Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
An Infected with torn gray-green scales managed to scramble up three rungs before Ravik slammed his boot down on its fingers. Bones cracked and it fell backward into the others, knocking them into a snapping, screaming tangle.
Ravik reached the platform and rolled over the edge just as another body hit the ladder below. Sev grabbed his arm to help pull him up.
For one second, their hands locked and their eyes held.
The touch sent a jolt straight through him.
Not pleasure exactly, he thought—not like that fucking mating bite Sev had given him, and not like Cassie’s mouth or the forbidden memory of Sev’s shaft pressed against his. But the contact still carried something.
Though his friend’s fingers he felt familiarity…earned trust…the memory of battlefields and med bays and Sev’s hands hauling him out of danger a hundred times before this. All the good things he’d come to associate with his best friend.
Until he betrayed me. And made me betray myself.
Ravik yanked his arm away as soon as he was fully on the platform and Sev’s face closed.
Good, Ravik told himself.
Except it didn’t feel very good—not very fucking good at all.
The platform was narrow and slick with mist. Cassie was pressed against the tower support, breathing hard, one hand massaging her bruised temple. Sev crouched by the relay panel, already pulling tools from his kit and prying open the cracked crystalline cover. Ravik took his position at the ladder, shock blade in hand, and looked down.
The herd was gathering below.
Dozens of faces tilted up toward them, white eyes glowing, lipless mouths gaping and drooling. More were still coming through the ravine, drawn by scent, sound, blood, and whatever else the three of them were giving off.
Ravik could hear claws on metal as the first ones started climbing.
“How long?” he demanded, casting a glance back at Sev.
“I need three minutes,” Sev said, not looking up from the relay.
“From the looks of this, you have two at most,” he snapped.
“I need three,” Sev repeated.
“Then you’d better work fucking fast,” Ravik told him.
Cassie made a faint sound beside them.
“Boys, please don’t start again.”
Ravik glanced at her and saw the glow under her sleeve pulsing faintly—the place where she was bitten, he remembered now. The reason she’d needed male seed—his and Sev’s both.
His anger faltered. The curvy little human looked tired and scared and brave, and he suddenly wanted desperately to hold her…wanted to kiss the hurt place on her head…wanted to tuck her behind him and make sure nothing in the universe touched her ever again.
Then his mind threw up another memory.
Cassie tucked against his chest while Sev knelt between her thighs with that clear medical wand, filling her because she needed to be filled. Ravik’s hands on her breasts and belly. Sev’s voice telling him to touch her clit…telling him how to help her take the wand…telling her she was a good girl and that she had such a sweet little pussy.
The memory should have enraged him—Cassie was supposed to be his mate—at least that was how his body recognized her.
Instead, his cock stirred to attention again.
He cursed under his breath—not now, damn it! He didn’t need to be fighting for his life with a fucking hard-on distracting him.
He drove the shock blade through the first Infected that got close enough to reach the platform. The body jerked and fell, taking another climber with it. More came behind them, their long fingers gripping the ladder, their mouths snapping.
Strangely, Ravik took comfort in the battle. At least the Infected were a physical enemy he could fight—unlike the fucking memories that kept popping into his head and making him unreasonably hard.
Because this made sense—enemy below, female behind, friend at his back—even if that friend had become something more—something too dangerous to name. All he had to do was kill what climbed, hold the line, and buy them some time.
That was easy.
What was not easy was the way his memories kept turning Sev from friend to rival to something else altogether. The way he remembered Sev’s hand in Cassie’s hair and did not know whether he wanted to rip him away or put him closer. The way he remembered the Tenebrian woman from years ago, the taste of ale on his tongue and her hands on his chest while Sev’s hand had slid over his hip, steadying him…stroking him…making him shudder harder than he’d ever admitted.
He had blamed the Goldsheill ale—for years, he had blamed the fucking ale.
But there was no ale to blame now. Only Cassie and Sev and the memory of wanting them both naked in bed with him.
And a horde of Infected climbing toward them like the whole planet had decided to punish him for remembering.
“Ravik!” Cassie shouted.
He snapped back just in time to see one of the Infected had climbed around the underside of the platform, using the tower struts instead of the ladder. It came over the side near Cassie, mouth open wide, black drool dripping from its needle-sharp teeth.