Stopping his cock from responding was no more possible than stopping rain.
“She’d want you taken care of, physically fulfilled.” The warmth of the room swirled into the opening she made in his pants. “It’s all right to give in and let me ease your pain.”
And his pain was excessive, as if something had punched a hole through his chest and drained his soul. The overwhelming sadness pushed him toward accepting Iantha’s help, losing himself in her arms to forget Rye.
Another part of him, the grieving sappy side, made resistance easy.
Then Iantha slid her hand into his pants and her fingers wrapped his cock. His mind rushed to the image of Rye petting his erection with long strokes. He shut his eyes and envisioned her there, caressing his balls.
She brushed a kiss to his mouth. The delicate touch drew him back to their time at the pond. He heard the splash of the cool water as her arms entwined around his neck. Her eager breath dusted his face and she nuzzled him affectionately.
“Rye,” he murmured, caught up in the image of her loving him.
“Iantha,” the lamian female corrected.
He snapped open his eyes as Iantha kissed him again.
The sadness deepened inside him. It wasn’t Rye’s lips sweeping across his. He drew back slightly.
“Relax,” Iantha cooed.
Her arms circling his head pulled him forward. Iantha’s presence distracted him from the imagery of the pond and the female he wanted most to be there. Yet at the same time, he wanted to be carried away from the heartache. He stood, unable to respond.
Iantha continued kissing him. She moved in close, pressing her small breasts against his chest as she moved her arms. One hand went to the back of his head, the other rubbed the seat of his pants.
He thought of Rye, her aggressive manner, doing what she wanted, when she wanted. Picturing her in his mind, he lifted his arms, one around her back, the other in front where he grabbed her breast. He kissed her hungrily, letting the indulgence whisk his thoughts away to a better place. Snatching at the shirt, he heard the sound of fabric ripping apart. The soft plump flesh of her breast filled his palm. Then thrusting his other hand up, he took a grip on her short hair. He yanked her head to the side and sucked hard on her neck, letting his frustration and anger take over.
His cock grew hard under the caressing hands roaming his body. She loosened his pants and dipped her fingers lower inside. Her nails scratched his groin. Anxious, he snatched a fistful of her skirt and shoved it up her thighs.
“That’s it, half-breed, I like it rough.” Iantha’s harsh laugh snapped him back to reality.
He pushed away instantly. Staring at where he had torn her shirt from her breast, he saw her wrinkled brown nipples, undesirable in contrast to Rye’s succulent breasts, tipped in soft pink.
“Don’t stop now,” Iantha demanded, trying to pull him to her.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “I can’t,” he said in a heavy breath. He didn’t want a distraction to take away his vivid memories of Rye or dull the pain of his loss.
Iantha wiggled loose and wrapped her arms around him.
“The female meant something to you. I understand.” She stroked his back. “You’re hurt, alone and afraid you’ll never find love again, I get it. But the best thing you can do for yourself is to let me help you forget this horrible tragedy.”
He closed his eyes and remembered how he had first found Rye badly hurt. How he had nurtured her recovery. Then the way he believed that she schemed to rob him and the relief he’d been wrong to think it. Had he fallen for her because he had saved her? A few days wasn’t enough time for his feelings to develop into anything more than infatuation. Sex was a convenience. Iantha offered that without commitment.
When his mother died from an illness, he’d wished there was a way to sever himself from the pain. If sentiment were bound by blood, then he’d erase one with another.
Angry at how devastated he was by the loss of Rye, he slowly lifted his lashes and gazed into Iantha’s golden brown eyes. “Bite me.” He held out his hand.
She didn’t ask why.
He flinched at the sting of her teeth sinking deep into his flesh.
“Drink it,” he demanded, hoping to experience that connection he had felt with Rye.
Iantha’s gaze stayed on him as she sucked on the puncture. He watched the red haze spread from the corners of her eyes. Desire to fuck her began to flow through him. His cock grew harder, his stomach knotted and his muscles tensed.
