Night Raven II

by Lyssa Hart

  And that wasn’t all.

  As they got closer, she saw that it was a train platform—a fully appointed passenger stop. There were restrooms and there was a water fountain.

  She didn’t know if any of it worked, but her throat closed the minute she thought about water.

  Relief flooded her, too, when she saw the others were already there.

  She felt like crying when she saw that Brahma was sitting up with his back propped against the wall of the station.

  She headed directly towards him when Hawk lifted her up to the platform and released her. “How are you doing?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Better. Nanos pushed the bullets out and closed the wounds. Not nearly as painful now.”

  That made her feel like crying. She struggled with it, swallowing convulsively a couple of times. “Are you thirsty? Can I get you anything that would make you more comfortable?”

  He stared at her in surprise.

  And that made her want to cry more because she knew why he was surprised.

  Nobody had ever tried to comfort him before.

  Even she hadn’t. She just stabbed them with the needles and left as soon as she could escape, more focused on the way it made her feel to treat them like that than on what it made them feel.

  “I can get it myself,” he said after a moment, looking a little stepped on.

  He thought she was suggesting he wasn’t capable of taking care of himself, she realized, and he was hurt and angry and embarrassed … and unmanned.

  “I know. I just … wanted to do something for you to make you feel better.”

  “Mouth sex would make me feel a lot better,” he said hopefully.

  She gaped at him for a minute before it sank in that he was saying ‘kiss’ not oral sex. Then she laughed. She couldn’t help it. She bit her lip when his expression closed. Grasping his face in both hands, she leaned toward him and kissed him, lightly, on the lips. “That’s a kiss.”

  He grabbed her before she could retreat. “I like the other better.”

  Puma punched him on the arm. “You ain’t banged up enough?” he growled.

  “Ow,” Brahma growled. “What the fuck?”

  Puma held out the food he’d brought. “Eat. It’ll do you more good than swapping spit with the woman.”

  “Well! That’s just gross!” Alexis snapped.

  He gave her a look. “Really?”

  “Yes, really!” Alexis retorted.

  He studied her for a long moment. “Sooo you aren’t against swapping spit? You just don’t want to call it like it is?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “The objective isn’t to … uh … swap … it.”

  “What is the objective?” Brahma asked curiously.

  “To get them ready to fuck,” Hawk answered—from all the way across the platform where he’d taken a spot near the fire Cham-Two had built for cooking or at least heating their food.

  Alexis swiveled around to gape at him in disbelief, partly because of the comment itself but mostly because he’d heard it from that distance.

  They hadn’t been whispering, but they hadn’t been talking loud either.

  There was a glint in his eyes she couldn’t quite decipher.

  “And if Brahma hadn’t had fucking on his mind, he wouldn’t have nearly as many holes. Would you, Bram?”

  Brahma stammered for a couple of moments and then glared at him. “That’s one of those damned questions that there’s no way to answer it that’s going to sound better!”

  “What did you have your mind on, then?” Puma asked.

  Brahma glared at him. “I was thinking about putting my foot up your ass the next time you try to break in line,” he growled after a long pause.

  “You’re right, Hawk. That’s what had him too damned distracted to do his job.”

  Brahma tried to surge up as he turned and walked off.

  Alexis forestalled him by grabbing his shoulders and pushing him back.

  Not that she could have if he hadn’t yielded.

  Which he did so abruptly that she landed in his lap.

  He let out a hiss of pain, but he grabbed her before she could ‘dismount’.

  “Let her up, Bram. She hasn’t eaten.”

  Reluctantly, Brahma lifted her by her waist and set her away. He looked like a sullen school boy, though.

  * * * *

  “You think he’s going to be ok?” Alexis asked Hawk when she’d joined him and Cham-Two near the small fire Cham-Two had made to heat the cans of food he’d dumped together in a camp pan.

  Hawk passed her a plate and a spoon. It looked like it might be canned stew, but there really wasn’t enough light to examine it.

  Thankfully, it tasted like stew, too.

  Sort of.

  “He looked like he was moving ok to me,” Hawk responded dryly. “We’re cyborgs, baby. And we have nanos. There really isn’t too much than can take any of us down.”

  Alexis started to argue, but desisted. “You’re biological, too.”

  “Yes, that’s the part that hurts like a mother when we get shot,” Cham-Two muttered.

  She didn’t know how to respond to that. It was also the part that felt good when they kissed, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to point that out. They were already way too interested in their biology, and hers.

  Not that she wasn’t thoroughly primed after all the ‘foreplay’ they’d so graciously bestowed upon her, but she wasn’t easy in her mind about it.

  Just because their biology was prompting them to ‘mate’ it didn’t follow that they were ready for it mentally or emotionally—clearly physically they were primed, but that was only part of the issue.

  There had already been tension between them because of their urges. What if she had sex with one and they immediately started fighting over who was next?

  She could get hurt in the crossfire.

  They could get hurt.

