Things? She wanted to know more about the things.
She held up the mirror. Vampire level paleness, check. And pink whorls that ran across her face and neck like one of those contour maps of the land but drawn in pink. Pink? Fuck. She pursed her lips, tilted her head this way and that. Really, it looked like she was a badass toy doll.
It must be the angel nanites? She recalled a brilliant white in the syringes used to inject her. Mix red and white and she guessed it gave you pink.
There were probably worse side-effects one could have. Death, for example.
Cyn inhaled, thought about how she felt internally. Not that different. Good. Pretty heroic, considering her traumas. But was the world a better place with her in it?
“I let a Ghoul Lord go free to spread its vileness across the universe. Damn.” Frowning, she screwed up her mouth and looked from Maura to Vargr to Rutger.
Little MechaMo butted under her arm and peered at her with those creepy yellow eyes.
Smirking, she gave him a pat. “I’m okay.”
Rutger shrugged. “It’s in the past. Let it go. Look to the future.”
“I guess?” Then she sat up, shooing away all their hands, swung her legs off the lounge, and slowly she stood. Not one bit of shake, no unsteadiness. She raised her right hand to eye level and wiggled her fingers.
Would it be asking too much to get pink fire?
“I haven’t said thank you, properly, for not abandoning me.” She felt almost shy looking from Rutger to Vargr, as if this was wrong or weird.
“Abandoning you? What?” Vargr angled his head, looked to Rutger. “We should spank her, yes?”
She laughed then smiled at them and opened her arms. They came to her and she kissed them everywhere she could reach as she said thank you, over and over, and hugged them as if she would never let them go.
Chapter 22
Avidex woke his human.
It will be thousands of years before we reach our new planet, Willow. It would be best to sleep much of the time.
I see.
I thought I would occupy myself by asking you many things.
Such as?
This good and bad. On a new planet how do I tell one from the other?
If I destroy all of one species but revive one that is almost extinct, am I good or bad? For example, if the killed one is like the zebras but the one I let live is humanlike?
I’m not sure it works like that.
But you’d rather I keep the intelligent ones alive, if there is a choice?
Willow sighed, mentally. He could always tell when he had her bothered. Since she had often bothered him on Earth, this amused Avidex.
Since I don’t know this planet or its species, I don’t know the answer. The humanoids might be terrible.
True. A wise answer. You know, Willow… you were right. There is a certain joy in creating things.
You only did it the once.
I experimented more than once. You were asleep at the time. Same as when I ate you.
What?
And fucked you. He would have laughed if he had the capacity. He’d shocked her.
But you divert from my topic. I experimented. I made more than one zebra. I made a few animals. I’ve instructed the queen to find a planet uninhabited by anything intelligent. I am going to create more things. As well as eat things. I can’t exist without eating.
You’ve changed, Avidex. I’m glad I changed your mind.
If you believe it was your logic, it was not. It happened because you are a part of me. Simply that.
Oh.
Yes, you humans are like… He searched for one of those metaphors humans liked. Bedbugs. You made me itch for a different bed.
Chapter 23
The three of them sat, butt naked, on the edge of the infinity pool on the roof of Maelstrom Towers, with the cool water flowing past them over the edge into the shallower pool below. They’d used the large reservoir tanks to refill it, after restarting the generators. It wouldn’t last forever, and this might be the last time anyone swam in a pool like this for centuries to come, but hey, they were going out with a bang.
Cyn nudged Rutger. She pointed across at the line of bottles he had balanced in the shallow water beside his ass. “One of those.”
“Tequila, rum, whisky,” he began. “Oh fuck it. Here.” He grabbed a random bottle and handed it to her.
“Mine not good enough?” Vargr indicated his own groupie collection of spirits, clinked a fingernail on the nearest rectangular bottle. “Fifty-year-old Lapfrog or whatever this is called?”
“Laphroaig,” Rutger said.
She raised the bottle Rutger had given her and took a few sips. Vodka?
An IV line, with red liquid in the tubing, ran from Vargr’s arm up to a bag hooked to the top of a metal stand. The stand rested on the bottom of the pool behind him. His dose of demon nanites had almost run through.
