She stopped talking since it was distracting Willow from her task. Soon she could hear the susurration of words as Willow sank into examining the nanites inside Vargr. The possibility still existed that something might be wrong with him.
This woman, this biotechie and their leader, wore the strain of the past few days on her face and in her posture. Shadows tainted her skin beneath her eyes and there was a general weariness to how she held herself. While she stood there with her eyes shut, her mate, Mads, sneaked through the rows of bed pallets until he was behind her.
His bright white hair and white wings reminded her of a cockatoo.
Though he did not touch her, he regarded Willow with some impatience, with his hands behind his back while taking deep breaths. When he spotted Cyn watching him, he shrugged.
He placed his finger across his lips in the universal shushing gesture.
At last Willow lifted her head and removed her hand from Vargr.
“You’re healthy, and I can see both types of nanites in you. The ones Cyn gave you are mostly where your wounds are. They remind me of how Rutger has healed. His nanites invade his wounds so thoroughly… I cannot say how this will go over time with you, so you must remind me to check you now and then. Okay?”
Vargr nodded. “I will. But now, I plan to leave here, find a place for us.” He opened his arm to include Cyn and Rutger. “We’ll check in here so that when you decide to meet with War beasters, we’ll be ready to go with you.”
A frown creased her forehead. “Don’t go too high in the quarter yet. Three stories up is where we are all aiming, max. And keep away from the edge. Our casualties thinned us. We do need to talk to War Quarter. Right now, we can’t risk leaving Big Daddy unguarded or those nanites Maura has grown. I have an idea about waking his programming. But…” She looked about, sighed. “There’s so much to do.”
“Of course.” Vargr rose, bowed slightly—a very formal beaster compared to how he’d behaved toward Cyn. “Thank you for everything that was done to save me.”
“It wasn’t me, as you know.” She smiled at Cyn. “When you’ve found a place, and make it one close enough to everyone else that we can aid each other, come and see me. I’m going to begin cataloging everything we found in Big Daddy, piece by piece. We have to find out where we came from. What we are…
“Healing is only one thing, but if Cyn’s nanites are safe to inject, we may have a whole new strategy opening up that might take us to the very Top. What if we could all control the Lure?”
Ugh.Why hadn’t she thought of that?
“Hey, you need to get some rest.” Mads took Willow in a slow embrace, hugged her long enough that everyone could see the comfort she gained from it, then kissed her before helping her walk away. Her gait was slow and unsteady. Hopefully Mads would make her rest.
“God, we need that woman,” she said softly.
“We do.” Rutger agreed. “Now, where are we going Vargr?”
“Up. Definitely up. Whatever else your nanites did, Cyn, they gave me a huge appetite. I need to fuck you soon.” His gaze swept slowly up her from toes to breasts, then he met her eyes.
She almost took a step backward, feeling like Bambi must in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
Grinning almost maniacally, he raised his arms and stretched, which only emphasized that he’d probably grown. Muscles and all. The chest wounds were filled in with red. His ribs and abdominals were fine as fuck and would make for a lovely anatomy lesson. He looked close to as heavy as Rutger, and they hadn’t fed him that much recently.
Wasn’t that violating some law of the universe about mass and energy?
“I like this idea. The fucking.” Rutger said from behind. Next second he lifted her high and placed her on his shoulders, ducking his head to scoot her over his horns.
She grabbed hold of those and grumbled at them both. “Heyyy.”
Rutger did a small jump which jolted her, and she cursed and clutched his horns. “Fuck! Be careful.”
“Oh? Being careful with you isn’t quite what I had in mind.”
Vargr actually let his tongue out to lick all the way around his mouth, then he winked at her.
She stared. He was sounding more dangerous by the second. However, she did like dangerous… as in really,reallyliked.
Craved it, maybe, was beginning to dream about getting on her knees and licking this newly minted Vargr from his ankles up his legs, up to everywhere that counted. She flashed to an image of him forcing her to take his cock.
This could be an interesting day… night… whatever it was. She’d lost track.
51
A grand sweepingstairway materialized around the corner from a debris-clogged alleyway, and they took it—with her being joggled along on Rutger’s shoulders, a jockey on a monstrous beast. She didn’t mind. His horns were works of art and so tactile with their minute bumps, and she loved how the blue motes slithered and curled off into space under her hands.