  There could be bad feelings all around—feuding and fighting between them.

  It was a can of worms it seemed a bad idea to open.

  If she had a choice.

  She wasn’t sure she did.

  She couldn’t leave.

  She had nowhere to go and that was if they were willing to let her go.

  She didn’t believe they would consciously hurt her.

  But they wanted sex.

  And she knew how violent some men could get about not getting sex when they wanted it.

  Multiplied by four—that was really scary—especially when they were elite killing machines who hadn’t been programmed with social skills or had the chance to learn them in the real world.

  So it looked like a damned if she did, damned if she didn’t situation.

  She thought she had to err on the side of caution, but she also felt like she should just go with her instincts.

  Because there seemed to be more good reasons to go with them than negative ones.

  She really hoped those weren’t lying to her because she was horny as hell already and she thought she was going to have a very hard time saying no if they were just determined to … sex her mouth.

  It would’ve been a whole different ballgame if she wasn’t attracted to them, or worse, was repelled by them—that could’ve been ugly.

  * * * *

  It had been the most physically exhausting day ever and by the time Alexis had finished her stew she was close to nodding off.

  They were short one sleeping bag.

  Because there’d been no plan to include her.

  She understood that, but she still felt mistreated.

  She wasn’t a lot happier when she found out she’d be using Hawk’s sleeping bag.

  With or without him?

  But she discovered she was just too tired to argue about it or refuse the offer.

  When he opened it up and spread it out for her, she climbed on it, stretched, found as comfortable a position as she could and dropped from the face of the Earth.

  S
he stirred when she felt Hawk join her later, but she didn’t rise high enough to do more than grumble about being disturbed. And it didn’t occur to her to maintain any sort of distance. When he snuggled her against his length, she rooted around for a new comfortable position and went back to sleep.

  She had her face planted against his chest when she woke up, his scent in her nostrils, and his warmth wrapped around her.

  He was wide awake when she pulled away cautiously and looked up to see if he was sleeping.

  For a handful of thudding heartbeats she met his gaze.

  She thought he might have kissed her, but someone close by stirred and got up, distracting both of them.

  He rolled away and sat up.

  Since she was zipped in the bag with him, she rolled with him and ended up in his lap.

  He looked down at her, his lips curling faintly. “Lose something?”

  She pushed herself up, struggling to act unconcerned. “Found something,” she muttered, wrestling with the zipper.

  He reached around her when she couldn’t get it down and tugged until he’d moved the zipper down far enough she could bail out.

  She headed for the lady’s room, hoping against hope that it had working toilets.

  A single light, having survived time, flickered to life and kept flickering.

  The place looked the worse for the years it had lain unused and growing moss and mildew.

  Alexis was creeped out but too desperate to let that stop her from using the facilities.

  She had to drip dry, which she wasn’t happy about, but the little paper that remained was powder by the time she gripped it.

  She found a faucet that still worked—a little. A trickle of brownish water came out, but after she’d let it run a few minutes it looked a little clearer.

  She was still afraid to rinse her mouth with it, but she used it to wash her hands—even found enough soap to make her hands slippery if not to work up a lather and felt a little better after she’d washed her face and hands and used her fingers to detangle and pull some order into her hair.

  All in all a totally unsatisfactory experience, she reflected as she left, missing real civilization already.

  She’d just thought she had to live under minimal conditions!

  In hind sight, it almost seemed like luxury.

  They had more stew for breakfast, yum! But she saw beans were next on the menu and decided to count her blessings while she could.

  Hawk decided to stay put for another day despite Brahma’s conviction that he was recovered enough to move.

  Hawk shook his head. “I don’t like it any more than any of the rest of you, but you’re a liability right now, Bram. You’re going to have to be ready to fight if we run into trouble, and you aren’t.

  “Right now, we’re ok. The searchers are still focused on the north-south track. We can afford one more day. We can’t afford to get caught with anyone less than a hundred percent.”

  Brahma was pissed off, but he didn’t argue.

  Alexis felt badly for him.

  She didn’t doubt Hawk’s assessment of the situation. Even she could see that Brahma was still stiff and in a good bit of pain.

  But it wounded his ego to have it pointed out that he was less than perfect and worse, that he was a liability to the group.

  She was tempted to offer pity sex to make him feel better—well, not really pity, more like empathy—but there really wasn’t any privacy to speak of and she didn’t want to get everyone all riled up.

  It might not have that effect, of course, but it could and that was enough to convince her to think of another way to try to cheer Brahma up that wouldn’t result in her flat of her back with her legs in the air—while the four took turns.

  She was actually a little inclined to see that in light of excitement in a positive way, but that was pure fantasy and she wasn’t stupid enough to think it was anything else.

  Letting all four dip their wick, one after another, wouldn’t be fun—for her. It would just be exhausting.

  Chapter Nine

  Alexis felt like she’d barely closed her eyes when she felt a presence not Hawk lean close. “Time to go.”

