Kane finally started typing again. “I should warn you that you’re starting to piss me off, ichuta’a,” he said evenly.

“I’m so sorry to hear that. What do you want me to do?” she asked, her tone just as cool as his.

“Go to sleep. Watch TV. Take a shower. Anything but what you’re doing, which is aiming your ugly mood right at me.” He took the sleeve out of the side of his computer, replaced it with a fresh one from his pack, and started emptying brain juice into it. “You seem to think you can do that and make me feel bad. Why in hell you’d want me in a bad mood, I couldn’t begin to guess, but I don’t think it’ll work, and even if it does, I’ll probably express that bad mood by carving an eye out of you.”

Sue-Eye stiffened and curled up a little tighter.

Raven reappeared wrapped in a towel, but only took a step toward the bed before Kane said, “Practice your letters, Raven.” Sue-Eye was left alone.

In all this time (and it felt like forever, even though Sue-Eye knew it had only been a few days), Kane had never once said that he would let her go when he was done using her. He’d said it to Cammy, and he’d done good by his promise, but he hadn’t said it to Sue-Eye. The most he’d done was tell her how temporary her place at his side really was, that he’d only need her for as long as he couldn’t have Raven. After that…

She really thought she’d have him by now. He was a killer, and while it was not necessarily true that killers have no loyalty, what loyalty they had was damned little. And Raven, well, Raven was a lousy bitch, pure and simple. She was mouthy and she got freaked out too easy. Sure, she was cute, but cute didn’t last. It should be Sue-Eye who had the man’s mark on her arm, damn it!

These thoughts had a way of circling, and anger (always the easiest emotion for Sue-Eye to nurture) was soothing to her heart. She’d actually started to doze off when Kane suddenly said, “All right, come over here.”

Sue-Eye rolled toward him, her eyes narrowed, but it really was her he was looking at as he set his computer aside and not Raven. She stood up and moved warily from her bed to his, more than half-expecting a fist as soon as she came into his reach. But he crooked a claw at her instead, an invitation to join him. She sat down on the edge of the mattress, her spirits rising, waiting for his command.

“You said something the other day.” Kane pillowed his head with one arm and let the other rest on his stomach, seemingly relaxed and unconcerned with her as he watched Raven write. “You said you’d been a bitch longer than my Raven. You knew how to do it better. That’s not a use for that word that I’m familiar with, but I think I take your meaning. We have a word for that, too. Thal. I think of you as my thal…when I don’t think of you as my ichuta’a.” He smiled thinly and moved his eyes to her. They were utterly without humor.

Sue-Eye resisted the urge to shift. She held his gaze and waited.

“Do you know what I can do with thalan?” he asked.

“Anything you want,” she said.

“That’s right. I can feed them. I can eat them. I can fix them. I can break them. I can do anything I want.” His voice never raised. His words remained calm and evenly modulated. His black-fathomed gaze never dimmed. “I can even humor them. Put your mouth on me, thal.”

Sue-Eye blinked. This was the victory she’d wanted, but she didn’t trust the way in which he acceded. Hesitantly, she reached for him.

He lifted his fist and punched her in the side of her head, not hard, but hard enough. “Did I say use your hand?” he asked. “Put your mouth on me, thal. Raven, your letters.”

Sue-Eye glanced up in time to see Raven turn back to the table. She felt herself blush, newly uncomfortable. Her ear throbbing and hot from the blow, she bent, bracing her hands on either side of his hips, and licked at his flaccid cock, sucking him awkwardly up into her mouth. She tongued until he hardened, and triumph bloomed in her heart. She took him into her throat, bobbing up and down, slicking the full length of him as he grew.

“That’s enough. On your belly, thal.”

She lay flat as he got up, waiting tensely as he crossed behind her. His hands gripped her ankles. With one yank, he pulled her legs off the bed and let them drop. Her knees burned on the carpet. He put a hand on her ass and pushed her full against the mattress, then kept it there, stretching her cheek aside.

Oh Jesus, no.

“W-Wait!” Sue-Eye gasped.

He punched her in the other ear. It was his only answer. He fit the head of his massive cock to her ass and pushed, splitting her open one brutal inch after another. He went slow, drawing out every second of agony, and she screamed into the mattress and tore at the sheets.

“A thal,” Kane said, timing his words to his steady, crushing thrusts, “takes…what she’s…given…and is…grateful…it isn’t…death.”

“Th-thank you, Kane!” she choked, tears streaming from her eyes. He was killing her! He was killing her!

“A thal…seeks…to please…because…she knows…her place. Move, thal.”

Sue-Eye grit her teeth and pushed back at him, braying with pain.

“That’s it.” Kane stopped thrusting but left his hand on her back. “Steady now. Slow and steady. And stop making that noise.”

Sue-Eye pushed her face into the bedding to muffle herself and Kane’s huge hand cracked like iron on the sensitive small of her back.

“I said stop!” he snarled. “Not cover, but stop! Thalan who can’t follow simple commands are cut open and fed their own guts as they die!”

Sue-Eye bit down on her lips until blood spat out with every sobbing breath. She yanked and twisted at the blankets, all her instinctive movements for escape confined to her helpless hands as she made herself to move on him.

“That’s better.” Kane leaned back, bracing his weight on his hands. It forced her to sit him, to actually bounce and roll instead of just push a little back and forth, but she did it. Her jaw was locked so tight against screams that she was afraid every second of hearing bones crack. She fucked him through a red mist of pain, and when he growled at her to go faster, she obeyed without hesitation.

“Up, thal,” he said suddenly, and shoved her forward and off him. She sprawled facedown on the floor and Kane rose over her on his knees. She felt the hot rain of his cum falling on her back, but it was a distant thing. Every nerve in her entire body was an echo of the titanic agony in her bowels. She clawed at the carpet, trying to will her jaw to relax, and suddenly retched, spitting frothy bile between her grit teeth.

Kane laughed, stepping over her on his way to the bathroom. “That,” he said dryly, “isn’t very flattering at all, ichuta’a. Work on that. And Raven, mind your writing. Your leth is crooked.”

The door shut. The shower came on. Raven dropped her pen and jumped up, kneeling down to grip Sue-Eye’s shoulders.

“Fuck off!” Sue-Eye spat, swiping at her eyes.

Raven dropped her hands but didn’t retreat. “Come on,” she whispered. “We don’t have to fight all the time, do we? I know what he—”

“I said, fuck off!” Sue-Eye swung blindly, smacking the pony a pathetic if gratifyingly loud blow on the arm. “I’m not your fucking girlfriend!”

Raven stood up again, looking down at her. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“What way?” Sue-Eye challenged. “He’s fucking me while you’re doing homework. What way is that, huh?” She climbed to her feet, advancing angrily on Kane’s pony. “You think you’re such hot shit. Well, you’re not. You’re just the bitch he met first. But I’m the one who says she wants him. I’m the one he’s fucking even when he’s not in Heat. And I’m the one he’s spooning with at night. So don’t come all over playing so concerned. I see right through you, bitch. You’re on the way out!”