Tagen drove.

*

Kane ran.

Raven bounced on his shoulder, a burden of uncaring weight. He could feel the beating of her heart on his back. It was the only sign of life she gave him, but it was a warming one. He could go much faster without her, he knew, but it was not an option. He would leave the Vahst before he left her.

Where was he? They’d been traveling west for some time already, but where the hell was he? He couldn’t afford to get turned around now, blunder out into the road or, hell, into the Fleet officer’s path.

He didn’t think anyone was following him. The Fleet-man had run off with his wounded ichuta’a and he would probably be going just as far as he could as fast as possible, just like Kane. With any luck, the fucker’s face would be on the tee-vee by nightfall, and that would be a great help to Kane.

The heat was killing him and adrenaline could only take him so far. He couldn’t keep running.

Kane let his legs carry him to a stop, let Raven slide from his arms to the ground. He put his back against a tree and leaned into it. His hands rose and pressed to his ribs, as though he were trying manually to slow his heart, stretch out his breath. Gravity pulled him down, his legs splaying out before him. He sat, talons flexing in the dry soil, and tried to orientate himself in the here and now.

He’d hit the Fleet officer’s human. A shit shot in the leg, but he’d hit her. And if his gun hadn’t run out of bullets, he’d have hit her again. He hoped the bitch bled out.

Raven lay before him, by all appearances lifeless.

He hoped he had the chance to try again before he left Earth. He wanted to kill her right before the fucker’s eyes. The Fleet fucker who had dropped his Raven.

Kane opened the panel on his wrist band and activated his locator. He was still some three hundred thirty kilometers east and north of where his ship was. Three days and then some, and that was going to be hard fucking travel with Raven and him on foot.

Raven. The slave-fucker had dropped his Raven, told him he was prepared to kill her.

Kane reached out and caught her arm, towing her into his lap. He ripped off his coat, shredding a sleeve in his fury to be free of it, and then pulled her against his sweat-oiled chest. He felt her skin on his, watched the pulse throb in her throat.

She was stunned, that was all. He needed to get a grip on himself. Now was not the time to lose control.

Kane stood up, Raven cradled in his arms. His sides still burned, his breath felt hot and raw and his muscles were weak and watery, but at least he no longer felt faint or nauseated. What he felt instead was the itching of Heat deep in his tsesac, which meant that he needed to focus up and forget about revenge long enough to get away. He started walking west.

He had a lot of ground to cover.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The first thing she felt, oddly enough, was the rock or root or whatever that was pressing painfully up at her underneath her shoulder blade. And that was all she felt for a while, even after her eyes opened and she saw the man above her, rocking her in hard rhythm. His was a familiar face, so much so that even though she couldn’t come up with a name right away, she wasn’t alarmed to wake up and find herself being fucked by him.

She put a hand on his sunburned and sweat-damp shoulder, and his eyes snapped open, monster-closet black and reflecting nothing. “Raven,” he rasped, and that felt right so she nodded. She was feeling more now—his weight, his heat, the sweat raining down from his body, the massive club pushing in and out of her—and all of it was fine and familiar. Her eyes slid shut, dozing, and she didn’t open them again until he was finished.

His weight went away, and then she was being pulled up and against the slick plane of his chest. He whispered her name, prying her eyes open one at a time, and then bit her on the cheek, chin and throat.

“Kane,” she said and smiled with weak pride. His name was Kane. A little more lucidity snuck in and she managed to look at him. “What happened?”

He snarled explosively, but it was not directed at her. His arms tightened around her to the point of pain. “We need to go now,” he said.

She shifted, but couldn’t seem to get her limbs together enough to rise. She settled for looking around again. Trees and trees and bushes and more trees. The day was still suffocatingly hot and shrilling with the kind of high-summer insect noise that made sane men butcher their families in their beds. And somewhere, somewhere there were sirens. Lots of them. Raven’s world came a little more into focus. “Where’s Sue-Eye?”

He dismissed that with a curt shake of his head. “Back at the fair,” he said. His claws brushed along her cheek, but his gaze was elsewhere, stabbing at the shadows surrounding them. “V’kai showed up.”

She didn’t need clarification on that. Cop-words had the same sound in any language. “Where are we?”

He growled laughter. “Not nearly far enough away. Fucking heat!” Or maybe he meant Heat. Hard to tell sometimes.

“We need to get a car.” Raven tried again to rise and this time, she succeeded. His hand stayed with her, steadying and strong, until she found her balance. Just standing there, she could feel her head clearing, as if the fugue that had settled on her was susceptible to gravity and could be poured out onto the ground as long as she wasn’t lying on it. She swiped limp strands of hair out of her eyes and looked down at Kane with new clarity. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“That way.” He pointed with confidence, but there was a certain frustration in his eyes that showed he appreciated the unhelpfulness of his reply. “And it’s one fuck of a far walk off.” He got up, fastening his pants in curt, angry movements. “You can tell me you told me so if you want to,” he added bitterly.

She glanced at him, sorely tempted, and then shook her head. “Later,” she said. “When we’re good and out of this. I’ll probably even smack you around a little.”

He gave her a sharp sidelong look, and then showed his teeth in a brief, rueful grin. “Deal. Now get moving.”

He picked up his pack and caught at her arm, but she dug in her heels and stopped him. “We can’t run in this heat, we need to get a car.” She stared intently at the forest, trying for her bearings in futility. The sirens she heard weren’t moving and the longer she had to listen to them, the closer they felt. “Where’s the road from here?” she asked.

Kane aimed a claw, but his expression was dark. “We’re not getting anywhere near it,” he growled. “We were seen, Raven. V’kai and your law both. We were goddamn good and well seen and the last thing I’m going to do is walk out in front of them and let them see us again.” He glanced at the trees and then back at her, scowling. “It’s slower this way, but it’s safer.” He tried to move off with her in hand again, and again, she dug in and refused to budge.

“No, it’s not.” She pulled all the way out of his grip and he let her go, his head cocked and an expression of frustration growing on his face. “If your v’kai guy gets to his ship before we do, he’ll just be waiting for us out in space. Could you take him in a firefight?”

Right around the words ‘waiting for us’, Kane’s eyes went wide enough for a thin white ring to show their edges. By the time she finished her pointed question, they were narrowed nearly to slits. “No,” he said, and bared his teeth again. “I don’t even think the fucking thing has guns.”

“We’ve got to get a car,” she insisted. “Now.”

Kane snarled, but he was nodding. “Not here,” he said. “If we come out of the woods on that road, your v’kai will be waiting to take us down.” He shot a glance unerringly back at the siren-sounds. “Chok.”