by Webster, K
“I’ll call you whatever the rekk you want, love, as long as you don’t stop.”
Her tongue lashes against mine, doing most of the work. I’m too weak to do anything but accept the pleasure of my mate. I could definitely die happily this way.
“You have to come back from this,” she says, her voice soft and vulnerable unlike anything I’ve ever heard leave her lips. “For me.”
“I will,” I vow and mean it with every still-flickering fiber of my being.
“Our future son needs you. I need you.”
Her words are powerful and erotic and I crave more of them—more of her. A growl rattles out of me as my sac tightens.
“Mate,” I choke out, releasing my seed in a hot stream all over her hand and my stomach.
I must fall asleep because at some point, she smacks me on the cheek, jerking me awake.
“Don’t die on me now, motherfucker,” she snaps, fire in her words. “I give you a hand job and you pass out on me for hours? Never again. Eat this damn meat before I shove it down your stupid throat.”
My eyes open and everything spins. Despite her fury-filled words, she’s gentle as she feeds me. Her fingers stroke through my hair. Something splashes my cheek and I realize my sweet mate silently cries for me.
“What will we name him?” I ask after I swallow down the repugnant morsel.
She rolls her eyes, but her mouth twitches with a smile. “How about Asshole Junior? AJ for short.”
“Avrell Junior does have a ring to it.”
“Asshole, not Avrell.”
“Close enough.”
“You’re telling me,” she grumbles.
I imagine what a mortling would look like sitting on her hip. Probably dark hair and stormy gray eyes. Maybe fangs and pale skin. Most definitely, it would be the smartest little one ever to be born.
“I need my tablet,” I murmur.
She laughs, tears once again forming. “Really?”
“I want to make a list of all the ways our mortling will be the best. Perhaps he’ll become the next doctor. Do you think, mate, that he would want to be like his mother and father, healing those around him?”
“You’re getting better. I can tell,” she says, ignoring my questions. “The arrogant genius is ready to make a list of all the reasons why he’s the best mort to ever live. That’s the old Av I know and love.”
It isn’t until she utters the last part that her amusement fades.
She can’t take it back now.
It’s been said. I heard it. I feel it in my heart.
“Of course I’ll get better. The head doctor—the queen—healed me,” I tease. “She’s pretty mean and stubborn, which means she always gets her way.”
A sob escapes her as she presses her lips to mine and then she laughs through her tears. “I fucking hate you.”
I smile because her lies are filled with love.
She’s my mate and she can’t undo it now.
Determination trickles through me, chasing away the weakness. Clarity begins to wade through my murky mind. The cogs inside me turn as I consider possible immunization methods for aliens, morts, and our darling hybrid mortlings.
Because, with each passing moment, I realize this is going to work.
We’ve found a cure.
7
Zoe
Two Solars Until Kevins Arrive…
“One more,” Avrell coaxes. “Please?”
He gazes up at me with fathomless eyes and I melt a little. But just a little.
I take a step away before he can snag a claw in my suit. There’s no way I’m letting him charm me into forgetting my agenda…again. “Uh-uh, I don’t think so. You’ve already had more than I said. Besides, if we keep this up, we’ll never get anything done.”
Avrell throws himself back against his pillows. “Get what done? I can’t do anything. I’m stuck here in this rekking bed for solars on end. If the Rades hasn’t kill me yet, boredom certainly will.”
“So I make you bored now?” I tease. The insufferable brute. Before he got sick, teasing Avrell never would have crossed my mind, but it comes natural now. As naturally as breathing.
He reaches out a claw again, but I evade him and he scowls deeply. “You could never make me bored, my stormy mate. You’re too rekking contrary.”
“I’m too contrary?”
“If you’re not, then you’ll give me another kiss before you go.”
I’d let him talk me into trading kisses for bites of meat and sips of water throughout the morning. If I’m being honest, it didn’t take much convincing. All I can think about in between bouts of fear for his well-being is how I’ll pay him back once he’s better. The sexual torture I’m imagining putting him through will be nothing compared to the sexy as hell hand job.
I feel no sympathy. He deserves every beleaguered orgasm I’ll wring from him until I feel he’s paid enough for putting us both through the agony of worry we’ve suffered the past few days.
“No more kisses for you. You’ve had enough.” I lean closer to hand him a final bite of meat—Julie and I hacked through the rest of the carcass to freeze what we could. It made a bitch of a mess and I’d gotten little to no sleep as the butchering and subsequent cleanup took most of the night.
His arm whips out faster than I calculated, and he wraps a hand around my wrist, a shockingly strong hand. A strangled sound of surprise bubbles up in my throat as he tugs against my resistance, pulling me atop him in his cot. He’s warm to the touch, but only just. It’s enough that I feel him all the way through my suit, but not as hot as he’d been the day before.
I try to focus on his symptoms—clearing eyes, steady pulse—but a firm hand passing over my back and ass distracts me. “There will never be enough kisses from you, sweet mate. Give me another taste of your mouth.” It’s not a request.
“You promised you’d get some rest,” I evade. I know if I let him kiss me again, I won’t want to stop and we both have things we need to do. Julie and I are supposed to administer meat rations to the rest of the patients and Avrell—much as he protests—needs his rest.
