Kane closed his eyes, savoring the sound of her begging.
“Please, it hurts. Wasn’t…wasn’t I good to you? Please, Kane, I’ve been good.” She began to cry harder, helpless and quiet little tears as opposed to her hoarse braying. “Please. Please.” She bent forward and pressed her lips to his foot, sending pleasure through him that was damned near sexual. “Please help me. It hurts. Please, Kane.”
He raised his foot, shook her off, and took his pack over to the table. While he worked, he was aware of Raven uncurling herself and opening the bag with her purchases inside. A viscous white fluid came from the pump bottle and she dabbed it onto her tattoo. The thick paste from the tube went onto each piercing. Kane watched with narrow eyes, but didn’t interrupt. He didn’t trust Earth’s medicines.
“All right,” he announced. “Come here.”
She crawled to him on her knees, her hands pressed to her sex and her shoulders shaking. She leaned her brow against his thigh and didn’t flinch at all when the dermisprayer hissed.
He rested his hand on her head, toying with her hair as he felt her relax. “Feel better?” he asked.
“Uh huh.”
“All right, let’s have a look.” Kane reached down and took a smear of paste from her breast onto his fingertip. He fed it into his analyzer and plugged it into the computer. The results came quickly, and he was looking at a basic topical antibiotic. The white fluid was nothing more than a water-based moisturizer. She was going to need better than that.
Kane got up, letting Raven fold onto her side next to his chair. He went into the bathroom for a bottle of hair soap. He dumped the contents into the sink, rinsed it clean, and brought it out to the table.
He prepared the antibodies first, a powerful compound, and put them into the empty bottle with some of the moisturizer for a base, shaking the bottle until he had achieved a uniform consistency. It was probably all she’d need but he believed in caution when it came to protective medicines.
Kane mixed up a panacea blend of immuno-boosters and nanozymes and injected it into her sleeping body. Come daylight, the swelling would be gone and the holes well on their way to healed. The rest, he’d leave to nature. It would mean staying at the hotel until she was fit to travel again, but he could live with that.
“Thank you,” she mumbled now, and he patted her back absently. “I’ll be good.”
“I know you will.”
“I’m sorry I hit you.”
“I forgive you,” he said generously.
She stretched out and kissed his foot. She fell asleep that way, her cheek atop his talons, and Kane leaned his head on his fist and smiled down at her from above.
Chapter Ten
Gods, it was hot. Even with the suppressants keeping his body in check, the heat had a way of creeping in. The window was open, but there was no breeze and the air sat on Tagen’s chest, as hot and wet as if it had just come from the mouth of some invisible monster. Tagen could honestly say he would cut off a finger for just one bottle of iced ul. He even knew which one. Left hand, second.
He could not lie in this bed one second more. He rose naked and damp with sweat and cracked his door cautiously.
The house was still.
Tagen walked into the bathing room and stepped into the shower. The sound of the pipes working was abrasively loud, but all Tagen’s concerns for quiet ended the instant the false rain of the spray struck him. Tagen groaned as quietly as he was able, scrubbing sweat from his face and chest, massaging his tired muscles back to some semblance of life.
It was a blessed respite, but he could not shower forever. The heat was still out there, and the heat made him restless.
He left the shower with some reluctance, cloaking his naked loins with a wrapped towel in the unlikely event that he should encounter his human host. He went downstairs and navigated his way by feel to the kitchen.
The cold storage appliance released a breath of arctic air and Tagen savored it for a moment before bringing out a plate of the cold meat Daria had prepared. Chicken, she called it. It was pale and unappetizing, but the taste was agreeable and the meat was filling. He took the entire plate and a glass of iced water with him back down the hall, but not to his room.
Tagen sat on the sofa in the front room, letting his towel come unbound when he bent. He put his feet up on the low table and found the remote device in the dark.
He had left the tee-vee on the law officer program he favored, but it was not broadcasting now. Tagen ate chicken, watching several minutes of what he ultimately determined to be a very long commercial, and then began to switch channel feeds. Nothing he saw appealed to him.
The heat was relentless, smothering. He drank his water and fished out cubed ice to rub on his bare skin. He wanted to crawl inside his cup and die.
Tagen’s thumb, steadily pressing its way through the channels, suddenly paused. His expression, had he known it, never changed. His left hand continued to swirl the liquid in his glass just so that he could listen to the dull clink of ice. One talon takked thoughtfully on the surface of the low table.
On the screen before him, two humans were mating. Not merely pressing their mouths on one another or fumbling at clothing, as he had seen before in the course of the tee-vee’s programs, but mating. Right out in the open and broadcast for all the Earth to see.
It did not much resemble Jotan mating, unless, of course, the players had first partaken of some of vey Venekus’ mild sedative. It was slow, torturously slow, and the humans really didn’t seem to be enjoying it much. They hardly made any sound, and apart from a little light stroking of one another, were restrained enough nearly to be inanimate. And yet, it held a certain fascination for him.
Tagen’s eyes trailed slowly, almost gravely, across the female’s form. She was slender, like his Daria, and made with the same generous curves and valleys in all the same places, although this female’s breasts were larger and had not the organic bounce that Daria’s had when she moved. He wondered idly why that was so. Her pubic mound was nearly bare, but for an odd square patch of dark hair. A very, very square patch. Jotan grew no hair save on their heads. That unnatural black spot made for an obsessive focus for Tagen’s gaze. His eyes tracked slowly back and forth, up and down, back and forth.
No. Not much like regular mating, but Tagen began to feel distinctly aroused regardless and he found himself musing on the last time he’d had sex, just for comparison’s sake. He tipped his glass and drank, shutting his eyes to the scene before him but not changing the channel. He could still hear the sounds they made: her soft groans and sighs, his low grunts and mutters. It sounded like they were mating in their sleep. He felt a little sorry for them.
His last time, now…
He had been taking his ease in the recreations bay, his deep space tour nearly done (and his promotion to sek’ta, no doubt, already working its way towards full approval), drinking ul and watching two of his fellow officers throw chiak. He noticed the female when she entered the bay, of course, but like everyone else, he pretended not to. Not until she came and sat at his table.
“You’re Tagen Pahnee,” she’d said.
“Yes. And you’re not.” Wit had never been his greatest strength.
She’d smiled anyway. A generous soul. “We fought together at Rae-Rae,” she told him. “I haven’t seen much of you since then.”