And he was hoping it’d lead to some sort of redemption. A way to kill the GLs. A way to find his sister, even though every day that passed chiseled away at his hopes.
“You know.” Willow paused a moment, assessing them both. They’d shocked her, but the truth would’ve come out, even if the only other people at that meeting to decide Cyn’s fate had been Orm and Rutger. One dead, the other wanted into Cyn’s pants, which seemed a damn good clue he liked her.
For all he knew, Tom or one of the others carried a written request from Boaz.
“Okay. I can try. If you’ve nanomachines in you, Cyn, I can see those. Your eyes tell me it’s likely even if red is unique. I do health checks too. Sometimes I can even fix a problem. Some cancers. Liver disease. Infections. It’s been quite the trip learning what I can do, these past years.”
For a few moments, her unfocused gaze fell past them. He knew that look. Most beasters wondered about their changing bodies. The whys could haunt you.
However… Only one seat? He grinned and figured now was a good time for some skin on skin. He stooped and picked up Cyn, with one arm slid under her butt, then sat down himself, and rearranged her so she faced Willow. Her protests were spluttered and many, but so far, he lived. This was promising.
Willow only lifted her brows and smiled. “Don’t mind me. I get how it is.”
“Uhhh. How what is?” Cyn tried to lever his hand off her thigh but he jiggled his leg.
Bondmating, of course.
Willow was right. He was being driven by more than the normal desires, but what did it matter when he had a lapful of female?
“Sit. Stay. Behave.” Fuck that felt good to say. If she protested, he’d do what Rutger had once suggested she needed and upend her over his knee. Spank her.
That, he might not live through, but it’d be awesome.
“Vargr you are not my daddy or whatever.”
Daddy? Well that’d made Willow’s eyebrows climb even higher and her blue eyes dance.
“Shhh. I like having you on my lap. Admit it, so do you. Talk to Willow.”
This was like sticking his fingers in a bear trap and hoping the mechanism wasn’t working on this day, when it had definitely worked yesterday. The thrill was giving him a hard-on—that and her sitting on his dick.
She grumbled but relaxed, heaved in a breath. “Fine.
Chapter 23
It was weird and funny, how fast and hard her heart was beating. She was more invested in finding out what her little nanomachines were made of, or if they even existed, than she’d revealed to herself.
“I have to touch you to do this,” Willow said, asking permission with both her eyes and her words. She placed her hands on the table, palms upward.
She stared at those hands and saw more than slender fingers. Scary? Yes.
Not doing this would be silly. Wouldn’t it?
Very deliberately, Cyn put her hands into Willow’s and was surprised at the heat—hotter than her own skin and exciting in some way. A barely detectable vibration spread up her arms.
Willow closed her eyes. “Don’t speak while I do this. Please.”
The seconds ticked by, then surely it became minutes. Willow’s mouth moved and seemed to whisper words of some foreign language—soft and almost not-there. The minutes sludged by, slithered past, worming new worries under her skin and into her head. If she could fix cancer, what else might this woman do… This beaster woman?
As she’d thought before, it was obvious that beast was nothing like the right description for whatever the beasters had been injected with. Was it magic? Some sort of barely scientific pseudo-crappery to do with telekinesis and telepathy and spoon-bending shite?
Whatever it was, she would find out. This was why Vargr had been fascinated with her from the start. She was the anomaly, and maybe, if they couldn’t figure themselves out, they could figure her out? With that knowledge… the Ghoul Lords might be brought down.
Not that it wasn’t his cock that was leading him places now.
She squirmed on his lap, absorbed in the solid feel of his hands on her thighs, of how close his fingers were to a place she’d love to have them go—between her legs. She was getting way too warm, and her nipples were betraying her arousal, again.
Vargr kissed her neck and made this moment shimmy. Her eyelids lowered, rose. Wrong place, wrong time. Turning her head, she barely caught herself from saying something about not flirting.