“And I will. But I need my medicine first.”
His claws move to the back of my head and I offer no more resistance as he urges me forward. I’m all bark and no bite at this point. Our lips meet and he sighs against my mouth as though tasting me brings him immeasurable pleasure. And maybe it does. He says it does, but a part of me, the part who has been alone for so long, has trouble believing in the certainty of forevers.
I’ll take right now with him, though. I’ll take it for as long as it lasts.
“Ahem.”
Avrell and I break apart to find Julie standing at the elevator door. She has a gigantic container of slimy green meat in her hands and a mischievous grin painted on her face. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says.
As Avrell’s grip slackens, I slide off his lap to my feet. “That’s okay. He needs to rest anyway.”
At this he scowls. “All I’ve rekking done since I got here is rest and choke down rabbawolf meat. I’d be of more use synthesizing the proteins to concoct an immunization.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Julie teases. “Synthesizing proteins?”
I glare at her. “Shut up.” Pointing to Avrell, I say, “You rest. I mean it. If I come back here and you’re working I’m going to lock you up in one of the padded cells until you’re completely healed.”
I don’t voice my fears aloud.
That he may not be healed.
That The Rades may take him from me.
That I’ll be all alone again.
Instead, I lean down to give him one more kiss. Just one, and take his tablet to my own desk, clear across the room. Naturally, he scowls at the end of all the kissing and the lack of his tablet.
“Sleep,” I order, before Julie and I step into the isolation pods.
My last view of Avrell before the doors shut in front of us is of him, propped up on one arm, his dark eyes on me.
* * *
“What’s it like to kiss an alien?” Julie asks as we divvy up the meat to serve to the rest of the patients. I say serve, but most are unconscious or out of their minds with fever, so we’re going to do our best, but I don’t have my hopes up.
What we really need is a vaccine, but Avrell has to rest before he dives into creating one. I know he’ll throw himself into his work as soon as I let him get out of bed. Which will mean no sleep, barely eating, and working until he essentially passes out. None of which is conducive to getting better. If the antibodies in the monster meat do their job.
I pause in cutting up my portion of meat. Tilting my head, I say, “Why? Do you want to kiss one?”
Julie makes a face. “No, ugh. That’s why I’m asking. It doesn’t weird you out that he has claws and fangs and pointy ears?”
Though not like Theron’s or Hadrian’s, his claws have begun to grow into sharp points and his fangs have become prominent the past few days.
“I don’t really notice those things when I’m kissing him, Julie.” Then I laugh at her expression. “I’m serious! Yeah, at first when they came here, I thought they were a bunch of freaky looking monsters, but don’t you feel like you know them now?”
She lifts a shoulder as she places a container of meat on a tray with several others. “I don’t know. I was just curious. I don’t have an alien of my own, you know.”
I tilt my head as I study her. “Well, you know there’s one last mort left. Galen. He studies plants, I think.”
“Are you trying to hook me up with an alien?” she says with a giggle.
“Why not? Everyone else is doing it.”
“I don’t know. I’m not really sure I even want to go to the Facility if we’re being honest.”
My hands still on the bowl of slimy green meat. “What? What are you talking about? You want to stay here? What about Earth II and all the Kevins?”
“You guys don’t need me. With Oz’s weapon, you’ll be able to wipe them out no problem. What I’m really interested in are those aliens who were chasing the wolves.”
I shiver, remembering them. They looked even more otherworldly than the morts. I’d only seen them from a distance, but I remember their scars and tattoos vividly. “Why? They looked like they’d skin you alive and pick the meat off your bones.”
“Well, it’s not so much them in particular, but this world in general. There’s so much to explore now that we know it can be safely inhabited. Who knows what else is out there?”
“That’s the point. We know most of the animals that live out there can eat you alive in one gulp. You seriously want to traipse through what is essentially a wasteland looking for more monsters? The Facility would be safe. They have gardens and pastures for those rogcow things. There are other people there. I mean, we’re basically family now.”
“Of course we are. But I’ve been caged up for what feels like forever now. If we’re truly going to live here, I want to be free to make my own choices, no matter the risk.” She grins. “Besides, how cool would it be to discover another race of aliens?”
“So that’s why you’re interested. Did you see one you liked?”
Our teasing continues while we finish chopping the meat into small pieces and then shredding it into a fairly unappetizing mash. How Avrell kept down the huge chucks we’d fed him, I’ll never know. Even the charred hunks he used to eat look more palatable than this mess. I’ll worry about Julie’s crusade once we have everyone cured. Maybe I can convince Avrell to lock her in a padded room instead.
Discover another alien race my ass.
We spend the next few hours feeding those who we’re able to rouse into consciousness. Many of them can barely stomach the meat, but Avrell thought it would be best to get whatever immunity we could coerce into them. Those who are left with us are the worst off and need whatever immune-boosting properties they can get.
It’s not a pleasant process. The meat is foul-smelling and probably tastes worse. Some vomit up their bites as soon as they swallow and let me tell you, it smells about as good as it sounds.