“Enough.” He pulled his hand from her grasp.
She sidled up to him, rubbing her breasts against his skin, brushing her lips over his. “What do you say, half-breed, are you ready to fuck me now?”
He grabbed her by the back of the head and crushed her lips under his kiss. He shuddered with a blended mix of salaciousness and disgust. The intensity of lust didn’t fill him the same way as it had with Rye.
He waited for it to happen anyway.
Iantha took over, dragging her tongue along the edge of his upper teeth.
“No fangs,” she said, her tone repeating her dissatisfaction.
“I don’t have much lamian in me,” he replied, thinking that Rye never expressed a sliver of disappointment in him.
Sevrin grabbed Iantha’s arms and pulled her tight. He kissed her hard, searching for something more to tip him in the direction of forgetting everything that had happened outside Iantha’s shack. When he paused, Iantha continued rattling on about his half-breed status.
“But the lamian gene is dominant,” Iantha stated, using the same words Rye had. “And that means you’re—”
He forced her back, unable to find relief to his grief. At the same time, the loud, almost angry slam of the shack’s door flying back against the wall startled him. His thoughts jumped straight to someone entering who might have had a claim on Iantha, a mate, a lover, a protective friend.
He spun around.
Rye stood in the opening, a dripping, muddy wet mess, fury in her gaze as if hell had the nerve to spit her out of its bowels.
“Well, isn’t this fucking cozy.” Rye stepped into the room and flung the door shut behind her.
Sevrin blinked in response to the beads of mud that sailed from her swinging fingertips.
“I fall in a hole, almost cook to death and you go on just as if everything is normal?” Her rage aimed at him had a staggering power to keep him from moving. “Not giving one thought to what I was going through, you have the nerve to stick around and…and….” A fit of coughing prevented her from finishing her sentence.
“I thought you were dead,” he said in his defense, letting go of Iantha and rushing to Rye.
He reached out to wipe the grime from her cheek.
“Well, as you see, I’m not.” She swatted his hand away. “Of course it appears that’s nothing you’re concerned about. What’s the difference between fucking one lamian and another, right?”
“Oh, there’s a difference, sweetie,” Iantha declared, dragging part of her torn shirt across her chest. “Unlike the two of you, I’m a purebred.”
Rye flung her smoldering jacket to the floor. “All the better for him, I suppose.” She sat down and tried to pull off one of her boots, torn and partly burned. The red had a crispy charred appearance.
The thought of forcing Rye to accept his embrace passed through his thoughts. What he wouldn’t give to take her in his arms, hold her close and kiss her. Kiss her a dozen ways, a thousand times. If only he still had on his shirt and Iantha wasn’t covering up her bared breasts or blinking away the crimson veil of lust in her eyes.
He turned his attention back to Rye and saw her furious stare aimed at Iantha again. He didn’t understand fully until Iantha turned and he saw the purple marks of his kiss on her neck.
“Let me help.” He knelt in front of Rye.
“You were of no help before, so I don’t expect any now.” She kicked at him.
&nb
sp; He grabbed her lifted leg at the calf and pulled on the heel of the boot. She was a filthy mess. Dirt and ash clung to her pants, which had had burn holes that exposed even more of her than before. Hanging on by threads, they didn’t look long for any practical use.
“Rye, this is Iantha. Iantha, this is Rye.”
“The female who was in that hole you were looking to go down?” Iantha questioned, her tone heavy with disbelief.
“That’s right. Do you have something clean she can wear?” he asked her.
“Over there,” Iantha said with a sigh. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to revisit breeding with me now that you’ve got your female back, would you?”
“You were going to breed her!” Rye’s voice rose to an unfathomable high pitch as she bolted up from her seat.
“No.” He rushed to deny the thought of having sex with Iantha had ever crossed his mind.
“Right.” Rye snorted with apparent skepticism.
