Kane pulled back with a curse, spat on his hand and thrust one finger inside her as she wailed. The sound was a shrill one. He had a hand free to cover her mouth and so he muzzled her, forcing himself to go slow and gentle as he hunted her out. He found the soft spot below the pubic bone and stroked it lightly, turning the female’s muted cries into frenzied strings of ‘No’s. He snarled at her, clamping his hand down harder to stop her head-shaking, and she fell back into limp weeping. Kane kept his finger pumping and moved his thumb to her clit, teasing it in circles and watching impatiently as her face flushed under its veil of tears.
The door at the end of the hallway opened and unquiet footsteps came shuffling towards him. “Go back to your room,” Kane said without looking around.
“I’m thirsty.”
The female screamed something under Kane’s hand.
Musk. He felt it first, and then could smell it, bringing with it an agony of Heat akin to disembowelment. Kane rode it out, gritting his teeth against screams, working the female only a little harder. “Raven,” he rasped, “Get the man a glass of water.”
Raven pushed her chair back and went, but all Kane’s attention was locked on the human under him. He thrust a second finger into the stretched passage of his female and started rubbing them rapidly together. She trembled violently and bucked up at him, braying shame against his hand. She flooded at last, and that was good enough for Kane.
He got a hold on her thigh again and pulled her up to envelop his aching cock. The first touch of her slippery sex was hell’s own bite. He buried himself in one thrust, quick-cum spitting from him already.
Raven was back, moving to the cold storage unit to fill her own glass again. There was a stiffness in the way she moved that had nothing to do with physical strain. He supposed she was probably jealous. It might not have occurred to her that he was trying to spare her another bout with Heat in her condition. Well, there was no reason she had to stay and watch him if it hurt her feelings.
“Go,” he panted. “Find the keys for the car.”
Raven put her glass down untouched and went fast. Kane bit down on a swell of exasperation and reminded himself that humans didn’t have a lock on unreasonable emotional reactions. He’d make it up to her later.
The female beneath him had stopped screaming, stopped sobbing. Tears still leaked from her eyes, but they were silent ones. She stared up past Kane at the ceiling, waiting in some other part of her mind for this to be over.
Fine with Kane. He didn’t need help any more than he needed an audience. Her mating oils were doing work enough. He could feel his tsesac swelling, nearing release. He began to thrust harder, rocking both of them in brutal rhythm. Her face twisted an instant before she came again, and with that release of female musk, the Heat in him finally broke. He bit down hard on a scream as he poured lava into her shuddering body, every muscle clenched and aching against the urge to slash out. But then it was done and he could drop, exhausted and emptied, beside her. The sun through the kitchen window had gone the color of open flame and he bared his teeth at it in foul humor. Soon it would set and Earth would cool and he would not go into Heat again. Not ever, if he had anything to say about it, and certainly not on this trip.
“Are you going to kill me?” the female asked dully, bringing him out of the threat of sleep.
“No,” he said. And then stirred and looked around at her. “Why, do you want me to?”
She twisted away from him, her hands in fists.
“Suit yourself.” Kane pushed himself up and found his clothes, calling wearily for Raven.
She came in from the other room, her face still stony. In one hand, she held a ring of keys. And in the other—
“Ah, gods lift you and love you,” Kane groaned and vaulted to his feet. He snatched the gun out of her open hand and kissed it, grinning savagely. The weight of it in his hand, the feel of it pressing on him when he holstered it crudely in the waistband of his pants, was as invigorating to him as a cold shower. Not that it could compare with any of the weapons the Fleet allowed their officers to carry, but it was something at least, and something the slave-fucker after him was guaranteed to underestimate. Now it only remained to tie up the human to make sure she couldn’t alert her lawmen in any great hurry, grab a bite to eat for the road and get gone.
“Raven,” he said, and nipped her on the chin. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
For some reason, that didn’t seem to make her as happy as he’d thought it would.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
There had been much evidence over the years to suggest that Jotan had better eyesight than humans. Or at least, as much evidence as could be gathered without breaking the strict protocols prohibiting human medical experimentation. In any event, Tagen had plenty of first-hand experience to prove to himself that human vision was notably poorer than that of any Jotan, and his eyesight in particular was excellent.
So it came as no small surprise when it was Daria who bolted upright and gasped, “My God, it’s them!” before he had even seen the occupants of the oncoming vehicle.
That it was them was almost as astonishing. Sunrise was not far behind them, but he had by this time more than half-convinced himself that they had been passed unknowing in the night as they sat unspeaking in the fore of the groundcar. But no, the driver of the approaching car was clearly the same female E’Var had taken with him at the fair (the odds of there being two humans with purple and white-striped hair made that a certainty), and the face that gaped back at him in the brief instant that their eyes locked was indeed E’Var’s. He saw the prisoner shout and the oncoming car swerved suddenly even as it passed them before lunging on ahead even faster.
Daria was already turning the car out to follow them, the wheels flinging back a fountain of gravel and dust. “I don’t believe it, they really came,” she said, her expression simply thunderstruck. The car screamed as it struck the road, and then they were shoved forward in pursuit of the rapidly-diminishing vehicle.
“Yes,” he said, grimly smiling.
“Like you never had a doubt.” The groundcar’s engine was in full voice, a song of elation all its own, as if it too were eager to take the enemy down. “I don’t believe it,” Daria said again, shaking her head. “We’re actually going to get them!” Her eyes dipped down the console.
“So it would seem.”
“I don’t believe it!” Daria shouted. “We’re almost out of gas!”
“What?”
“We’re almost out—We’ve been idling the car all morning, we—we—” She shot him a single tight and baffled glance and said, “We have approximately ten miles to figure out how we’re going to get them to stop before our ass is stranded out here.”
They had less than that. Looking ahead, Tagen could see the trees beginning to thin and the hills rising. Soon, the mountains would open, and a mistake on that narrow stretch of road would mean a short, sharp ride and an explosive finish. Tagen bared his teeth and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, trying to think. He could allow the prisoner to escape, he could ask the gods to strike down what was apparently their favored son, or he could fire a few rounds of superheated plasma at E’Var’s groundcar, melting through its hull and inner workings, thus halting it so that they, in close pursuit, could smash into it and kill all of them. Hm.