Raven shuddered, rubbing at the pebbly fear-flesh that had come out over her arms, and then got up and went to sit on the floor beside the bed where Kane stretched out, working his little bottles of brain juice. She knew it was wrong to be coming to him for comfort—maybe all the way past wrong to obscene—but his hand had such a natural way of coming down to comb through her hair and rest on her shoulder that it was hard to remember that he was the source of the sick danger she was seeking shelter from. And he was laughing at her, she was sure, every time she came crawling to him for reassurance, but she couldn’t help being grateful for it, as much as she despised herself.
“Are you shivering?”
Raven made an effort to stop, banishing the shadowy memory of Kane standing over those two little bumps in the bed, the imaginings of how it must have been to wake up in the morning, surrounded on every side by death. She wasn’t entirely successful.
“Turn off the cold,” Kane told her. His eye wandered, as his eye so often did, to the blonde biker, adding, “And get us some food,” to Raven’s retreating back.
There was a restaurant adjoined to the hotel’s main office. She doubted they’d have steaks on hand, but Raven did the best she could. She called them up, fumbled her way through an order without a menu, and then had to bribe a server with a twenty-dollar tip to get their food delivered sixty feet across the parking lot. She supposed Kane wouldn’t care if she actually left to go and get it in person, but what was twenty dollars, really? Besides, she didn’t want to be alone right now. Not even alone in Wanda’s Waffle House in plain sight of Kane’s hotel room. Death was waiting for her every time she closed her eyes.
Kane was snapping his fingers as Raven hung up the phone. She went to him at once, but it was Sue-Eye he was wanting. “Go practice your letters,” was all she got. He didn’t even look at her when he said it.
It was a friendly little tussle, one that never got quite all the way to real sex, but it didn’t escalate to beatings, either. Listening to Sue-Eye’s breathless praise and Kane’s good-natured growls gave Raven gooseflesh all over again. He was making an effort to get the biker hot, which was something he never bothered with when he was in Heat, something he’d done to Raven only to humiliate her. But Sue-Eye sure wasn’t humiliated, or if she was, she was doing a damned fine job of hiding it.
Raven sat down at the table and picked up a pen, Kane’s alphabet flowing easily down the cheap stationary the hotel provided. Her attention drifted to the bed. She watched silently as Sue-Eye snapped and scratched viciously at Kane’s chest, drawing blood without any sign of caring. Kane gripped the hips that straddled him, his claws tearing holes in the fabric of the woman’s skirt, arching back into the bedding with obvious pleasure. “Harder,” he was snarling. “Like you mean it, ichuta’a!”
Raven wrote the alien word mechanically. Her letters were very neat. Kane was a stickler for penmanship these days. A soft thump from the bed drew her gaze again. Kane had flipped the blonde around and had her pinned facedown and writhing, his hand hard at work between her thighs. He was grinning at the back of her tossing head, all tooth and cruel humor, bringing her right to the edge, and then just keeping her there while she begged him to let her cum.
The man had a mean streak, that was for damn sure, but it was a sadism Raven didn’t want aimed at anyone but her. She sketched out more letters in obedient silence, making neat rows left to right, just to keep her hands busy. She needed to keep her hands busy. The urge to go over there and snatch that blonde bitch bald was very, very strong.
“Please, please fuck me!” Sue-Eye was practically screaming by now. “Please, Kane! Please!”
His laughter was answer enough, but he gave Sue-Eye a slap to the ass and a spoken, “No,” anyway. He took hold of her and tossed her roughly but playfully off onto the floor. He dropped down onto the bed and pulled his pack back onto his lap. He held out his hand with a Caesar’s arrogance, calling, “Get this off me, ichuta’a,” and Sue-Eye scrambled to him on her knees, sucking at his fingers as if they were cocks.
Raven tried not to pay too close an eye, but Kane missed nothing. He grinned, sudden and sharklike, and she quickly dropped her gaze to her paper and wrote blindly.
“Oh, get off me!” A slap. “If I want a blowjob, I’ll ask for one. I’m not shy. Don’t!” he snapped, so suddenly that Raven looked around, but Sue-Eye was just crouching there by the bed. Kane was glaring, though, one hand curled into a warning fist. “If I want your pussy touched, I’ll touch it myself or tell you how. You’re all done, ichuta’a.”
“B-but—” Sue-Eye’s hands were clenching spastically at either side of her. “Please!”
“No.” Kane slid his finger along the seam of his pack and opened it to his computer. “Sit down. Cool off. Food will be here any minute.”
“Then will you…?”
“Maybe. Raven.”
She didn’t miss the biker’s brief scowl and she didn’t think Kane did, either, but he let it go and crooked a claw to call Raven over. He typed several minutes without giving her any attention whatsoever, but then turned his pack around and pointed at the faintly metallic-looking stripe along the outer edge of the pack’s lid. “Touch there,” he said.
She pressed her fingertip to the strip, her entire body stirring with the same electric lightness that she had felt when he first showed her how to write his alien letters.
“Slowly,” Kane murmured. He took her wrist and guided her down the width of the shiny track. His computer hummed loudly all the while and beeped as soon as she reached the end of it. Kane pushed her hand away, pecked at the keys a little more, and then shut his pack with a snap and gestured to it.
Raven could feel a smile twitching at her lips. She ran her finger down the seam just as he had so often demonstrated, feeling the slow burn of Sue-Eye’s gaze on her back the whole time. The pack opened for her immediately and Raven’s heart leapt with unreasoning pride.
This meant something. He could fuck who he wanted to fuck, but this was the telling thing right here.
“You understand,” he said conversationally as he turned the pack back to face him, “if I ever see you playing in there, I’ll break that finger right off.”
“Got it,” she said happily.
“Go practice your letters.”
As Raven was seating herself, the knock of dinner’s arrival sounded at the door. Sue-Eye received it, paid the extortionist’s fee, and parceled out waffles and fried chicken. As soon as Kane had his, he gave the order for their clothes to come off. Sue-Eye stripped with exuberance, coming to his side without an invitation.
It was a risky move on her part, one that had won her a smack on more than one occasion, but Kane chose to sit her on the bed beside him this time. He even rested a hand on her thigh while he typed and ate, the surest sign of his rare good mood.
And why shouldn’t he be in a good mood? It had been another good hunt, another good idea from own personal yes-girl. The elation at being granted access to Kane’s case quickly faded into dread as she watched Kane lean over and nip at Sue-Eye’s bare shoulder. Raven’s appetite congealed on itself. She stared down at her paper and its lines of alien writing.