to a hotel, and then his Raven would stop. No hunting, no Vahst, and no Heat. Just him. Just her.

He couldn’t wait.

*

When Tagen woke for the second time, it was to the sound of the door closing as Daria left. He was losing all his Fleet training. He hadn’t even felt her leave the bed, and these wayside hostels did not bankrupt themselves providing the comforts of their quarters.

And yet, here he lay, succumbing to its incommodious magnetism once again.

Tagen threw back the thin bedding and rose, teeth bared at the brutality of action when sleep yet beckoned. But Daria would be returning presently, he knew. She had gone either to fetch food or to sign them free of the room and in either case, it behooved him to make ready.

He opened the door to the privy-room (easily the smallest he had ever seen, on this world or any other), letting Grendel streak past him and out into the main chamber. The cat had spent its frustrations during the night shredding the privy-paper. It lay in drifts nearly ankle-deep. Tagen marked himself to give the animal a stern lecture at a later date on the subject of showing respect to public properties and those employed to clean same, but he did not trouble himself to gather up the mess. He stepped into the shower instead and activated the water.

The controls were greatly dissimilar from those in Daria’s house, but not complicated beyond understanding. A far greater irritation to him was the ridiculously-proportioned soaps. The bottle of hair-cleanser in particular was a nuisance; it was small enough that merely spinning off the tiny cap was difficult and shaking the thick fluid out of the inflexible bottle was a sore test for a newly-risen man. He didn’t think it was very good for his hair, either. It lathered poorly and when he added more to make up for it, the suds immediately ran into his eyes.