“We should really get going.” His voice pitched louder. “A pity fucking you was the only way to make you sensible and Lure-resistant again.”
The grin on his face said he wasn’t sorry.
She blew a mild raspberry.
“What? You don’t fucking believe me?”
“You think?”
Vargr sauntered out looking far drier than her, buckling his gun belt on properly, checking the large pistol. Her ankle boots, and the jeans with the pretty belt buckle, were squashed under his arm. His wings extended partly, fluttering to dry themselves. She paused a millisecond to wonder if that was voluntary or instinctive. Then she adjusted the waistband of the leggings and took the boots from him.
“So.” He paused, looking across the tops of the cars and rubble while she sat on what was left of the bumper of a semi to draw on and buckle her boots. “What did Rutger do to you?”
“Truthfully, I can’t remember much.” She clicked her tongue. “I remember him being here. The desk. The waterfall. The sounds of rain. That’s it. He rescued me from somewhere… dark?”
“Yes. Tom said you were walking into the train tunnel.” He searched her face, as if he could draw more from her expression than her words had conveyed. “Let’s get back. We need to move on. The Worshippers’ camp will be safe.”
He helped her cross the chaos of the smashed-up motorway, though she was steady by then and needed no help. They negotiated the hole in the wall where Toother waited, wagging his stumpy tail, prancing about like a normal dog might, but leaving bright scratches on the train track where his claws bit.
Vargr paused to reach up and scratch Toother’s ear. “Do you remember biting the ghoul guard you killed?”
“Oh.” She stared at him. Memories were triggered, flooding in. “I stabbed him, a lot.” Wet noises, thumping noises, the knife sinking in. Biting though? She remembered leaning over the body. He was dead by then. Cyn gulped. “No, I don’t. I didn’t do that, did I?”
Vargr shrugged. “Tom wasn’t sure, but his throat was bitten, they thought.”
“Rutger thought it too,” she whispered. No wonder they’d tied her arms. Made the sex hot but… Her mind switched back to the gory death of the possessed human she’d killed.
She really hoped she had not done that.
When they reached the camp, everyone was ready to move on. Maura was waiting beside Rutger. They had tied her hands to Toother’s saddle. Tom placed a body, wrapped in a blanket, on the nanodog, and Toother turned to sniff the corpse, nudgedit with his nose. Make that two people, wrapped. Another lay on the ground. They lifted that body onto Toother.
She should fix Maura again, but with a shaking hand she wiped her mouth. Two bodies. Not good. Who else was missing? She’d seen only one beaster die.
“Wait.” Vargr stepped forward, hand rising. “Not Orm?”
“Yes.” Rutger nodded. “A friend?”
“Everyone is a friend when the world is ending. Fuck.” His voice cracked as he cursed. “Bleedin’ fuck.”
“I know. I’m sorry. To all of you.” Though his eyes swept the area and took in her presence, she could see Rutger was deliberately trying not to look at her.
In the middle of this unexpected death, worrying over whether Rutger had done something to her seemed stupid and irrelevant. Not that she was actually worried. If anything, his gaze had caused the blossoming of a subtle thrill. Her nipples peaked. Nowthatwas a reflex and not her doing.
Death and lust, what better matches. She curled her lower lip into her mouth, sucked on it, feeling dirty, yet aroused… yet dirty.
Stepping carefully, she wove between the beasters to Toother and reached over to take Maura’s arm. The woman was waiting calmly, so far, in spite of the glazed appearance to her eyes.
Night-time, remember, it lessened the Lure.
She knew the way into her head now, knew the threads to peel lose. By the time they were walking, she’d mostly brought Maura out of it. Her intelligence returned, the awareness. Once her hands were untied, Maura squeezed Cyn’s hand and mouthed athank you.
Cyn nodded, smiled, and felt the glow of knowing she’d done something good. It was her task, this, same as it was Vargr’s to keep her free of the Lure.
By fucking me. Such delicious irony. Seeing she loved him doing it. Even though she could not resist taunting him, every time.
What else were men for except to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous women?
She smiled to herself, made a note to find a copy ofShakespeare’s Complete Works. There must be a volume somewhere?
