Maybe he’d use Sue-Eye if it came to that. She might even see it as some kind of reward, although personally, Kane’d had his fill of even good fucking by now and was in no mood to indulge her.
There was no point in pursuing what-ifs. There was still work to be done. Kane held his harvester up to the light and gave it a shake as he gauged the volume of its contents. “One more, I think,” he said.
Sue-Eye nodded listlessly and turned around.
“Try to show some enthusiasm, damn it,” he snapped. “I’m starting to think you haven’t got it in you to do the fucking I want when we leave Earth.”
She swung back, stricken. “I can!”
“Really.” He gave her a cold eye. “You told me you’d fuck a thousand men for me. You’ve brought me less then twenty and you haven’t had to fuck any. And look at you.”
She dropped her eyes, her hands smoothing at her skirt. “I’m hot,” she said.
“So am I.” He tucked the harvester into the waistband of his pants and folded his arms, glaring at her. “Which is why I’m not inclined to let you give me shit over this.”
“I’m sorry.” She pulled her shirt out and retied it, looking at him hopefully. “I’ll do better.”
Heat was really scratching at him. His eye lingered on the swelling of her newly-emphasized breasts. “Go on then,” he said shortly, shaking it off. “One more. And smile, for fuck’s sake.”
Sue-Eye moved off and Kane retreated to lean against the tree that Raven slept beneath. She didn’t wake up, but she did moan a little, the hand between her thighs rubbing briefly. She resettled, her features twisted into a sleeping wince and her hair falling over her face. It made her look so cute, so little and helpless. Heat scratched at him again, and again, he fought it down. He wouldn’t mind a wrestle with his Raven, but he was tired of Heat bullying him into it.
Well, at least this would be the last time. One more male to pull dopamine from and this hunt was done. They’d leave—no, they’d eat first. He was starving and he was sure both his females were as well, seeing as he’d herded them out this morning with no food. The smells emanating from the fair weren’t very appetizing but then, it couldn’t be any worse than some other things he’d eaten. Old Urak had prodigious talents in a lot of fields, but cooking had never been one of them.
Once they’d fed, they could leave. Out to the car and its climate controls. Raven would take them back to where he’d found her. His locator would lead them the rest of the way to his ship, by road as far as possible, on foot after that, and if he was lucky, it’d be late enough to avoid Heat. Earth’s sun would set, and Kane would never have to see it rise again. Not on this trip, anyway. It was almost done.
‘And done damned well,’ he told himself in his father’s voice. He’d have a few empty vials once these nine had refined down, but that was all right. He’d reached the point where the difference of a few thousand crona didn’t matter to him. He was tired and it was time to go home.
Sue-Eye was coming back already. Laughing with her prey, no less. She must have taken his words to heart.
Kane heaved a sigh and pushed himself off the tree, pulling his harvester into his hand again. He got low and crept silently to the bushes separating his clearing from hers. Through the screen of foliage, he watched his ichuta’a at work.
The male, perversely enough, didn’t seem to want to get started. Its eyes kept moving over the trees, not as though it feared discovery but just as though it wanted to be sure it was alone. Something in the way it did that put an edge up in Kane and he flexed the claws of his killing hand, watching.
The male’s attention finally wandered back to Sue-Eye, who was busily trying to unlock the male’s belt and clothing. “You here alone, baby?” it asked.
Kane covered his eyes, his teeth bared in silent exasperation. ‘You don’t need to talk to her,’ he thought furiously. ‘Just fuck her, for hell’s sake!’
“Of course I am,” Sue-Eye said, laughing. “Nobody here but us chickens. Now come on, let’s see that—”
CRACK!
Kane’s head came up fast just as Sue-Eye struck the ground on her stomach just in front of him.
“The thing is,” the male continued, searching the woods surrounding them again. “I don’t feel much like paying.”
Sue-Eye groaned, rubbing at her cheek, and her eyes went confusedly to Kane’s through the bushes. He made a lie-still gesture, watching the male above her as it paced around its clearing, and she obediently shut her eyes and feigned unconsciousness.
Gods damn it all, the little shit wasn’t even hard yet. Kane was going to have to send his ichuta’a back out again.
The male finally returned to Sue-Eye and rolled her roughly onto her back, then knelt between her splayed legs. It pulled her skirt up and its lips curled back from its teeth in an expression of disgust. “Whore,” it said.
Well, what else had the numb shit been expecting, having followed her into the fucking woods? Kane rubbed at his eyes, fighting his temper. What to do? Kill it now, or wait and see if it was ever going to get in the fucking mood despite the risk to his ichuta’a?
“Wake up, whore!” A slap, and Sue-Eye sputtered. “And don’t you make a sound.”
Dutiful silence.
“Aren’t you going to beg?” the male demanded.
“Make up your fucking mind,” Sue-Eye said irritably, exactly at the same time as Kane thought it.
The male slapped her. Sue-Eye looked back at Kane, her mouth tight, seeking orders.
Kane thought about it. He shrugged and made a fist.
Sue-Eye looked back up at the male who was now beginning to look seriously pissed. She balled up her hand and punched him.
That did it. The male slapped Sue-Eye some more, then seized her throat and squeezed as it yanked her shirt up. “You make a sound and I’ll kill you, bitch!” it hissed.
Sue-Eye nodded. Kane takked his claws soundlessly on the forest floor and waited.
The male captured Sue-Eye’s wrists and pinned them above her head with one hand so that it could mangle her breasts with the other. Kane watched, his fingers flexing on his harvester, as the male aroused itself with readying his ichuta’a for rape. It occurred to him that if Sue-Eye really wanted to get free, she might actually be able to do it. The male was careless and Kane’s ichuta’a had a real affinity for killing. If she wasn’t trying so hard right now to please him, she might have this fucker’s tsesac off and stuffed in its mouth by now.
The male was ready. Finally. It went to finish unfastening its clothing, its breath coming hard and its color high.
It was good enough for Kane. He sprang, tracheated the male in one instant and then, for his ichuta’a’s sake, castrated it in the next.
“Thank you, Kane,” she said as he was spinning the male around and digging into bone.
“Ah, you’ve been good.” The skull cracked off in his hand and the male’s struggles turned to torpid writhing. Kane harvested the gland, watching with satisfaction as the last vial filled completely. “Very good. Go wake Raven.”
“I’m awake.” Raven stumbled to his side to prove it, rubbing at her sleep-puffed eyes. “Is that it? Are we leaving now?”
“We’re eating first.”
“Oh, great!” Sue-Eye sighed, and immediately started picking through the dying male’s pockets for money. “I’m so thirsty I could spit sand.”
“I’m sure if you’d asked nicely, Kane would have let you suck off a few cocks before he killed them.”