A grin spread on his face. She scowled, but his fingers wandered closer to her center. Heavy fingers, possessive, nice fingers. She licked her lips, swallowed. Her mind tumbled again into that pause mode, where sex snuggled in and blanketed thoughts of anything logical.
Just be his. Sit here. Let him.
Oh yeah.
Cyn managed to scowl at him again until his fingers delved directly between her slightly spread thighs and draped over her, covering her clit, and more. Only her tights were between him and her.
Fuck, that definitely felt good. Tingles spread in a vast warm wave.
“You two, behave,” Willow intoned. Her eyes opened, shining blue. “Okay, here is what I found, in spite of all the sexy fucking about you two are doing. Yes, I can feel that too when I’m doing this. You need to go get a room, both of you.” Then she laughed.
Denying that would be useless, besides, she found herself smiling.
Vargr shook his head and sighed. “Two of you dissing me?”
“Dissing?” She swiveled in his lap. “You need a dictionary, man. This is more… teasing?”
“Bingo.” Willow sat back, releasing Cyn’s hands and she folded her own on her lap. “You have nanites.”
“Wow. Believe me, that’s actually a relief.” She blinked and waited.
Absentmindedly, Willow reached up and began twirling a lock of her drifting, blue hair. “If that’s what you needed, I can confirm it. I saw nothing to say you are anything dangerous. No evil lurking parasites, but I really don’t know what a Ghoul Lord would leave behind inside someone. Okay?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Vargr nod.
“Nothing else?” he added.
“Well, a little more. These nanites are smaller, faster moving in the bloodstream, and there are more of them. They look red when examined and are hard to see among the blood cells, while ours do actually seem blue. None of that means much, since we have no reference books on nanites. The last thing. Cyn, yours have writing on them I managed to decipher.”
“Oh?” Vargr sat straighter.
“Does maelstrom mean anything to either of you?”
“It’s tattooed on the back of my neck and is also written on Little Mo. This is a mech bug that follows me.” She indicated Little Mo, who’d sneaked into the tent and sat waiting beside the inner tent wall. “Maelstrom was the last experiment done by Dr. Nietz to try and defeat the Ghoul Lords.”
“Fuck me. Really?” Her fingers stilled in her hair. “So you might be some sort of remnant of a last weapon? I… am going to organize a meeting to discuss this. I’m on the Worshipper council.” She levered herself to the front of her chair and tapped the desk. “If there’s anything else, any other information you have, you can say it there. Also bring this critter here.” She pointed at Mo. “We need to do something more than just say words.”
She sure hoped so. The energy in this woman. “Yes. True. Let’s do this.”
“At dusk. It should be organized by then. People are out doing stuff. Be ready. Explore the place or go sleep in the meantime, just stay in the camp. We retreat into deeper rooms when daylight hits. An old habit even though the GLs don’t seem to bother us anymore. Least, not until you and your caravan arrived.
“And keep that critter with you so nobody lights it up with a weapon or kicks it over the edge. People are suspicious of anything new.”
“Okay.” She stood. “Thank you. There’s no payment required for this?”
“No. Gratis. What would you pay me with?” She grinned, her tong
ue licking out to her top lip and back in.
“Well. Thank you again.”
It struck Cyn at how that reflected on this new world. Values had been reorganized. Sexual favors and relationships of all sorts were, perhaps, more valued than material goods, for those could be unearthed everywhere. Decaying, but everywhere. What had the caravan brought that was worth anything to the Worshippers? People?
Vargr put both hands on her butt for a second then rose to his feet and moved aside. “Thank you, Willow. I like where this is going.”
When Willow stood, he reached forward and shook her hand. Cyn did the same.
Yes, yes. Things were happening. Cyn felt as if her eyes were on fire.
Damn, this was promising.
Chapter 24
Together, they wandered the green Parklands area, visiting the stalls people had erected where tables of goods were displayed. This was a market but one where payment was arbitrary and seemingly random. A cooking fire wafted high the smell of smoke and roasted meat, as well as a hint of burned plastic, and dancers swayed and twirled around the fire. People swapped things, kissed, and hugged. They discussed where they’d found the clothes, the food, the weapons, or the other pretty things they’d souvenired.
