Yet. There was a time, and not too damned distant, when she’d had no taste for Kane.

To hear her voice, smoky with desire, begging him to take her had been a savagely satisfying thing. He had toyed with her, touching her as humans do while coaxing his language from her lips, but it had proved a dangerous game.

I belong to you, she’d said, and suddenly Kane was no longer playing. I belong to commander Kane. I belong to you.

Tomorrow, he had promised to give her his body as her playground. His loins tightened even now at the thought. She wanted to take her time, to mate with him in human fashion. He meant to be ready for her, drained of Heat and receptive. He’d embrace her if she wished it, caress her, taste her. He would do all the things he had seen humans do as they mated in the video feeds. He would even attempt to use his mouth on her sex, if she asked him (he could imagine the taste, salty and heavy with musk, the metals he had put in her sharpening the flavor, and he licked his lips now without realizing it). He would be gentle while she wanted him to be gentle, and then he would wrest control from her as she lay in his arms. He would bring her back to that crazed and shaking hunger he had given her this night. And he meant to make her scream as she came.

Kane forced his attention back to his work, to the monotonous business of numbers and ratios, to the formula that would buy him (and his human crew of one) a ship and a future. He would have one more ampule of concentrated Vahst when the program was complete, five by the end of the night, but only if he kept his focus and refrained from pointless fantasy. He had promised himself to Raven, but that was for tomorrow. Vahst was for tonight.

Voices outside, more humans come to take lodgings in the hotel. A man and woman, by the sound of it. Kane listened with half an ear, idly considering the possibility of going out and taking them, adding them to the other humans he had collected in the ampules before him.

“He wouldn’t tell me, Tagen, and he was a total jerk about it. We’re going to have to wait to ask the day guy. Is that okay?”

“It will suffice. I need only you, and sleep.”

Kane shook his head, smiling faintly. Human romance. They were taking the room directly beside him; he could hear them moving behind the wall, hear the insectile hum of their climate controller pumping cold air into their room. He rejected the notion of harvesting them. It would mean waking his females and abandoning the hotel after he had killed, and he was looking forward to a few hours sleep himself. Let them alone, never knowing how close they had slept to Death.

Over the droning of the air-conditioner next door, Kane’s ears soon picked out low sounds, voices but not words, coming in slow rhythm. Mating. His own eyes slipped back of their own will to linger on Raven’s moon-slick form. He could smell her musk, and with the muffled groans and cries of passion behind him, he could easily imagine her body and his thrashing with abandon.

Raven murmured, her sleeping senses adopting the things she heard for her own dreams. Her throat arched, and Kane heard his name pass like a sigh through her lips. Her thighs parted, her hips rocked, seeking a partner.

Kane rose and went to kneel beside the bed. He touched his fingertip to her lips and she clutched at him, sucking and mewling with sleeping eagerness. He could feel himself stiffening.

The humans on the other side of the wall were growing louder, despite their obvious efforts to muffle themselves. The headboard of their bed slammed thunderously into the wall three times before silencing, but the universal language of coupling continued. The female sounded half-crazed by whatever the male was doing to her. Kane’s imagination unfolded a number of possibilities and his cock began to throb.

Kane pulled free of Raven’s hungry mouth and traced his claws down over her undulating body to the equally-hungry parts of her below. Her pussy clamped and sucked at him as eagerly as her mouth; he pumped his hand against her, matching the rhythm of the humans next door, and she cried out and coated him with her pleasure. Behind him, as though spurred on by Raven’s release, the male uttered a single, strained groan, and then there was silence.

Kane stroked his Raven’s thigh, soothing her back into the depths of sleep. Then he turned, stripping out of his clothing, and pulled the sheets away from Sue-Eye. She roused a little, muttering as she groped to cover herself again, and he caught her leg and flung her open. “Not a sound,” he hissed, flicking his eyes warningly at Raven, sleeping Raven. He straddled the bed, his thighs wide apart and his cock jutting greedily, and closed his fist around himself, rubbing Raven’s oils up and down his length. Then he seized her hips and yanked her up to impale him.

She had been blinking, struggling to waken and to sit up. Now she uttered a coughing gasp and dropped back onto the bed, all her body tensing. Kane fucked her hard, his thrusting hips chopping her breath into pants, and watched her fight for silence. He was hurting her, he knew he was.

“Do you want me?” he whispered, unable to resist goading her.

She nodded, her jaw clenched. Her legs came up and locked around his waist; she began to add to his movements, imitating his body’s lust with thrusting of her own.

This was not Heat. When it was done, it was done, and Kane was in the mood to play. He glanced at Raven, found her still sleeping in the glow of her release, and then withdrew from his grimly-willing partner and climbed from the bed. He gestured for her to follow and went into the bathroom, where he could put another door between them.

No sooner had Sue-Eye joined him on the tiled floor than he had shut her in and pushed her facedown against the sink. He slapped her thighs apart, his claws sinking into her shoulder, and shoved his aching cock into her ass.

She wasn’t expecting it and she came alive like a wire, kicking and hammering at him in a panic, but never making more than a single gagging cry. He fucked her ferociously, beating compliance into her constricted passage and forcing her to admit him. The pleasure was exquisite, hot and wild, and he did not give a damn if it killed her.

Ah gods, she was humping back at him, her face in the mirror set with determination. There were tears in her eyes, and her knuckles were white where they gripped the countertop, but she was showing him her best all the same. “Tell me,” he hissed, thrusting brutally hard.

“I want you,” she said, the words ripped from her in gusts. “I love your cock. Let me suck it. Let me fuck it. Give me your cock, Kane. Give it to me as hard as you can.”

He did, amused, and she keeled over with a gasping scream and bit her hand. She was a tough little bitch, he’d give her that. And if she proved resilient as well, he might just keep her.

His end was coming. Kane backed up, grabbed her by the hair and shoved her down on her knees. He aimed his cock at her eyes and came, shooting cum in a flood over her face and hair. She opened her mouth for it, humiliation and hate still shining in her eyes.

Panting, grinning, Kane hunkered down and put his gaze level with hers. “Did you cum?” he asked.

Her expression became uncertain. She nodded.

“Let me feel.” He extended his hand.

Sue-Eye tensed and slowly parted her thighs. Kane pushed two fingers roughly inside her, invading her, watching her closely as her face fought not to contort. It was a little wet. Just a little.

“You’re a liar,” he said cheerfully, withdrawing his hand. “I quit too soon. And here you are, unfulfilled.”

She waited, her eyes narrow and unsure.

“I’m in a good mood,” he said. “I’ll let you cum. Go on.”

She only sat there, her body taut with expectation of pain, with the gaze she thought was guarded showing all her hostility and doubt.