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)
“Mate also needs you to wear pants,” Cassandra said instantly.
Ravik looked down at her. For some reason, her words seemed to carry more weight than Sev’s had. After a moment, he nodded.
“If Mate wishes it, Ravik will wear pants.”
“I wish it very much,” she said. “In fact, I cannot express how much I wish it.”
“Then I will wear pants.” Ravik looked at Severin. “Sev, bring pants.”
Severin stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“Bring pants,” Ravik repeated, as though this was a perfectly reasonable request. “Mate wants Ravik to wear them but Ravik does not want to stop holding Mate. So Sev can bring pants.”
Cassandra pressed her lips together, but a laugh escaped anyway. It was small and startled and quickly smothered, but Sev heard it and so did Ravik.
The Beast Kindred looked down at her again, his expression softening in a way Severin had not seen in months.
“Mate laughs,” he said. “Mate is laughing.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Cassandra warned, but her voice had gone softer too.
Severin watched them and felt something twist sharply in his chest.
It wasn’t jealousy, he told himself. Or at least, it shouldn’t have been. Ravik was his best friend. His brother in every way that mattered.
Severin had spent the past three months watching the strongest male he had ever known slip piece by piece into silence and hunger and fog. He should have been overjoyed to see him standing here—speaking, teasing, responding like himself again.
And he was—the relief was so intense it almost hurt.
But underneath the joy was something else—something colder and sharper. Something Sev had no wish to examine too closely.
Because Ravik was looking at Cassandra as though she was light after months of darkness.
And Cassandra, despite her fear and exasperation and all her sharp-edged protests, was looking back at the big Beast Kindred as though she had forgotten for a moment that she was supposed to be afraid. As though she might be feeling something…
Severin looked away and forced himself to focus on the science—that was safer. He ticked off the facts in his head.
The anti-viral had failed under the scope. Ravik had regressed after leaving Cassandra’s presence. He had sought her out—guided by scent—and once he held her and inhaled deeply, his cognition returned almost instantly. The white film had receded from his eyes and his speech had markedly improved. His memory had sharpened—he’d remembered about Sev burning the mash and that had been months ago. Also, social awareness had reasserted itself.
There had to be a reason for all that and it plainly wasn’t the serum.
It was her—Cassandra.
Or more precisely, it was something her body was producing—some volatile compound carried in her scent. Pheromonal, perhaps. Maybe endocrine-driven, since she was female and that was one of their primary hormones? He didn’t know enough about human physiology to speculate further than that.
All he knew was that somehow Cassandra’s scent had cut through the fog. It had not merely attracted Ravik—it had called him back from the brink.
“Severin?” Cassandra said warily and he realized he was staring at her in what was probably a most disconcerting way—like she was a science experiment.
She shifted in Ravik’s arms, pulling away a little and Sev saw her as a woman instead.
The wet red silk clung to her soft curves and her cheeks flushed a becoming pink. Her hair was damp where Ravik had buried his face in it, and several strands clung to her throat. She looked exhausted, frightened, annoyed, and alive in a way that made his fangs ache with sudden, inexplicable sharpness. Not only that, but his shaft was getting hard too.
He had to make himself look away from her luscious body at once.
“I need samples,” he blurted.
Cassandra’s eyes narrowed.
“Samples of what? You already drew my blood.”
“I know, but I need more. Also I need samples of your hair, skin, breath condensate, perhaps a cheek swab for some epithelial cells—”
“No.”
The word cracked through the kitchen like a slap.
Sev stopped talking and looked at her in surprise.
“No?” he asked, frowning.
“No.”
Cassandra pulled back from Ravik—not far, because the Beast Kindred’s arms were still around her—but enough to look Severin directly in the eyes.
“No more samples tonight. No more needles. No more stripping, swabbing, sniffing, scrubbing, poking, prodding, or whatever else you have in mind. I know you’re trying to save your friend and I know you’re trying to cure the zombie virus and that’s all very noble and important, but I am a person—not a walking test tube in a slutty red nightgown and my eyes are up here, please.”
Severin flinched internally, though he kept his face still. His eyes had wandered downward again and he forced them back to her face.
The curvy little human was right again, he realized—it was becoming a rather inconvenient habit on her part.
“You’re right,” he said stiffly, because a true male admitted his errors.
Her suspicious expression faltered.