Her gaze swept down to his crotch where his pants hung open, visibly showing his semi-erect cock as compelling evidence.
“What happened? How’d you get out?” he asked, steering her attention away from his sexual idiocies while he quickly fastened his pants.
“I climbed and it wasn’t easy with that river of fire licking at my ass.” She set about the task of stripping off her clothes.
“I’ll go get water so you can wash up,” he told her.
He had to pass her to go outside. She had her pants down but her shirt still hung long enough to keep her decently covered. He touched her arm and she shrugged it off, then as if to change her mind, she caught him by the hand.
Did she want him to say something first, something as crazy as his feelings felt more than causal desire? He rubbed his thumb lightly over her knuckles, giving her time to gather her thoughts.
“She said you wanted to go down that hole after me,” Rye finally said quietly.
“I would have if I knew you were alive. But the heat, the fire. I called to you and got no response. I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone, Rye.”
“Bring cold water,” she said, letting go. “I’ve had about all I can take of anything remotely heated.”
The moment passed for true confessions. He looked to Iantha about the water situation.
“Got me a couple buckets hanging from the eaves to catch rainwater. It will be cooler than the ground water,” she told him.
He tried to get close to Rye but she shied away. With her head down, her expression hidden in the shadows of her hair falling forward, he could only guess her mood. Was it only disappointment in him she felt? He thought not. Some other emotion had danced in her eyes.
“I’ll be back shortly.” He opened the door and left, hoping Rye’s explosive temper would subside in his brief absence.
Around the back of the shack, he found eight wooden buckets dangling from thick dead branches wedged under the bark-shingled roofing and rafters. At the first, he lifted down the bucket to find it had a bonus, a gelatinous glob of some amphibious eggs. Tempted by hunger pangs, he considered scooping out the protein-packed substance and eating it.
“That’s all I need, is to think of myself right now.” He hung the bucket back. “She’s already not in a good frame of mind.”
With only two days of knowing Rye, he discovered her strengths might have overshadowed the more feminine aspects of her personality but she still had the disposition of a scorned female. He paused at the second bucket. Is Rye jealous? She had thought he was going to have sex with Iantha. He shook away the thought. No, Rye made it clear she was angry he hadn’t saved her.
He carefully unhooked the bucket, lowered it and found it clear. Testing the temperature of the water, he found it quite warm. After checking the other buckets and finding them equally warm, he carried the one he had back around to the door.
Entering the shack, he found Rye sitting on a chair wrapped in a cloth and listening to Iantha.
“There’s a fire in the earth,” Iantha was saying. “For centuries, since the wars, its heat has radiated closer to the surface in the wastelands than anywhere. It’s why the ground remains practically barren.”
“A fire in the earth?” Rye questioned. “And you think that’s why nothing grows in the flatlands?”
“I know it is. The surface may sustain bits of prairie grass and shallow-rooted scrub brush, but tree roots aren’t able to withstand the boiling water of underground streams.” Iantha looked at Sevrin. “The core of the world isn’t where the devil dwells, but the fires are of his making.”
“You said that before.” He sat the bucket on the floor near Rye. “And you mentioned the Wickstrom Group was behind it.”
“The Wickstrom Group?” Rye stopped running a wet cloth over her face. “How would scientists have anything to do with a fire inside the earth?”
“They started it.” Iantha pushed her hands through her short-cropped brown hair. “The story is they were building a facility in the Appalachians and their equipment hit a gas pocket that exploded and set a large coal vein on fire. Over time that inferno spread, following thousands of miles of veins.”
“How do you know this?” Sevrin asked, distrusting her story.
“I used to work for the Wickstrom Group. I heard stuff, learned things. I didn’t agree with their vision for the future so I moved on.”
“What were they doing that you didn’t like?” Rye asked, at the same time cleaning her clothes in the bucket.
He didn’t think it was the time to remind her how Iantha had offered her fresh garments.
