Vargr sighed, swiveled to stare her down. He took one stride and scooped her up and flung her over his shoulder, then he marched for the exit.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Given a choice of screaming, beating his brains in with her pistol butt, or doing nothing… she chose nothing. Apart from muttering, “Asshole.”
That only made him chuckle and smack her butt, hard.
His wings opened, fluttered down, covering her head. She blew a feather off her face and thought about plucking a few. He probably wouldn’t like that.
They went out the rear door into a hallway and down to the next door, which Vargr kicked open. An office, from what she could tell upside down. “This won’t take long.”
She chortled, recognizing the implied self-insult in a second. “Yeah?” Then she kicked her legs, reminding him to put her down.
“Brat.” He deposited her on her feet, spun her and bent her over a desk, yanking down the panties and leggings in one go. She’d worn those instead of jeans, since black was good camo at night. All it’d done was make it easier for Vargr to strip her.
“Fuck! Hey.”
She inhaled to yell another word or two, and that breath seized in her throat, because…
Already, he was probing her slit, sliding his fingers up her, to her clit, circling it, returning to her entrance, slip, slide. Two went inside without so much as an excuse me. Her attempt to stand made him shove her back down with a palm on the small of her back.
Oh, force. It blanked her brain, made her sink into the dominance. Made her squirm on his fingers, and her wetness leak.
Liking it so much made it hard to resist, even when she should, just because she had a thing for making her males work for it before they got to fuck her.
He fingered her, penetrated her with them, screwed his wet thumb into her other hole, and she found she’d collapsed on the desk and was wriggling her butt like a filthy whore who loved sex. And who wouldn’t? She was spreading her legs, wide, even as he removed his hand.
His cock arrived there next, and he thrust into her almost full length, anchoring her to the desk as if he’d nailed her there.
She puffed out a long “Ffffff…” Not quite finishing the obscenity as that’d felt so damn good.
Oh god, nailing. More. Of the nailing. She groaned, felt her pussy clamp in, pulsing where it surrounded his cock.
“You called me an asshole.” He bit her upper back in a few places, hauled her head back by grasping her hair. “Next time, it will be your asshole. That octopus on your butt insists I fuck you there. I’d do it now…” He groaned. “But I’d never get in, would I? You’re so fucking tight.”
No time or she’d welcome him, well, after she ran around and teased him.
“’Cause you’re too fucking big,” she protested to the desk, her eyes closing because she needed to feel him, all of this rather large cock as it squeezed into her, shoving aside her flesh. He rammed into her, rocking the flimsy desk, shifting the papers left on it beneath her body and arms as she sought a handhold. Another five or ten slams into her that seesawed her between pain and pleasure because he’d done this so suddenly.
Gasping, she found the edge of the desk to hold onto.
Because she needed that. Something to hold, as he fucked her, and she cursed him as the force of it drummed into her that he was the one taking, making her, making her fucking enjoy it, despite her protests. And she might’ve struggled more and escaped to be pinned against the wall, gagged with a belt, or her wrists tied, and that would be the best.
But, no time, no fucking time, she thought, as he jammed himself in, rammed into her cunt, deep, screwed her, until she could hear the sounds of her arousal, feel it on her thighs.
The desk tilted onto its edge, his fingers dug in and bruised, then he grabbed both hips, opened her legs wider with his thighs, and drove himself in as if she wasn’t made of flesh. The last ten or so spears up inside she took, moaning, hanging on to the desk as if it was the last thing keeping her afloat.
So close to coming, so close, with her clit sliding, rubbing, that magical ride of cock, the tunneling, the expanding pressure. The obliteration of an orgasm swelled, and he was opening her even more, kicking her feet apart until she thought she might split. He stuck his thumb back into her asshole and used it to hold her in place for the last few huge, desk-jarring… fucks.
When he came, he almost launched her into that beautiful mindless state, but she hung there, not quite climaxing as he pumped inside her what she needed.
