“Foolish woman.”
They scowled at each other until he dragged her and a loose chain to a metal support column then chained her to the column.
“Sleep.” He pointed at her. Fat chance of that. She was enraptured. With her bound to one spot, he may as well try to snooze.
The way of things now was to sleep and hide deep in the middle of the scrapers in the daytime, when danger was out there. If they needed to go to the edges, they ventured there when it was dark. Mostly. Humans did need their sun to be healthy too.
Hours later, he gave up on sleep. He’d tossed and turned and had found himself waking repeatedly just to check on her. It was possible she could get free. He knew too little of her weirdnesses.
“What are you, Cyn?” he murmured.
She merely cocked her head. At least she wasn’t wearing a groove in her neck or wrists trying to rip loose. There was some sense to her still. More than a pure human, if they were up this high.
He rose and wandered off to find a distant place to pee, hoping she wouldn’t need to until dark came, when she should be more compos mentis.
It must be past midday, he judged using his reliable inner clock. Another thing he’d gained with the nanomachines teeming in his blood. They’d said the nanites carried beast DNA. What beast had wings like his? Was he more animal or man, or was he a living machine?
Some days it bothered him.
Cyn was sitting with her back to the column, and he did the same, relaxing against a nearby one.
Vargr rubbed his hands over his stiff hair, felt the hard spikes where some of his originally jet-black hair was welding together into rough flattened triangles, like hairy shark teeth.The ultimate fashion hair-do. Most beasters were still changing. It was what it was.
He had to sort out what he was doing with her. Hands cradling his scalp, he peered at her from under his brow. Because it wasn’t so simple now the Lure could get her. She couldn’t protect herself, and some male would take advantage. He knew it, because he sure damn well wanted to fuck her.
Even sitting as demurely as she was, with the shape of her legs perfectly outlined in those tan leggings and her tits making round bumps in the red top, yeah, he had to swallow and breathe in… and out, slowly, before he could think further.
Beaster lust hit hard.
Fucking her now would be despicable. With the Lure this high in her, it’d bond them irrevocably, but she would have no say.
On the other hand, it was going to happen with somebody. She was the epitome of feminine beauty in his eyes with her inky hair that curled in unexpected whorls at her neck and her curvy litheness. There were muscles among those curves too. Whatever they’d fed humans on, it hadn’t turned her into a skeleton. Fattening them up, he guessed, like ducks or geese. His lip curled up in distaste. She was here now.
There were loose laws at the tribe but nothing for this. Beasters were practical and more than a tad amoral when sex was concerned. He shifted his legs to relieve the pressure in his pants, then he cracked his knuckles one by one. Think. What was the best move?
The loud crunch of his finger joints was background noise and nothing new. He ignored it. If the naniteswerecausing arthritis, no one knew how to reverse it. Same as shark-teeth coiffure.
Think.This girl was giving him a headache, and she wasn’t even talking.
From his pack he drew a notepad and pen, and painstakingly, with his thick, unbendy fingers, wrote down his ideas in wobbly letters, all the requirements to make this work. He went back and scribbled out a few times, rewrote. The paper became dented, smudged and probably a hen could’ve done this better. It was, however, a contract.
He tapped the pen and smiled.Yeah. Perfect.Then he set it aside.
He closed his eyes.
If she signed it, everything would be fine.
Sleep chose then to close in and pounce, heavily. He let himself slide to the floor, curled with his arm as a pillow and soon he heard snores in the foggy distance.
When he woke, he found her watching him with fairly steady eyes. He levered himself into a sitting position and rubbed sleep from his eyes.
The Lure seemed lessened in her. His internal clock said dusk was close.
“Do you feel it still?”
“The Lure?” She pulled at the collar, seemingly not quite aware it wasn’t attached to anything. “It’s there. The bastard thing. I want it gone,” she added in a whisper.
The industrial strength chain was clipped about her ankle, with the simple hook at the end. Her hands he’d long ago unclipped. It had seemed safer, and as expected she couldn’t sort out how to free herself.