These souvenirs gave forever. Free ones. Objects stolen from the dead and gone. Yet laughter was common. The place was lovely, bathed by moonlight that lent a fine blue tone to the side of anything and anyone facing the opening. A backdrop of stars and those faraway hills. She’d grown used to the whole seeing-in-the-dark phenom.
She had to pause and look.
The height and breadth of this place the Worshippers had chosen took away one’s breath and gave back awe. Trees and grass and people doing everyday things, even if this was nighttime. It made her feel accepted and a part of something special and magical.
What if the Ghoul Lords attacked? They never did at night, she was told. Never. Why? That was her next question, and no one knew the why.
You have to sit on the edge and check out the Below, was said to them by many. The last who said it was a beaster trading his found and re-assembled weapons. The Top had become a place while she slumbered those five years, and now she found out the ground had too. It was the Below. Another hundred years and it’d be a mythical place. Who would go Below when death was your reward? The GLs might not live there, but they obliterated any people who dared to try.
During the early days of the invasion ordinary people had tried. Later on, beasters had. The Worshippers had tales of seeing them die or be lured away.
Oblivious to her musing, Vargr was chatting to the stall owner.
“Like this, Cyn?” He held up a pistol like his own, with a well-worn leather holster. The gun was a blued-steel revolver with gold accents and some adaptations surely borrowed from the Ghoul Lords. The grip bulged curiously, and the barrel was a triple cylinder with wires running to it. “It’s not a revolver anymore. It fires energy bolts and has to be recharged. Thadd will be envious. Kiko here has worked out the adaptation.”
“I’m allowed a weapon now?”
“Course you are. You’re a bonafide goshdarned beaster.”
“Yeahhh.” She took the gun from him. Did nanite in your blood truly equal beaster? It was a question she couldn’t answer, yet.
Kiko grinned, displaying a mouth missing a couple of front teeth. Though he had small horn-like bumps on his hands and arms, the blue arm markings were similar to Thad’s and Locke’s. A weaponsmith then. She smiled and shook his hand.
“You can fix things better due to your nanites? I’m guessing it’s some sort of instinctive knowledge or a skill?”
“Ahhhh.” He looked contemplative. Brow furrowing, he scratched at his chin. “I can do things better, yeah. I can do things with my head even, inside really tiny, intricate mechanisms and circuitry. Ask me how. No fucking clue.”
“Okay,” she grinned. “I will trust your work then.”
“Pfft, woman. You’d better. It’s good. Just don’t overfire it. It might explode.”
“Small worry, hey?” Cyn weighed the gun in her hand and wanted to lick it. Heavy for a pistol, but nasty in its potential violence. The prospect of an explosion didn’t bother her. Which she found odd. Again with the not worrying about shit she should be worried about. “Let’s buy it.”
“Price?” Hands on hips, Vargr looked ready for serious bargaining.
“Pay me back when you find something good. You’ll know when you do.”
“Really?” Vargr cocked his head. “A weapon from the Top?”
Kiko shrugged his massive shoulders, leaned his butt against his table of wares. “Sure. Or better.” His grin was infectious. “I’ll throw in a big knife for your girl too.”
They shook on it and moved on.
“Haggling is a whole new art,” she muttered.
“You don’t bloody say. I’ll bring him a cruise missile and stump him. He’ll never find the change for that. Let’s go see this edge-sitting area.”
“Maybe I can practice with it there.” She strapped on the belt and holster, unsheathing the ‘big knife’ from where it hung at her left hip. Engravings ran down the shiny blade and swirled on the metal butt.
“Just don’t potshot at that glass that hangs from above.”
“Hah.” Replacing a mile-wide chunk of glass would be difficult.
As they drew nearer to the edge, she could appreciate how the glass visor wasn’t perfectly clean—there were bird feathers, and bird guano, and other dirt that could be anything from dead bugs to fallen pieces of paper—yet zero cracks.