By the time she’d settled in her panting, though her heartbeat still bashed at her chest, she was smiling to herself. He and Rutger were her cures, the Holders of the Sacred Cum, to prevent the Lure taking her.
Luckily, there were paper towels and a cloth in here. They cleaned up, Vargr even kneeling to wipe between her legs… and bite her thighs until she tried to drag his mouth to her.
“No.” He stood and helped pull up her underwear and leggings then kissed her once, slowly, passionately. “Let’s go.”
She gave an exasperated sigh then followed, hand in his hand, feeling like a naughty pupil returning to the classroom.
Chapter 22
The whir as the drone was launched out the window was almost soothing, though the room itself resembled the trenches of a war zone. The drone operator was to the front—he had to be to be sure the radio waves communicated with the drone as it ascended. The concrete in the scraper would likely block it otherwise—or so Vargr had told her. She recalled little about drones.
This was a large one, apparently. Almost a yard across. Not armed. Few were back before the invasion. All this Vargr had said and she assumed he would know. The military had only just begun arming them. A pity as they might have worked well… assuming the operators weren’t susceptible to the Lure.
Cyn frowned. Okay, they had all been susceptible back then, unless a beaster.
She was dithering about in her head, thinking, since nothing much of significance had happened.
The forward-facing explosives sat just behind the operator steering the drone. He was to retreat if anything appeared. If it lost the signal, the drone would, hopefully, land on the ground in the gap between the quarters.
Little Mo remained with Willow behind that line of explosives. Willow had designated him their forward detector of stinkers. Around them was her first line of five, in total, foot and wing-soldiers. Behind those and closer to Cyn were three more, and then Vargr and her. It would be difficult to shoot over their heads, but she would if she must.
She’d jump and not shoot anyone nice. Vargr had drummed that into her.
Shoot the right people this time.
All of this was just in case something happened that should not.
In case the Ghoul Lords had somehow detected them. Despite her previous nervous anticipation, she doubted that would happen. She’d been inside the mind of one for a few milliseconds and they actually seemed—she’d decided this after thinking about it for a while—quite stupid.
Evil, yes, vicious in their genocidal need to feed on humans, but stupid. They were apex predators that had no need to evolve.
So, maybe they could be defeated if beasters employed their brains?
She smiled, watching the elegant Willow conduct this operation. There weren’t a lot of muscles on her, though she was fit. She was all fine bones and fancy thinking, with a strategy for everything in advance.
Cyn knew herself—she was the one with the craving to kill, to bathe in the act of violence when she was called. Her nanites might have created this need but who cared? It thrilled her.
Willow had a need to thoroughly and with no compunction whatsoever for their status as a living thing, out-think the Ghoul Lords and wipe them out. Back at you, genocidal aliens. Take that up the butt.
In desperate times, leaders arise.
“What’s that?” Vargr’s words came even as she saw it. A figure, no three, dropping before the windows on ropes of some sort, then the
y burst through, sending glass flying.
The drone operator was fleeing, the console he’d held, dropping, but the Lure exploded along with the spinning glass pieces.
Shiny.
She felt her eyes widening, her thoughts blowing out beyond the back of her skull, and caught herself.
Just.
In time.
The Lure.
And Cyn began to wrestle, doing what she’d practiced, rising from her seat as if that could help. It couldn’t. The pink tendrils snaked everywhere, thrown out by these three who, she suddenly saw, were patchwork humans.
Fucking Ghoul Lords.
Stinkers climbed and jumped in through the windows and the gaping holes in the glass, following after the skinsuits like deadly sharp toys. Their triangular legs thunked into the floor, chewing out chunks. The drone operator was the first to fall, mowed down by a stinker using his back for a target. The sharp legs burst out through his front as he toppled onto his face.
Willow, she was next, Cyn realized, and though she’d tugged out her beautiful gun, it proved impossible to aim and fire and to also control the Lure—akin to rubbing your nose backward while jumping. She gave in and concentrated on the Lure.