Both of them relied on Maura to supply the nanites. If his levels fell too low, his wounds reopened. If hers went too high, she needed more angel ones.
And if Maura vanished? Cyn ran her hands through her pink-streaked black hair. They’d find another fae with the capability and the right nanites. The Ghoul Lords had been eradicated from this Earth but the nanites remained, as well as a few beasters like her and Vargr who relied on a supply of them to live, sanely.
In an hour or so it would be dawn, but in the meantime, she could admire the campfire lights that dotted the land before them. They spread from left to right. Big Mo and Maura were down there along with many other beasters, aiding the remaining humans, helping them sort out how to live off the land. A few had chosen to remain in the scrapers here. Not many. She guessed their memories held too many terrifying experiences to feel safe inside the buildings. One day those would collapse too.
In the days after the great battle against the Ghoul Lords, she’d been told people had begun descending, going down the stairs and the roadways until one morning the first of them staggered out into the sunshine. Beasters had watched from shadows.
Some humans were afraid of the beasters who came to them in the night, but the majority were grateful.
It would not be easy to live out there, in the wilds. Animals were multiplying, and not all of them were food for humans. Some were predators.
The circle of life, she supposed. “I wonder if the humans can have babies now?”
“That’s a very good question. If not, we’ll get all the fae to find a way. Maybe for us too?” Rutger said. “Hey, are we the new gods? It’s been bugging me.”
“Do there have to be some?” she mused. “I mean, do there?”
“I have a need to find a reason to all this.” He swept his arm out wide, covering much of that land before them. “Look at them. Maybe it is us? We are the gods? How else will humans survive without divine aid, and you have to admit we are no longer human.”
She nodded. “We do have powers beyond the comprehension of humanity, pre-apocalypse.”
“Flying for starters. Yeah.” Vargr unplugged his IV line and dropped the end into the pool, then unscrewed the lid on his bottle and swallowed some of the laphroaig. “We are the beginnings of a new line of gods!”
“Ahhh, not convinced. You know…” Rutger reached out and pretended to pluck something from the air and drag it back to him then study it. “I always thought gods should be able to create life. Whereas all we can do is be strong and destroy shit.”
“The Greek gods did a bit of everything.” Vargr gargled some whisky and spat it out, then dug at his teeth with a finger. “I need some floss. That meat had bones.”
Cyn screwed up an eyebrow at him. Ugh. Males.
She imagined how this would look to any stranger who walked up behind them and saw them sitting here.
The apocalypse was newly averted. A tiny fraction of the human population had survived, and here they were carousing. They’d be silhouetted against that sky with a line of bottles to either side. Vargr with his IV
drip and with his wingtips swishing into the pool, her too with a port in her arm for drugs she was addicted to. And they were all of them getting drunk, while naked, on top of a luxury penthouse while the world essentially teetered on the verge of destruction.
The world burned, and they were having a bacchanalian party.
Yes, they were truly wholesome heroes.
At least she’d steered them clear of eating the baby zebras. So many foals were toddling about in the vicinity, if that was what you called baby zebras.
“I saw a bunch of koalas today,” she added quietly. “In the eucalypts down near that river we flew over, V.”
“Really? Weren’t they extinct?”
“Apparently not.”
With fewer humans, many nearly extinct species might repopulate this planet. They’d already had a five-year head start. Pluses and minuses. Not that humans ever ate koalas. These ones had been rather odd. “Didn’t they used to be plain grey in the fur color?”
“Koalas?” Rutger looked down at her. The motes generated by his horns floated past between her eyes and the brightening sky. His blue eyes seemed to brighten as she studied his face. “Yes, they were plain gray, furry, cute.”
He reached down and slid his hand under her breast, cupping it.
That was enough to stir her and Cyn inhaled sharply then looked at where he held her. His big hand there, his thumb brushing over her skin and the edge of her areola.
“Ummm. These ones had zebra-type stripes.” That had been strange, but really with Rutger leaning over to kiss her nipple then draw it into his hot mouth and lick her there… koalas were fading as an issue. She wrapped her hand over his horn and held on for dear life as he slid his mouth lower… lower. She opened her thighs and felt her clit swelling.