It was a grand feat of engineering that would last until this scraper fell. Maybe until no one was alive to see it.
The sitting place was a long terrace of artificial grass that dropped a few feet into a step where it was guarded by a shoulder-height glass fence. Climb over the fence and you’d fall until you hit a level of the scraper that stuck out just a bit further. It was also several stories below. There were park benches here, but she gathered most sat their rears on the lip of the terrace. People could dangle their legs and that appealed to the crazy in her—as did licking guns.
They sat, and she snuggled closer to Vargr. The heat from him warmed her heart, which was really something new. Her eyes stung with totally unneeded tears.
“How many footballs were kicked over this?” she pondered.
“Tons. Fucking tons. Can you imagine the suicides?”
Ugh. She elbowed him. “Shhh!”
Someone slipped down and sat next to Vargr then leaned forward. It was Locke, with his dirty-blond hair flopping over his eyes.
“They used to have a net below to catch people and things. Or so I’m told.”
“Yeah. Sounds about right. Messy to let them fall. How are you Locke? Willow helped us.”
“I know.”
“I have nanites, in case you’re wondering,” she told him.
“I knew that too. Nothing gets to be a secret for long here. Congrats?” He reached in front of Vargr to shake her hand. “And I brought something to celebrate with.”
He leaned back, and she saw a woven cane hamper he’d left behind him on the artificial grass.
“Champagne.” He pulled out a bottle. “Vintage, sometime-long-ago. And food, and some people to help us make this a proper picnic. Happy Beaster Day?”
“A moonlight picnic. Nice.” The people he meant were obviously those walking up in a ragged line. They carried more bottles and bags and were waving and smiling. He’d assembled almost everyone she knew.
Maura was with them, shining the torch they’d found for her and lighting a path but switching it off as she neared the edge. The moon must be providing enough light for her human eyes.
If being infected with nanites was something to celebrate, they were doing this in style.
Willow sat beside her, while Maura and Tom, the beaster who reminded her of an angel, parked themselves to the left of Locke. Though she was unsure where Maura had been hidi
ng, the woman had adapted to their tenuous, linked existence and stayed near enough to be safe from the Lure. Anyone who’d felt it more than once would recognize its subtle creep.
Others arrived, people she didn’t know, and they chose places to sit at either end of the gathering.
Champagne was poured, and they toasted to Cyn’s future. Snack packets were opened, a pan of BBQ wings was passed along, and she was never going to ask what sort of wings these were. They tasted good, and the dribbles of marinade were delicious to lick off her hand, and Vargr’s too, when he laughingly offered.
Fresh fruit, it was the one thing she pined for still. The crunch of an apple under her teeth. Even a chunk of broccoli would be heaven—yes, she must be mad.
Then Rutger turned up. After many apologies, he had Willow shift along so he could sit to the right of Cyn.
“Punched enough walls then?” Though his expression said mild annoyance, Vargr looked closer to intrigued.
Here she was with the beaster who definitely wanted to fuck her on one side and Vargr on the other, and that only made him look curious? It made her feel all sorts of possibly taboo things. What if she had both in bed with her or wherever? On table, room, against wall… Gah. She’d seen the suggestion of size in those pants, and this Worshipper beaster had grown a cock to match his new body.
If Rutger stayed there for long, she’d need new underwear. His thigh was touching hers. Then she remembered she had none on.
Priority note: Find new underwear.
“Yes. I have punched enough walls.” His fists were bloodied. Studiously, he wet a cloth with white wine Willow gifted him and cleaned his knuckles. “I call it PNT—post nanite trauma.” Rutger tossed the balled-up cloth over the glass fence, watched it fall. “I get angry, feel the need to hit something well up inside me, and I’d rather damage a wall than people.”
“Wise. A glass for the man?” Vargr asked Locke, and he rummaged behind him, poured a new glass and handed it along. She gave the cool glass to Rutger. Fingers brushed fingers. Her chest hitched, and she became far too aware of how close his hand had been to her breast.
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