  Hawk sat up immediately, taking her with him since she was trapped in the same sleeping bag.

  Puma moved off and woke the others when Hawk reached for the zipper to separate the Siamese twins they became at night when they shared the sleeping bag.

  Still more than half asleep, Alexis struggled to her feet and headed to the bathroom.

  “Ten seconds,” Hawk growled at her when he saw her intent.

  She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look at him.

  It was no use, the light from the tiny lantern was too feeble to illuminate much more than a dim patch on the platform that looked more like a lighter shadow.

  Shaking her head, she moved faster. She didn’t think she could pee in ten seconds, let alone anything else, but she was going to hit the pot if she could.

  She was still trying to get her pants up when Hawk appeared in the doorway. “Get your ass in gear! We’ve got company breathing down our necks. We’re moving.”

  Alexis had been on the verge of giving him a piece of her mind, but that comment motivated her. She left off trying to straighten her pants and dashed to the faucet for a quick splash that did little to wake her and probably less to clean her hands.

  She dried them on the legs of her pants as she dashed out.

  The entire group had already gathered everything up and was headed out when she reached the platform again.

  Hawk was waiting for her at the edge. The others were rapidly disappearing into the black curtain of the tunnel.

  He jumped down as she reached him and held his arms up to catch her.

  It said a lot for her state of consciousness and her trust in him that she didn’t even hesitate. She leapt to him.

  Instead of putting her down, he hoisted her over his shoulder and took off at a lope that knocked the breath out of her, and made her regret the leap.

  “I can walk,” she whispered.

  “When we put some distance between us and the firefight right on our tail.”

  She shut up.

  If they were close enough for him to worry about that she damned sure didn’t want to give them away.

  It seemed to her that hours passed in a haze of discomfort and pain before he finally stopped and allowed her to slip from his arms.

  Her head swam.

  Fortunately, he caught her, holding her until she managed to get her equilibrium. Her head was still pounding, though, when he caught her arm and led her through a wall of blackness and finally stopped again and placed her hand on something solid.

  Turned out it was Brahma, not a wall.

  He dragged her against his length and curled his arms around her.

  She knew she should probably object, just on principle, but she felt like shit—headachy, vaguely nauseous, and foggy from too little sleep.

  In a few minutes she heard a scraping noise that drew her attention upwards and she saw an entire moon cycle in the space of seconds as the manhole cover was slid back. Two climbed out, one after another. One was Hawk, but the only way she could tell was by the wings.

  Brahma was holding her—so either Puma or Cham-Two.

  The cover was put back in place and they stood in complete darkness again.

  Brahma decided, since she wasn’t struggling and it was dark and they had to wait anyway that he might as well put the time to good use.

  He grabbed her face between both hands and lifted her to her toes, planting his mouth over hers and sucking on them with just enough pressure to ignite a smoldering fire at her core.

  Thankfully, just mouth to mouth!

  She’d say one thing for the guys. They were fast learners.

  And it felt really good. As bad as she felt before he started, he completely distracted her with the heat of his mouth, the taste, stirring currents in her that she wouldn’t have thought
he could kindle. She held perfectly still while he slowly explored the tender cavity of her mouth, simply enjoying the quest until he’d generated enough heat to encourage her to strike off on her own expedition.

  That sent a shockwave through him. Plastered against him by that time, she felt it pass through him and into her.

  It almost felt as if the Earth moved.

  Then she realized his quest had abruptly shifted gears.

  He lifted her, planted her against the wall and then pressed against her, and she found herself being dry humped by a ridge of flesh that felt like a tree limb—hard and huge.

  It inspired her to greater heights of stupidity. She curled her arms around his neck and undulated her hips against his, riding the ridge of flesh.

  Somebody punched him hard enough to jar both of them.

  Not hard enough to convince him to stop. He was still trying to figure out how to get his cock out of his pants.

  Two people levered him off.

  Thankfully, slowly enough she didn’t hit the floor … except feet first.

  She was weak kneed and thought she might crumple anyway, but she managed to stay erect.

  Like Brahma.

  “What the fuck man? Get up the gods damned ladder!” Hawk snarled.

  Thankfully, she couldn’t see the look he bent on her before he snatched her up and tossed her across his shoulder, none too gently, and followed Brahma up.

  He dumped her when they got to the top—right on her ass.

  He crouched down in front of her. “I would’ve thought you’d have better fucking judgment, Alexis,” he growled furiously.

  “Me! Like I could’ve beat him off!”

  “It sure as fuck didn’t look to me like you were trying to!”

  Ok so she hadn’t, but she couldn’t have if she’d wanted to.

  It just happened that she hadn’t exactly wanted to.

  “It was me,” Brahma growled. “If you’re going to be pissed off at anybody it should be me.”

  “You bet your ass I’m fucking pissed off,” Hawk growled back at him, but then he shook his head. “We’re miles from where we stashed the armored vehicle. Keep your damned hands to yourself and your mind on the mission before you get Alexis killed.”