The pink Lure threads twisted away as she pushed and tangled them. The three Ghoul Lords had overwhelmed every single beaster in the room, instantly, and the soldiers and Willow took a step toward their nemesis, and the stinkers ran at them.
She had to choose. Had to. Cyn flung out her arms in a violent gesture and the Lure spun away from Willow and from Vargr and the back line of soldiers. After a fraction of a second of confusion, they either aimed weapons and began firing, or they ran, as Willow did, sprinting toward the back of the room.
“Fire the explosives!” Willow screamed.
She was right, but the trigger was beside the second row, and the others were doing everything they could, frantically shooting. If she let go of her fragile control, if she stopped pushing back the Lure, it would have them all.
Vargr sprinted forward to that second line of beasters and the trigger. He slid and dropped to his knee.
A stinker was flying at Willow. Though in mid-air, its legs were already drawing up to strike, and with only three soldiers now firing, it was going to get her. The other five soldiers at the front were down, dying or wounded.
Choose. Lure or Willow. Cyn whipped up her gun and strained at the trigger… concentrate, concentrate, her vision zeroed in despite the cacophony. Three times, she fired. Two shots took out the stinker heading for Willow, smacking it backward in chunks. Her last shot blew the head off a skinsuit that’d crossed the line of the frontward charges.
Vargr, somehow, hit the trigger.
The room erupted, the entire front of it disintegrating into a deafening hurricane of whirling glass, crayons, pieces of skinsuit and stinker, and whatever else this place was made of.
When it settled, nothing lived beyond that explosive line. The floor was mostly gone. The windows were gone. Part of the ceiling hung down, swinging through the clouds of dust—more pieces fell from it while she watched. The operator was gone, no doubt blown into space. As were all the skinsuits and stinkers. Dust made it difficult to see who was who, but others like her were alive.
Vargr still kneeled at the second line. Shrouded in white, he looked up, his face pained, he nodded, croaked out a “Fuck. We made it.”
She nodded too. Spitting out dust, she took a step forward. That weird hunger was back, gnawing at her stomach, and she realized it was linked to times when she strained to use her power over the Lure. Too much of that punched her energy levels into medieval levels.
Eat later, there are people dead and dying.
Someone was coming her way, then another. Little Mo clattered out of the cloud, dusty but intact. Several males swore. That first someone coalesced into a person—Willow, her blue hair made gray-white.
“Thank god.” Tearing up, she clasped Willow’s hand. “Thank god you survived that.”
It was funny how Willow’s eyes also shone. She wheezed as if the air was making it hard to breathe and wiped at her face with the back of her arm. “Yes. I did. Am I right in thinking we killed three of the Ghoul Lords?”
“Yes… I felt their minds go.” She had indeed, though she’d only realized it then.
“Good.” Her hand loosened and fell from Cyn’s grasp. She turned and yelled. “We need to get out of here, fast. Casualties? How many? Can we fly them down?”
“Cyn? Vargr is down and hurt bad!”
Whoever had said that she did not know, because she was running forward to where Vargr lay in a pool of spreading blood. What she hadn’t seen through the haze was a stinker before him, dead, with its legs stained red.
Another wing-soldier turned Vargr over, for he’d fallen onto his face. Blood was pouring from several holes, including a gash across his right arm that nearly severed it. Bone stuck out through the hole.
Why the fuck hadn’t he said? She crashed to one knee and was torn between yelling at him to open his eyes and doing something about the main wound, the one that would kill him if they didn’t stop it bleeding. Vincent wasn’t here. He’d been too heavy to fly up. Did anyone else know medical stuff—emergency aid?
The soldier beside her had removed his belt and was wrapping it about Vargr’s upper arm. She grabbed the shoulder and lifted the arm as he tried to tighten the belt. The bleeding slowed to a pulsed spurt, then became a thick red leak.