But it feels good to have a direction now. It feels good knowing there may be hope on the horizon. I cling to it, knowing it’s all we have until Avrell gets better and he will get better.
As Julie and I go from patient to patient, it’s hard not to be reminded of those I killed in the terminal ward. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. I took their lives. They were mercy killings, but that doesn’t mean I had the right to play God. I’ve come to accept it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard to stare into the faces of these patients with it on my conscience.
I have to tell Avrell at some point. He believes in healing…then again, he did try to impregnate someone without their consent, so maybe he’d understand. Maybe we’re two fucked-up peas in the same pod. We both believe we know what’s best.
I throw myself into the task at hand so I don’t have to think about the future—it’s easier this way. I don’t have to think about Avrell finding the cure, the Kevins coming to annihilate the morts, or what’ll happen afterward.
Avrell seems to think I’m his mate, but is it only because we’ve been thrust together by circumstance? What will happen to us after the Kevins arrive? After we cure all the other humans? He’ll have his pick of any of the human prisoners.
Will he still pick me when he knows the truth?
Will he still call me his sweet mate, his stormy one when he knows I’ve taken lives?
When we’re done, Julie and I haul ourselves back to Avrell’s makeshift bed where we find him sleeping.
“I’m going to go pass out now,” she says, and I realize she has dark circles underneath her eyes. She seems so indestructible sometimes, it’s always a shock when the vulnerabilities shine through. “But first I’m going to find a shower.”
“I’m not far behind you. Thank you. For everything. Even if I think you’re crazy.”
Julie pulls me into a one-armed hug. “It’s okay. I think you’re kinda crazy, too.”
After she leaves, I take a shower in the decontamination closet and drag on a new sleeping suit. I pull a cot next to Avrell, and after checking his pulse and breathing, fall into a deep, dreamless sleep holding his hand.
8
Avrell
One Solar Until Kevins Arrive…
I tap away at my tablet, making a list of all my improvements. And there are plenty. Enough so that I wobbled around in the wee hours of this solar, taking note of everyone’s progress.
There is progress.
The ones whose charts notated they were beyond help have regained consciousness. It seems the raw rabbawolf meat Julie and Zoe fed them has helped. Only time will give us real answers, but hope fuels me now. Once I figure out how to isolate the mutated proteins in the beast blood, I can work with Calix to figure out a way to create an immunity. While eating raw meat is a quick fix, I want something in a manageable form we can give to each mortling after birth and all of our people.
Soon.
We’re too weak to travel as a group and we don’t have a ship. That means we’ll have to rely on Theron to return to fetch us. With the Kevins’ anticipated arrival tomorrow, we can’t afford for them to come back. Plus, I want to be absolutely certain this works and that we won’t infect the well ones or mortlings at the Facility.
“You act like we didn’t just get our asses chewed out by that guy,” Zoe says, entering my workspace.
When she woke to find me working, she tried to bite my rekking nog off, but I wasn’t having it. I’m feeling better, so I will work. End of story. I told her as much. Earned me a smack to the arm, a middle finger, and then a colorful insult all the female aliens enjoy using. Fuck you.
“Breccan is just being Breccan,” I mumble, focused on my tablet.
Sure, he was infuriated when he realized we stayed back and that I’d injected myself with tainted blood, but there was nothing he could do. We are out of time and it would have been fool
ish to bring the sick there to infect everyone. In time, he’ll calm down.
“He’s terrifying.” She shudders, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Don’t want to meet that guy alone in a dark hallway.”
My sub-bones pop violently at the image of my rekking mate trembling in fear as Breccan towers over here.
“He won’t touch what’s mine,” I snarl, tracking the way her pulse throbs in her throat with my intense stare, my ears pinning to my head.
She arches up her brow in that sassy way of hers that makes my cock hard. “Are you going to protect me?” She smirks. “Should I remind you I’m the one who’s been protecting you the past few days?”
I set my tablet down to grip her wrist and pull her to me. “Don’t you have work to do, female?”
“It’s called a break. Besides, I was listening in on Julie’s meeting with Sayer to see if there’s any new information. Oz sent her the weapon specifics for us to build, but we don’t have the right tools like he has. Luckily, Sayer said that the test blast Oz did seemed to refocus the Kevins’ efforts and there’s chatter he’s picking up that they’re heading toward the blast site rather than the prison. Least for now.”
When one of the Kevins kidnapped Willow, he managed to send out a distress signal back to Earth II, hence the army of Kevins headed our way. It’s beneficial that Oz can draw them closer to the Facility since he has the weapon and we’re virtually defenseless. I hope he can destroy them with his weapon so we can continue to keep our focus on curing The Rades.
“And the patients?” I ask. “Who’s caring for them?”
“Everyone is resting. Eleanor is well enough that she said she’d watch over everyone while I take a breather.”
As I study her, I run my forked tongue over my fangs. Normally, I have to file them each solar to keep them from growing. Same with my claws. Since I’ve been out with The Rades, they’ve grown in. But, since I feel a little more feral than usual now that I have a mate to claim and protect, I don’t necessarily have the urge to file them back down.