“Men in my profession who settle for ships get caught,” Kane finished. “Men who settle for crew end up taking long walks in empty space. And I can’t just come back and try again.”

She dropped her eyes, her teeth bared. Kane growled, the sound an even mix of exasperation and arousal. She was still chafing at him, but she looked so cute with her blunt little fangs exposed it was hard to stay angry.

“Come here,” he told her, and she came, looking pissed off and defeated. “How long have I been hunting, Raven?” he asked, bringing her in against him.

“I don’t know. Long enough, I suppose.” She touched a finger to his stomach and lightly scratched, scowling. “Go ahead. Call me a whiner.”

“Ah, you’ll find I’m a forgiving man when it comes to over-caution.” He cupped her head, brought it to his chest, and closed his eyes as she bit. She was so maddeningly slow, so wonderfully thorough. He felt every muscle unlocking as he savored her. “See?” he murmured. “I’m forgiving you already.”

Her teeth burned their way slowly down his body. Her hands went before them, finishing the job Heat had begun, and stroking him hard through his clothing. Then she was gripping at his hips and biting just above the waist of his pants, pulling at him to force a lazy parody of thrust to bring him into her bites, but she made no effort to do more.

Too relaxed to do much more than bare his fangs, Kane said, “You’re teasing me again. Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

“Sue-Eye’s still trolling,” she replied evenly. “I’m not starting just so I have to stop. Why, is that what you want? Because you’re my commander. I’ll do what you say.” She bit, very carefully and very explosively, right at the base of his constrained cock.

Kane managed not to shout, but it was a near thing. He started to shove her away, then caught her in the same instant, hauling her up to meet his rough kiss and pulling her hips hard against his. He ground at her fiercely, forcing her mouth wider, and drew in breaths that grew ever richer with musk.

Footsteps in the woods again, by hell. Kane snarled into Raven’s mouth and she laughed into his.

“Your lesson,” he growled. “Tiyavek sa sen channan.”

She had to say it twice before he was satisfied. “What does it mean?” she asked.

“Teach me,” he said, nipping at her throat. “Teach me my lessons.”

“And what is it you think I need to learn?”

He growled again, less playfully, and bit her harder, drawing a bead of blood for him to lick away. She darted in right after, sucking her own blood back from the tip of his tongue, and he had to step back fast to keep from tearing the clothes right off her. She licked her lips, letting her blood paint them with color, and bared her teeth at him.

“Sorry,” he heard a human say behind him. “Didn’t know this tree was taken. Come on, baby.”

Kane swung around, still grinning, and sheared the human’s throat open. Sue-Eye leapt away—a blur of wild eyes and open mouth—and Kane snapped the skull, all his senses still scorched by desire.

Raven was waiting when he turned around. She had leaned herself against a straight-backed tree with her shirt off and skirt slyly raised to show the gleam of sunlight on her pink folds. “Tiyavek sa sen channan,” she said in a mocking sing-song. “D’shorr, sildurra Kane. Oh, d’shorr!”

Kane growled appreciatively, and then cut his eyes at his watchful ichuta’a. He tossed her his harvester; she clapped it out of the air, and then stared at it and him uncertainly. “Take care of this for me,” he told her, “and then stay close until I tell you different.” He waited until she had bent over the twitching corpse before turning away. It was time to school his Raven.

“Of course,” he said, seizing her hands and pressing them to his groin, “I can’t teach you everything. I’m supposed to be working.”

“You are,” she assured him, running her fingers over his bulging pant front and pressing her bared breasts to his chest. “Hard at work.” She swayed against him, dancing in place, their mingling sweat oiling the action. He could feel her metal ornaments rubbing hard at him in stark contrast to her softness and the effect was not in the least disagreeable.

Kane’s hands rose and settled on her back, pulling her fully against him, helping her to slide across the plane of his chest. Heat was in him, Heat like a knife, gutting him, robbing him of real pleasure, but this pain-wracked imitation still could not be all bad. It was still Raven undoing his fastens, Raven’s hands sealing themselves around his throbbing erection, and Raven was a female of unassailable talents. Even Heat could be a damned good thing with Raven.

She began to lower herself in slow, waving undulations. The metal stiffening her nipples dug pleasantly at him as they scored a twin path down his body and he arched forward to meet her. And would he like to feel that easy journey continue? Ah gods, yes. He would like to take Raven’s blunt teeth in human bites on his stomach as her breasts gripped and slid along his cock. He would like her mouth on him, sucking and teasing and surrounding him as she swallowed. All these things he’d like. But Heat was about need, not like, and anyway, she had an education coming.

Kane growled at her in mock ferocity, pulling her brusquely to her feet as her knees touched the earth. He snapped at her, relishing the surprise she showed him, and then spun her around. He captured her wrists, slapped her hands into the chapped side of the tree, and took a blood-bite from her naked shoulder. “Lesson one,” he snarled, bumping his hips hard against her backside. “Never tease me when I’m in Heat.”

One arm ensnared her waist and yanked her towards him, positioning her roughly to be ridden. Proving out the winsome nature that had so appealed to him back in the very beginning, she kept her palms flat on the tree, although her little claws dug apprehensively at the bark. That she was so openly nervous was deeply arousing to him; her obedience, even more so. He planted one leg between hers and kicked her feet apart, flipping her skirt up and shoving the loose ends of it into the belted waist. A short, sharp tug to a handful of her hair brought her head up high and Kane stepped away to admire the effect.

It was so amazing, still, to see the secret sex of a female exposed even when her back was turned. Bent as Raven was, hips out-thrust and legs apart, Kane could see even the gleam of metal, the musk-damp pink of her inner folds.

No, Heat was not about what a man might want, but certain things were impossible to resist. Kane moved against her, sliding his knee between her thighs and cupping her breasts from behind, not to please her, but just to feel the reality of the body he owned. The feel of metal rings and rods beneath his open palms was a searing bite to his very soul. His thigh ground up at her lazily, bringing her up onto her toes, and then back to earth in slow rotation. The scent of musk came to him. He shuddered, torturing himself with restraint as he felt her dampening his half-undone clothing.

Raven groaned, pushing back at him. It was music to his heightened senses, but he gave her a punishing snarl anyway. “Lesson two,” he told her curtly, giving her claws where his caresses had so recently lingered. “Heat hurts.”

He gave her no time after that to prepare herself, but stepped up and mounted like an animal, his chest to her bent back. That first golden thrust met with the instinctive hindrance of anxious flesh. Primed as she might be for mating, Raven’s tight sheath closed on him, making it necessary to bend her further, shove harder. Her oils coated him, bringing quick-cum in seconds, and with the slackening of that hellish itch and swelling came renewed awareness of her—ah, his tight Raven, his wanton Raven!

He fucked her for the first time in a true Jotan frenzy, hard and fast and greedy. He had no doubt that it hurt her, but Jotan had known since the dawn of Time that a little pain could be a pleasant spice, and rough though he might be, Kane kept the limits of human flesh full in mind. He teased them out, letting her know that this was Heat, that she was for his pleasure, his release. She shook out a cry just once, and after that, only moans and whimpers that let him hear her own eagerness, her far-thinking recognition of the need for quiet. She rocked back at him as he rode, moving her hips in faltering bumps that he knew were struggles as much as they were mating. He could feel her cumming, he knew she was enjoying at least some of this, but not all, not by a damn stretch. She wanted him to finish with her.