That was better wasn’t it?
“Vargr. You’ll be okay,” she whispered hoarsely. “We’ll get you help. Willow!”
The woman was already here. “I’ve got someone who can fly him down. Vincent is our best chance.”
But he was gasping in air as if he could barely get enough oxygen and hadn’t answered her. His eyes were shut though his fingers moved.
“Excuse me, Miss.” Someone tapped her. “I’ll take him.
As he was manhandled into another wing-soldier’s arms, thoughts, questions, rampaged through her head.
Shouldn’t they bandage the other wounds? He needed blood, didn’t he? They had none. Maybe nothing much at all. She’d had all the good supplies used to fix her. They should’ve raided a hospital.
He mustn’t die. He mustn’t.
She’d never felt this helpless as she did watching them take him from the room. The first stairwell began out there but to get him down to Big Daddy they had three more to negotiate.
“How long to get down?” she asked Willow.
“An hour, at a guess. I have to help with others.”
She should be concerned about them too, shouldn’t she, instead of standing here wringing her fucking hands. Why couldn’t she fix this by shooting someone?
She’d missed that stinker. Too busy watching Willow.
If only she’d—
Someone turned her. Willow again. “Thank you for saving me. I know it was you, your bolt. I’ve got someone to fly you down too, Cyn.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She nodded, trying not to break into tears. “Thank you,” she choked out again. So much for tough girl.
“It’s okay. We have two dead, but the others will make it. We’ll all be flying down soon. Tell Vincent to expect more wounded. Okay?”
She nodded again.
“Cyn. Listen carefully, please.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If Vargr lives long enough… you may have to think about letting Maura do something I discussed with her.”
Lives long enough. That spiked more fear.
“What?”
“Those chest wounds and the bleeding, he may not survive long. Even beasters have their limits.”
“Fuck.” She did not want to hear this. “What is this something Maura can do?”
“Tell her if she has to, to inject your nanites into him. I have discussed it with her, okay, hear me?”
“Yes.” She blinked at Willow. The woman who thought ahead. Of course. If it didn’t kill him. If. If his ow
n nanites didn’t reject hers. It might work. She healed anything.
“Now, go. Him.” Willow pointed at the wing soldier towering over Cyn.
She was going. She strode past the wing-soldier who she recalled was a Jason, snapping at him, “Come!” The blood on her hand, she wiped off on her pants.
The man came. He knew she wasn’t allowing for any laxness.
The flight down was dizzying, harrowing, and it took forever as they trotted from stairwell to stairwell, only to begin another fly-dive-fly spiraling journey to the depths of this quarter. There was blood on the floor sometimes, and on the railings where the wing-soldier transporting Vargr had stopped to catch breath.
A few times, she glimpsed Vargr below, in the arms of his own carrier. She feared the man would drop Vargr, as his flight was erratic and surely he tired, but he didn’t.
If he made it to Vincent alive, he would live.
He must.
This was not supposed to happen.
Chapter 23
She caught up with Vargr at Big Daddy, where he’d been laid on the same table she’d been on when she woke. Maura was there and Locke. Vincent was sticking an IV drip into his good arm, so they must have some supplies, and Rutger approached from the right as she took the three steps into the vehicle with one stride.
“How is he? Vincent? He’ll live? Say yes.”
She felt arms sweep around her, Rutger brought his body closer to her back, and she just knew he planned to soothe her, because his voice started out low. “Hey—”
“Fuck. Don’t! Tell me, please. I need to know.”
Vincent straightened. “There’s not a lot I can do, Cyn. He needs blood, vascular and chest surgery, at a guess. I’ve got him hooked up to an ECG, but his heart is starting to fail. Even beasters—”
“I know, even beasters have limits, except I was told there was an alternative. My nanites. Inject them if it’s his last chance.” The fingers on his wrecked arm were visible and looked an ugly dark color—almost blue. Fuck. She wasn’t courageous enough to ask about that.
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