The surge of pleasure made her lean back a little and sigh.
The water ran merrily past her thighs, tinkling as it cascaded, and she moaned as Rutger became more dedicated to his task.
“I remembered the big dildo this time,” she heard Vargr declare joyfully, as she arched toward Rutger.
Oh, that tongue of his, down there, licking.
* * * * *
Find all my books on Amazon here
For some of my other dark scifi romances…
Try THE STEAMWORK CHRONICLES for a trilogy boxset of kinky (retro-scifi) steampunk romances, where airships rule the skies
Or for something darker, try the MACHINERY OF DESIRE BOXSET
About Cari Silverwood
I love to hear from my readers.
If you enjoyed Cyn, Book 3 of Beast Horde, please consider leaving a review on your favorite retailer or website.
Cari Silverwood is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling writer of kinky darkness or sometimes of dark kinkiness, depending on her moods and the amount of time she’s spent staring into the night. When others are writing bad men doing bad things, you may find her writing good men who accidentally on purpose fall into the abyss and come out with their morals twisted in knots.
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This is a link to my website where I list my books from light to dark
Also by Cari Silverwood
Beast Horde Trilogy
Vargr
Rutger
Cyn
Ruled – Dark Sci-fi romance
Condemned – Dark Reverse Harem Sci-fi Romance
Dark Monster Fantasy (pansy-dark scifi romances – aka not really that dark)
Prey
Steel
Blade
Preyfinders Trilogy (kinky alien invasion scifi)
Precious Sacrifice
Intimidator
Defiler
Preyfinders: The Trilogy boxset
Preyfinders Universe
Cyberella
The Machinery of Desire (post-apocalyptic star wars-esque series with kink, and dubcon/ noncon)
Acquired Possession
Claimed Possession
Fated Possession – a novella first published in the Alien Alphas boxset
Branded Possession
Exquisite Possession
Machinery of Desire – the complete boxset
The Steamwork Chronicles Series (similar to The Machinery of Desire series)
Iron Dominance
Lust Plague
Steel Dominance
The Steamwork Chronicles Boxset – all three books in one volume
Pierced Hearts Series (contemporary BDSM and dubcon/ noncon series)
Take me, Break me
Klaus – a novella
Bind and Keep me
Make me Yours Evermore
Seize me From Darkness
Yield
The Complete Pierced Hearts boxset – all six books in one volume
Dark Hearts Trilogy (Dark Romances. Contemporary BDSM and dubcon/ noncon series)
Wicked Ways
Wicked Weapon
Wicked Hunt
Wolfe – a spin-off novel from the Dark Hearts trilogy
Dark Hearts Boxset – contains Wicked Ways, Wicked Weapon, Wicked Hunt
Mesmer – a Dark Contemporary Romance cowritten with Jennifer Bene and based on my Dark Hearts series
Nightmare Rising – a dark contemporary paranormal story cowritten with Nicolette Hugo
The Badass Brats Series (contemporary BDSM romances with Mff)
The Dom with a Safeword
The Dom on the Naughty List
The Dom with the Perfect Brats
The Dom with the Clever Tongue
Squirm Files Series Boxset (tentacle sex spoofs of erotic romance and monster stories)
Squirm – virgin captive of the billionaire biker tentacle monster
Strum – virgin captive of the billionaire demon rock star monster
The Well-hung Gun – virgin captive of the billionaire were-squid gunslinger monster
Cataclysm Blues Series
Cataclysm Blues
(A free kinky scifi novella)
Others
31 Flavors of Kink
Three Days of Dominance
Rough Surrender – a BDSM-themed, historical romance set in Cairo in 1910
My Romance Curse (romcom)
Santa with a K – A Naughty Xmas Fairy Tale
Magience series (epic fantasy)
Magience
Needle Rain
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my wonderful beta readers Janine Peta, Emma Rose, and Louise Hallet.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2020 Cari Silverwood
Editor: Nerine Dorman
Cover Artist: Cari Silverwood
www.carisilverwood.net
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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