Kane laughed, an exhausted sound, and began to dress.
Raven sat up slowly, testing the ache in her muscles, and slid herself back from the muddy mix of cum and dirt they had made. “I’ve had worse, too,” she added, reasoning that it wasn’t a good idea to insult him.
“Flatterer.” Kane caught her arm and helped her to her feet, assessing her with his eyes again. He grunted approval when she managed a step, and then let her arm drop. “It’ll get easier,” he said, and turned away, snapping his fingers for her to follow.
Raven started to hobble after him, one hand pressed for comfort’s sake to the throbbing bruise her pussy had become. It probably would get easier, too. In some ways, that was the worst part.
*
The sex was good. The human, being as small as she was, couldn’t help but close on him tighter than any fist, and even if she’d been wailing at him the whole time, at least she’d tried to move around a little. It got the job done, that was the thing; it emptied him of seed and sweat and mindless rage and let Kane think with clarity again, so the sex had to be judged good. It was nothing like sex with a normal female, but the worst sex in the world would still be pretty damned good under these conditions.
To be fair, all of Kane’s sexual experience could be summed up by his furloughs to the Flesh-halls of Jota and by Tari’i Sunorrok, the Yevoa Null’s navigator. As the only female aboard ship she had first choice of mates, and if her choice was not always Kane, it was often enough that Kane never felt the lack. Now that was some great sex. The last time he’d taken a roll with that fine female, she’d broken his collarbone in two places and he hadn’t even noticed until after. Ah, Tari’i. Gone now, like the rest of them. Probably in the Dan-tar Prison Port, where she could trade a lifetime in confinement for a mere fifty years, provided she agreed to breed ten or twelve offspring. And she should. The universe needed more like Tari’i.
Kane glanced around to see how his human was holding up. He didn’t like what he saw. She’d done nothing but slow down ever since the sun fell, but she was limping now as well. It was hard to judge her color by the light of the half-moon, but he thought her eyes looked smudgy and sunken all the same. Her mouth was open, and he could hear her breath rattling as she walked.
She needed to drink. She probably thought she needed to eat, too, but water was the critical thing. If she didn’t get some of that before sun-up, she’d probably die. Kane knew there was a river around here somewhere—the river where his yellow-haired first attempt had killed herself—but he’d lost track of it in the days before encountering Raven. Now it could be anywhere. The plants he passed were dried out and dying; he’d seen no real game.
Ah, but there was one hope left to him. In the dark, any lights cast by human camps would be more visible. Kane knew the woods were inhabited. It was just a matter of time before he stumbled into one. His human had only to survive until then.
No sooner had that comforting thought crossed Kane’s mind than he heard a low moan behind him. He turned just in time to see his human pick up her foot, put it down in front of her, and then just fold up and drop. Her body slammed into the ground hard enough to knock up a little cloud of dust and her breath came out of her in a retching cough. She began to make that gaspy wailing sound, but her eyes made no water.
Hell.
Kane walked back to her, reminding himself that she couldn’t help it, the nanozymes had half-parched her already and the dry heat had done the rest. She was human, she was fragile, and it wasn’t her fault.
His hand closed on the belt of her wrap and he hauled her up, swinging her effortlessly onto his shoulder. She weighed only a little more than empty air and she didn’t struggle. Kane started walking again, scanning the trees surrounding him. He thought he could see a clearing to his left and he turned in that direction, scenting the air in the vain hope of smoke.
It was more than a clearing. It was a valley, carpeted in brittle grass, with the hard-baked cut of a dead river running through it. On every side, the forest loomed, stretching up in foothills towards the distant black peaks of mountains. And there, just as he had known there must be, were lights, twinkling like fallen stars in a nest of shadowy trees.
The human hung limp down his back, but she never shut up. She kept making that sound, like the breathless crying of a hoarse baby, until Kane thought he was going to go mad. He couldn’t blame her. Everyone had their limit and she’d hit hers, but he was coming up on his, and if she didn’t hush it in a hurry, he was going to do something he’d later regret.
The lights in the forest taunted him, but Kane forced himself to stop. He pulled Raven off his shoulder and set her on her feet. She staggered under her own weight and then dropped onto her butt, splay-legged and dazed, staring up at him. She was still crying and her eyes were still dry.
“Does anything hurt,” Kane demanded, trying very hard to keep his voice low, “or are you just giving me shit?”
Her face puckered up and she fell onto her side, drawing herself into a small ball and wailing into her arms.
Patience. Damn the gods, had there ever been such a fucked-up hunt as this?
Kane dropped to one knee beside his human and took his pack off. His scanner had a pin-light on it. He thumbed it on and had a look at his human’s eyes. Bloodshot and sunken. He forced her mouth open and prodded at her gums. They dimpled white and remained so. She wasn’t dying yet, but she would be very soon.
Kane considered his options, even though he already knew what he had to do. And in the end, he did it. He brought out his one and only protein boost and loaded it into the dermisprayer to give her.
Raven wailed as soon as she saw the device in his hand, and she tried to shove it away when he reached for her. Kane’s irritation got the better of him; his hand flew out and slapped across her sobbing mouth before he could stop himself. Her head rocked back and banged into the ground. She blinked stupidly into the sky, blood pooling around her lips. She began to cry again, looking confused.
‘Leave her the fuck alone!’ Kane snarled at himself in Urak’s voice. ‘Tar! It’s like kicking a baby!’ He took a deep breath, willing calm, and she chose that exact moment to say “Just kill me.”
The last shred of Kane’s temper snapped. “All right,” he said, and grabbed her by the hair. He stood, pulling her up with him as she screamed and slapped at his arms. He yanked up her tattered shirt and dug all three claws into the middle of her chest. “This is what you want?” he snarled, pushing his face close to hers. “You want to see your meat and bone break open? You want to see your heart spitting blood? You want to hold your guts as they dry? You want me to kill you? Say the word, human, and I’ll do it.”
Raven bawled wordless negation at the sky.
“Then shut up.” He dropped her and stomped away, pacing a short circle in the dead grass until his head quit throbbing. When he turned around, she was still lying on her back with her hands over her face, shaking with her tearless sobs. “I’ll forgive you for saying such a stupid thing,” he said, returning to her side and retrieving his dermisprayer from the ground, “but I won’t forgive it twice.”
He pressed the head of the dermisprayer against her arm and injected its contents through her skin with a hiss of air. “I only have one of these,” he said, packing it away again, “so you’d better not make me sorry I gave it to you. Get up.”
Raven rolled onto her hands and knees and slowly stood, wiping over and over at her dry eyes.