With tiny marks, he sketched in the resort and atrium with the long corridors too, noted the shop areas, put red dots where food stores might be, and the direction—even when the sun wasn’t visible, or the stars, or when the buildings curved away from parallel, he could sense direction. He drew the compass mark, closed the map book, and returned it to his pack.
“Now. Show me.”
Gently he unwrapped the bandage, rolling it away so he could re-use it on her. Except when the wound was revealed there was nothing save a bright red pucker.Jesus H.In a few hours, he’d bet on that being gone too. Vargr went to one knee to study her abdomen more closely. He placed his hands to either side, above her hips, and was amused at the slight tremor that ran through her and that small gasp.
“You are quite something.” He rose, dropped the roll of bandage and the stained wound dressing. “It’s almost healed.”
She finally leaned over and looked. “Well, fuck me dead.”
He snorted. They could bond over cursing. “You.” He waggled a finger. “Are going to help me keep this a secret. At least until I’m sure it will be okay to tell others.”
“Why?” she asked, wide-eyed.
Because there were hot heads in the tribe who might interpret this wrongly. Because he needed her to find his sister. Because he liked her. Because this might mean many things. “Because I don’t know what people will think you are, and they might decide to execute you, just to be careful.”
“But I hurt a Ghoul Lord! I escaped.”
“Mmm. And some will ask why you were allowed to escape. That will lead to complications. Your strangenesses are too much in one go. Secret.” He lay his finger across his mouth and found himself wishing to do the same to hers—that bee-sting cuteness to them made him ache to kiss her.
Cyn nodded. The scarlet eye motes swirled, kinked. “Sure. Lips are zipped. So how much do I say?” She put a hand on her hip and popped out that hip.
Red was traditionally used to signal danger.Beware, I bite.And her posture made him wonder at her bravado. He sure hoped he had this figured.
They ran through the best approach, what to reveal of her, as he’d called it, strangenesses, then decided they may as well have a meal while they were halted.
A small market store a few doors along was unlooted. Canned cold soup was one of his staples nowadays. He offered her a selection of soups, some jerky, a chocolate bar, and a packet of vegetable chips, then he popped a vitamin and gave her a couple.
“No need for table manners.” He slid down the glass wall onto his butt, feet facing the balcony edge and waited for her to do the same. “Dig in.” He waved his spoon. Favorite metal one. Plastic ones were everywhere on shelves, but you had to keep some sense of decorum.
His spoon was a memory in a way. An anime character decorated the handle.
“Yum-my.” She grimaced at the can of chicken and vegetable soup she’d pried open, tossed the vitamins in her mouth, thenwashed them down with bottled water. “Do vitamins still work? Don’t they expire?”
“Everything is expiring or expired, luv. Even gasoline. Batteries. Cans are exploding and rusting out. Everything. We forge on and hope. Besides, the nano-machines made us tough buggers. I’m thinking we don’t need them anymore. I take them just in case.”
“And me?”
He smiled at her. “You, I don’t know. You’re tough too. Resistant to the Lure. We’ve no way to measure this stuff. I’m hoping dearly you have some key to defeating those ass-wipes on the top floor.”
“Yeah. I suppose I am unusual.” She shrugged and looked into space, past the edge, and he was sure it wasn’t the footwear store across the way that made her look so thoughtful.
The way she swelled out the front of her shirt and the squash of her rear where it snuggled into the angle of store and concrete, just those gave him a hard-on, and her mouth. Always her mouth. He was having fantasies of kissing it, and more.
Thing was, he didn’t want to ruin this. Beasters had libidos multiplied by two of any human. It was why he steered away from mating with lure-affected humans. Selfish, maybe? Unleash that desire and he wasn’t sure he could stop. Especially with her. He’d seen over-the-top aggression, territorial behavior, and he understood why. The need ran deep in beasters.
He wanted her thinking he was friendly, not some voracious animal.
Besides, she might try to stomp on him, which he’d not allow.Thatmade his dick twitch—thinking about how he’d rebuke her, hold her down…
Vargr shook his head, sighed. “Let’s eat.”
By the time he’d emptied two cans, she was hugging her knees and waiting for him. The questions started.
“What’s it like, this tribe of yours? I find it weird that you call yourselves a tribe.”
“Uh-huh. Good question.” The truth, she’d want that, deserved it.“We called ourselves a tribe because it seemed the best word. It was a comfortable word. We’ve had enough of being an army, or a beast horde as our creator called us.”
“Doctor Nietz?”