“It wasn’t anything specific,” Iantha answered. “But there was this underlying tension with other employees.”
“What kind of tension?” Sevrin asked.
“The sort between lamians and humans. Each year fewer and fewer lamians worked for Wickstrom. Combine that with rumors of the unsavory kind of doings and I felt a change was necessary.” Iantha moved to a cabinet in the corner and lifted a box off the shelf. “I took this as security.”
“Against what?” Rye turned from hanging her wet clothing on the chair.
Sevrin watched her, more than interest evident in her expression. What was it about the Wickstrom Group that had Rye’s attention beyond mild curiosity?
“Against Wickstrom, of course.” Iantha opened the box. “These are documents that substantiate the facts.”
“Like I asked before, what is it you have against them?” Rye asked irritably.
Iantha gave Rye an irritated glance and then turned toward him. “There was an accident many years ago exposing us to an engineered bacteria. Only those with lamian blood were affected. I and the others at the facility were inoculated with an antibiotic, and we recovered. No one was aware that even though the antidote cured our symptoms, we became carriers. Those who left the facility, feeling it safe to interact with friends and family, infected hundreds. Many died, including my mate.”
Sevrin thought of his mother, how ill she had been before dying. Was it possible she had contracted that illness? Why hadn’t he or his brother fell ill as well?
“How did they stop this bacteria from spreading?” he asked.
“Like many quickly engineered bioweapons, ours had flaws.” Iantha gathered the papers back together in a pile. “In this case, the inoculated host’s immune system eventually eradicated the bacteria. While the secondary hosts that had contracted the disease didn’t have the benefit of the initial antibiotic, they bacteria itself carried the cure for transmittal. Those people couldn’t pass it on so the bacteria died with them.”
Rye walked to the window and looked out. “Rain is gone, we should get going.” She picked up the shirt she had rinsed and dried. With her back to him and Iantha she put it on. “That is if your plans haven’t changed?”
The cloth wrapped around her slipped from under the shirt to the floor. She picked up the pants and stepped into them.
“No. My plans haven’t changed,” Sevrin told her, surprised she th
ought there was the slightest chance they might.
After what she heard from Iantha, was Rye now wishing he wasn’t traveling with her? He’d wait until they were well into their journey again before mentioning her interest in the Wickstrom Group.
Chapter Eleven
Rye and Sevrin walked for a long time in silence. She went over every moment she’d spent in Iantha’s shack. She hadn’t expected Sevrin to jump joyously around the room, but she had hoped for more than surprise etched in his face. The way he cleared his throat as if preparing to make an excuse for luring her to that dangerous spot was disheartening.
She tried to keep from thinking about anything important. Yet what Iantha had said about the Wickstrom group had her mind abuzz in several directions. Was this bacterial virus what Hamner said scientists of the Wickstrom Group were working on to kill lamians? Her father had taken her and Shay into the Taum Sauk Mountains, away from their mother when she was sick. Was it the virus Iantha had mentioned that killed her?
She should have asked Iantha more questions. But the way Iantha kept looking at Sevrin as if he was a tasty morsel for sexual sustenance had kept Rye’s focus in a different direction.
Rye looked ahead at Sevrin. Handsome, strong, generous, loving, he had no end to his attractive qualities. He was capable of stirring up the most amazing sensations during sex, and yet he also confused her. She was intelligent as well as clever. To think Sevrin wasn’t cunning with a hidden dark side would be foolish. She’d have to keep reminding herself that his gallant persona might all be an illusion.
The heat of the earth had dried the surface into a web of cracks. When the ground rumbled beneath her feet, she knew what to expect this time. She grabbed Sevrin by the sleeve to run. The thickness of his jacket prevented her from seizing a tight hold and he slipped out of her clutches. She fell forward.
His descent alerted her to the opening ground. Quicker than she thought possible, she spun around on her belly, reached out and caught his hand. Her heart beat furiously from the memory of her ordeal in a fiery pit.
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