“Now tell me,” he said mildly, as he reached to brush his thumbclaw over one hard nub. “Is this because I excite you, or just because I terrify you?”
Sue-Eye did not reply. Her eyes were windows from which nothing peeked out. Her lips were almost white.
Kane glanced at Raven. “She’s ignoring me,” he remarked, and shrugged one shoulder. He turned back to Sue-Eye, his hand still massaging lightly at her breast. “And after all we’ve meant to each other, too. I’m hurt, ichuta’a.”
“You excite me,” Sue-Eye said. Her voice was cracked, stretched thin with chilled anticipation.
“Ah.” Kane’s head tipped slightly. “So,” he went on musingly. “If I were to reach down and feel out your pussy, you’d have musk for me. Shall I check?” His hand drifted, claws down and raising white lines, to her belly and stopped again.
Sue-Eye was silent, watchful, utterly motionless.
“If I find you wet on my fingers, ichuta’a, I’m going to let you walk out that door,” Kane told her, his voice soft and gentle. “And if I don’t—” His hand scratched down another few inches and stopped again. “—I’m going to open you from your pussy to your chin.”
Sue-Eye wasn’t even breathing anymore. The whites of her staring eyes had gone grey.
Kane’s hand moved, his thick fingers sliding just between her slackly standing thighs to squeeze her smooth mound. His shark’s eyes never left her face. His teeth were brilliant in the stretched slice of his smile.
Raven realized she was holding her breath only when her lungs began to burn, but she still couldn’t seem to remember how to start again. She was frozen, watching all this play out from the safety of some living room somewhere. Sue-Eye was a bitch, but no one should die like that, and no one should have to watch someone die like that. ‘It’s going to smell. I’m going to smell it,’ she thought remotely, and the edges of her vision blurred to grey.
Suddenly, Kane straightened up and gave Sue-Eye a blistering slap to her thigh that broke both his humans as effectively as cannon-fire. Raven tried to leap back from a splash of blood that never happened and dropped onto the bed, too dizzy to stand up again. Sue-Eye merely staggered, catching wildly at Kane’s coat, and then hanging from him on bent legs and staring up at him glassily.
“Just kidding,” he said, and bent to nip precisely at the tip of her nose. “You’re coming with us.”
All the air came out of Sue-Eye in a woof and she dropped the rest of the way onto the floor, her hands slackly splayed before her. She looked at him, shivered hugely, and stared down at the carpet.
“Is that any way to thank me?” Kane asked, feigning surprise. He gave her thigh a nudge with the toe of his boot. “Anyone would think you weren’t pleased.”
“I am,” Sue-Eye said at once. “Thank you, Kane.”
“Unless…” Kane slid one shark-empty eye back to Raven. “I’ll leave it up to you, shall I?”
His posture was relaxed, but the hand that she could see was curled expectantly. He meant it. She could tell him to kill her and he would.
Raven’s eyes shifted past him to Sue-Eye. The blonde looked back at her. All her reserves of manufactured indifference had been expended on Kane and Raven got to see the glossy shine of perfect horror stamped full across her. ‘Bet you’re sorry you fucked with me now,’ she thought absently, but she already knew what she was going to say. She’d started out here in a good mood, and she wanted to hold on to that good mood. She could pretend to consider, but that was the limit of Raven’s talent with torture. If she was going to have to have sex with this man later on, she couldn’t watch him disembowel someone first.
“Well?” Kane pressed. He bent and got a grip on Sue-Eye’s arm, hauling her to her feet roughly, but then almost cradling her under one arm as he waited for Raven’s answer. He could go either way, clearly. “I think I could find a use for this ichuta’a when I leave Earth. Unless, of course, you object?”
Raven raised her eyebrows. “Why would I object?” she asked, and Kane’s eyes narrowed. “She’s been very helpful. Besides,” she added, stepping closer to him. “There are some things I’d love to do to you that take two girls.”
Kane’s smile faded slightly and he gave Sue-Eye a push off to one side. “Somehow, I didn’t expect that,” he remarked.
“It’s like she said. She’s been a bitch longer. I’m learning a lot.” Raven pressed herself against his chest and he let her, although he didn’t make a single welcoming move, not even when she kissed him. But when she moved her mouth to his ear and breathed, “I’m learning more from you, I think. How much do you think you’ll get when you sell her?” he finally bared his teeth in a grin.
“Fifty crona,” he muttered back. “Easy.” He drew the word out into a purring sort of snarl and bit her gently on the neck. His arm came up, pulling her tight against him, but only for a moment. “We eat,” he said, pushing her away. “Ichuta’a, thank Raven for letting you stay.”
Raven met the simmering hatred and helpless confusion in Sue-Eye’s face without flinching. Clearly, Kane wasn’t the only one caught off-guard by her response. She waited.
“Thank you,” Sue-Eye said.
“You don’t sound like you mean it,” Raven said, and was emboldened by Kane’s tolerant laughter.
Sue-Eye’s mouth thinned. “Thank you,” she said again, and did a much better job of disguising the flat hostility. Her gaze flicked past to Kane. “Shall we kiss and make up?” she inquired.
Raven’s stomach clenched, but she didn’t dare look to see Kane’s answer. She was afraid of making any move that might seem to him like encouragement, but she was afraid even more, even now, that if he saw her reluctance, he’d make her do it just to show her he was still boss.
Kane was quiet for what felt like a very long time. Suddenly, a snarl. “No,” he said sourly. “No. We eat. Then we go. And keep your hungry hands off her, ichuta’a. Today, I am for Raven. Today, she is for me. If you want to fuck, I’ll find you someone else.”
It was gratifying to see Sue-Eye pale so fast. “No,” the blonde said. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you, Kane.”
“Good.” He walked between them, giving Sue-Eye a slap on the ass and letting his other hand caress Raven’s thigh as he passed. “Get dressed, both of you. Let’s move.”
*
The sounds of people moving around in the next room woke Tagen early. Grendel, shut away in the bathroom the previous night so that it could not complicate the matter of mating by leaping onto the bed at inopportune times, acknowledged the muffled commotion by sending out several minutes’ worth of yowling complaints. There was no use in trying to quiet the animal. Knocking on the wall would only encourage its vocalizations. When the cat finally quieted, Tagen pulled Daria into the curl of his body and resettled himself, filling his nostrils with the scent of her. The crowd next door finally left, and he shut his eyes and prepared to find sleep again.
Daria’s fingertips fluttered over his hand on her belly. She made a sleepy sound of pleasure and turned to him, smiling. “I could get used to waking up like this,” she said.