“Go to hell,” Daria snapped, and shoved her chair back. She went to clean up the stove.

She heard him sigh. She didn’t hear him leave, but he was gone when she turned around.

*

Kane’s hand fell on her out of darkness, shaking reality back into her and shattering her dreams—dreams of a home she could no longer easily remember when she was awake. These days, Kane pretty much ate up all her waking thoughts. Raven struggled into a sitting position, wincing as pain flared through her pelvis so completely that she couldn’t tell what hurt from what just sympathized with what hurt.

She spread her legs wide, moaning as air and air alone touched her throbbing core. Gradually, the blurry ache that overwhelmed her tapered into dozens of tiny pains. She fell back against the leg of the table where she’d fallen asleep, fingers and toes curling at the carpet, grappling with the pain.

She could feel Kane staring at her. It took her several minutes and many aborted starts before she could open her eyes and look at him.

His arms were folded, his legs set firmly apart, and his dark eyes were alert to her every movement. “How do you feel?” he asked finally.

Was he kidding? Raven squeezed her eyes shut again, concentrating on just breathing without whimpering and not writhing, not waking the pain up any further. But…

“Not as bad as I should,” she admitted. She reached down and prodded tentatively at her labia. It ached like a black tooth, but it wasn’t unbearable.

Kane dropped to one knee and put his hand on her thigh, opening her even wider. His hand brushed beside hers and Raven tensed apprehensively. His eye fell on her, dark with humor. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, and returned his attention to her piercings.

He inspected every ring and rivet closely, then touched a claw to the hoops in her belly, tugging at the chain that now belted her. He took her arm and turned it so that he could growl appreciatively at the swollen outline of her new tattoo. He glanced over her breasts and her eyebrows, then looked again at her sex, frowning. Finally, he stood up again. “I have something for you.”

He walked around her and took a shampoo bottle off the table to pass down to her. “Use this twice a day,” he said. “If this lasts you more than two days, you aren’t using enough.”

Raven uncapped the bottle and sniffed it. The contents were thin and pearly and smelled faintly of minerals. She tapped a little out into her palm, glanced at him, and dabbed it onto one of her nipple rings.

It cooled in a way that made her think of mint ice cream and she immediately tapped out more lotion and rubbed it in with enthusiasm. “Thanks.”

“Mm.” He paced around her again, his claws flexing on his powerful biceps, watching her. “No shower for you,” he said. “Let it soak in.”

“I smell.”

“I don’t mind.” He smiled, drawing in a lungful of air, and let his gaze fall below her waist. “Not at all.”

She ducked her head and rubbed lotion on herself, hiding her sex from him.

He laughed at her. “Relax, it’s cool enough in here. Can you stand up?”

She tried. It took a long time and she had to lean heavily on the table. Putting her weight, any of her weight, on her legs made the pain in her pussy break open and bleed all through her. By the time she got to her feet, her vision was swimming in tears.

Kane made a sound, a kind of hissing click through his teeth, and he knelt down and had a closer look at her. The light touch of his fingers on her pussy was excruciating. Raven managed not to cry out, but she was shaking with the effort by the time he leaned back.

“All right,” he muttered, scratching thoughtfully at his throat.

Raven started hobbling toward the bathroom.

“No shower,” he reminded her, pulling his chair out and sitting before his computer.

“I have to pee.”

He grunted, but he let her go by herself, for which she was pitifully grateful. When she came out of the bathroom, he was waiting for her with his injector-thingie in his hand.

“What is that?” she asked uneasily.

“Your new best friend.” He put the device against her arm and sent its contents into her with a sting and a hiss.

Instantly, warmth bloomed out from the injection point, blushing up her arm and throughout her body to spread sunshine in her brain. That fast. Fast like getting hit by a bus. A big, happy bus. Raven drew in a breath, stepped back, and released it as a “Ooo.”

“Nice shit, huh?” Kane turned away.

“Very nice.” Raven watched his muscles ripple down his bare back as Kane replaced his injector in his pack. His whole body seemed alive to her, fluid and powerful and so clarified. “You sexy beast,” she said, and giggled.

He laughed with her. “Go lie down,” he told her. “And don’t get too used to that shit because you aren’t getting it for long.”

“I feel pretty good.”

“I know you do. Lie down, Raven.”

She dropped onto the bed, bounced a little while, and then lay back and watched the ceiling spin. This was better than the best Ecstasy ever. Not only did nothing hurt, but all the things that should hurt felt good, and the more they should be hurting, the better they actually felt. She reached down and pressed on her steel-riddled pussy and euphoria washed through her hips.

“Don’t do that,” Kane said with a sigh.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“It will.”

She pressed down again covertly.

Kane stood up and Raven put her hands behind her head fast and pretended to be utterly absorbed by the ceiling. The whirling state of her brain made that easy and perfectly plausible. Kane came to the foot of the bed and folded his arms, watching her. She was able to lie quiet for a few seconds. Then she just had to raise her foot and poke him in the thigh.

He looked down and raised an eyebrow at her toes.

She giggled again and then sat up suddenly. “Let’s fuck!” she said happily.

He lifted his head, both brows raised now. “Maybe I will give you more of that,” he remarked.

“Yeah, give it to me, stud.” She got on her hands and knees and prowled towards him. “Because I want you in me.”

“I’m not fucking you,” he said mildly, but he made no effort to chase her hands away as she tugged his pants open. “I just put you together the way I want. I’m not touching you until you’re healed.”

“Mm.” Raven, inexplicably transfixed by Kane’s stomach, suddenly leaned in and bit him right above the base of his thick cock.

Kane sucked in breath and jumped back, banging into the table and nearly knocking his computer over. He stared at her for a second and then came back to the bed and plunged his hands into her hair, pulling her to him.

Raven nibbled at his stomach comfortably, letting his stiffening cock push at her breasts for now. But Kane didn’t seem to mind her toothy mood; he groaned as she worked her way around his abdomen, guiding her to the places he thought she was ignoring, until the marks of her teeth pocked his lower torso. She’d never felt anything sexier than the resistance of his flesh and muscle under her jaws. Raven reached down and rubbed at herself as she scraped her teeth across his thigh, writhing against her hand with delicious bliss.

Kane’s hand closed on her arm and wrenched her roughly away from herself. “Don’t do that. I’m not telling you again.”

Raven ducked her head, chagrined, and then rebounded and lay back, legs coyly splayed. “Come and fuck me,” she said.

“No.” Kane paced around the bed and Raven rolled to position her pussy for him again. He bared his teeth at her and she bared hers right back.

He looked startled for a second, and then he smiled. “Raven,” he said gently. “Deep down, you have to know this isn’t smart.”

“Deep down,” she echoed, and rubbed at her pussy.

“Dammit!” Kane sprang onto the bed, seizing her wrists and slamming them down above her head.