Kane found the hall and followed it to the door at the far end. There was no sound and no light coming in under the door, but when he eased it open, he could see a wash of color reflected on the walls. He leaned in cautiously and found a human alone, sitting before a crude computer at the opposite side of the room. Its ears were covered, masking the sound of Kane’s approach (and there was sound, damn it; the ferocity of his entry had taken nearly the last of his reserves, robbing him of complete stealth).

As he neared, he saw what was fixing the human’s attention. On the monitor, images of humans mating played out, and all the human’s concentration was taken by that and the cock in its hand. Kane’s attention faltered as well. He watched a female’s mouth stretching to take a thick, dark shaft and felt his own throbbing. The female he’d left in the kitchen wandered into his thoughts.

The image on the monitor changed briefly, causing the screen to darken, and Kane saw the human’s face reflected with his own figure ghostlike in the background. The human jerked back in its chair, its hand clenching with the instinct of the caught. The scent of male musk suddenly gusted and seed splashed out in an arc across the keys of the computer. Kane moved automatically to catch the human before it could leap from its chair. He shoved the male firmly down and pressed the dermisprayer against its neck, thumbing the trigger while still watching the monitor. There was a second male now. The female was blowing one, being fucked by the other. His thoughts drifted to Sue-Eye and those three males in the hotel that night, all her body rocking in the grip of them, all her body filled.

The human under his hand had ceased its squirming and was staring glassily up at him, beginning to smile. Kane put his hand on the back of the male’s chair and spun it so that it was facing the monitor again. The male blinked, refocusing, then leaned back and returned its hand to its flaccid cock. It began to stroke, humming to itself. Kane stood quietly beside it, watching until both males pulled from their ichuta’a. Twin streams of human cum splashed over her. The video feed ended, blacked, and began again, the clean ichuta’a now alone and sitting on a bed.

Kane gave the human a pat on the shoulder and told it to stay. He left it there, watching and humming and fucking its hand, and went to get Heat out of him.

Raven was sitting at the table drinking something iced from a glass. She already looked worlds better than she had at the door.

The female huddled on the floor saw Kane come into the room alone and began to talk and cry at the same time, her words so badly garbled he could make out nothing but the pleading tone of them. He dropped his dermisprayer into his pack and headed towards her, unfastening his pants as he walked. The human sucked in a swift, deep breath and Kane slapped it out of her before it could be a scream. She started making that hoarse baby-cry howling that humans made, and his temper began to fray.

“Watch yourself,” he said curtly. “Your male is alive and happy and I’ll let him stay that way right up until you start pissing me off. Do you want him in here watching or not?”

She shook her head, her eyes and mouth tightly shut.

Raven turned her chair away and watched the wall, drinking slowly but steadily as Kane got down and pulled the female’s lower clothing away. He grappled her thighs apart, knelt between them, and fought his way inside her. She wasn’t struggling, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t as small-formed as Raven, but she was dry and that made her no better than his own hand as well as a rough slide.

Kane pulled back with a curse, spat on his hand and thrust one finger inside her as she wailed. The sound was a shrill one. He had a hand free to cover her mouth and so he muzzled her, forcing himself to go slow and gentle as he hunted her out. He found the soft spot below the pubic bone and stroked it lightly, turning the female’s muted cries into frenzied strings of ‘No’s. He snarled at her, clamping his hand down harder to stop her head-shaking, and she fell back into limp weeping. Kane kept his finger pumping and moved his thumb to her clit, teasing it in circles and watching impatiently as her face flushed under its veil of tears.

The door at the end of the hallway opened and unquiet footsteps came shuffling towards him. “Go back to your room,” Kane said without looking around.

“I’m thirsty.”

The female screamed something under Kane’s hand.

Musk. He felt it first, and then could smell it, bringing with it an agony of Heat akin to disembowelment. Kane rode it out, gritting his teeth against screams, working the female only a little harder. “Raven,” he rasped, “Get the man a glass of water.”

Raven pushed her chair back and went, but all Kane’s attention was locked on the human under him. He thrust a second finger into the stretched passage of his female and started rubbing them rapidly together. She trembled violently and bucked up at him, braying shame against his hand. She flooded at last, and that was good enough for Kane.

He got a hold on her thigh again and pulled her up to envelop his aching cock. The first touch of her slippery sex was hell’s own bite. He buried himself in one thrust, quick-cum spitting from him already.

Raven was back, moving to the cold storage unit to fill her own glass again. There was a stiffness in the way she moved that had nothing to do with physical strain. He supposed she was probably jealous. It might not have occurred to her that he was trying to spare her another bout with Heat in her condition. Well, there was no reason she had to stay and watch him if it hurt her feelings.

“Go,” he panted. “Find the keys for the car.”

Raven put her glass down untouched and went fast. Kane bit down on a swell of exasperation and reminded himself that humans didn’t have a lock on unreasonable emotional reactions. He’d make it up to her later.

The female beneath him had stopped screaming, stopped sobbing. Tears still leaked from her eyes, but they were silent ones. She stared up past Kane at the ceiling, waiting in some other part of her mind for this to be over.

Fine with Kane. He didn’t need help any more than he needed an audience. Her mating oils were doing work enough. He could feel his tsesac swelling, nearing release. He began to thrust harder, rocking both of them in brutal rhythm. Her face twisted an instant before she came again, and with that release of female musk, the Heat in him finally broke. He bit down hard on a scream as he poured lava into her shuddering body, every muscle clenched and aching against the urge to slash out. But then it was done and he could drop, exhausted and emptied, beside her. The sun through the kitchen window had gone the color of open flame and he bared his teeth at it in foul humor. Soon it would set and Earth would cool and he would not go into Heat again. Not ever, if he had anything to say about it, and certainly not on this trip.

“Are you going to kill me?” the female asked dully, bringing him out of the threat of sleep.

“No,” he said. And then stirred and looked around at her. “Why, do you want me to?”

She twisted away from him, her hands in fists.

“Suit yourself.” Kane pushed himself up and found his clothes, calling wearily for Raven.

She came in from the other room, her face still stony. In one hand, she held a ring of keys. And in the other—

“Ah, gods lift you and love you,” Kane groaned and vaulted to his feet. He snatched the gun out of her open hand and kissed it, grinning savagely. The weight of it in his hand, the feel of it pressing on him when he holstered it crudely in the waistband of his pants, was as invigorating to him as a cold shower. Not that it could compare with any of the weapons the Fleet allowed their officers to carry, but it was something at least, and something the slave-fucker after him was guaranteed to underestimate. Now it only remained to tie up the human to make sure she couldn’t alert her lawmen in any great hurry, grab a bite to eat for the road and get gone.