“Dump the bodies,” Nev growled, still hungry for something he couldn’t quite name.
Will nodded, unchained the women and dragged them from the cave. He laughed at something someone outside said.
The minute he disappeared from view, Nev felt his absence. The curse of Ravager existence, that pack-like mentality. It had never bothered him at home, where everyone was the same. But here, among so many other races, he saw frailties in his kind he was determined to eradicate.
Annoyed that the aloneness smothered him, Nev forced himself to be strong and paced to push away the vulnerability a leader couldn’t afford to feel. But without the presence of others to distract him from the past, memories invaded, the way they always did, pulling at the dark silence inside him, reminding him of the weakness that ran in his blood.
As if he’d passed through only yesterday, Nev recalled the coldness leeching his bones, the shrieking things clawing at his guer and ripping at his sanity as he screamed his way through an intra-dimensional portal to this place—through the Void. He suppressed a shudder, wondering why his father hadn’t met the threat invading their world head-on.
The once-great leader of the Ravagers had denied his duty. He’d ignored the needs of his clan and shoved his family to the safety of the Void before destroying the cave in which it sat, effectively killing more than half his brethren in the process, Nev had later heard. If not for the sister Void on their nearby moon, which allowed so many others to escape, he never would have known the fate of his family. And never would have had to deal with Eric Savage and his brood either, he thought with disgust.
The Dekken would have annihilated the homeworld by now. The new Ravagers setting foot in Cross Step came from surrounding worlds, where they’d made hasty escapes. Of the millions of Ravagers who evaded the Dekken, hardly any found their way to Earth. If only they could figure out how the fucking Voids worked.
Nev wished he’d journeyed to another world, where his kind might have taken charge and established a commanding order. The thought of Cross Step being the last home to so few Ravagers made him want to kill all the feeble humans currently running the planet into the ground. What made it so much worse was that Eric Savage and his fucked up clan tainted their future by allowing so much impure crossbreeding.
Nev resolved to bring the clans together again. If not for Eric Savage, the Ravagers might have been strong enough to take over this pathetic city. It wasn’t as if they had anywhere else to go. Passing back through the Voids wouldn’t guarantee safety on arrival at the other end, wherever the hell that might be. And the United States government had an impenetrable boundary around the forty square miles of what they called “Cross Step, The Restricted Area.”
Instead of making the best of it, Eric chose to live in peace among non-Ravagers. He had the nerve to put aside his own history by allowing his Ravagers to mate with those outside their own kind, a source of constant strife at home.
Ravagers needed sex the way they needed to feed. A rapacious hunger filled the species, which was probably why nature had made so few Ravager females. With the amount of fucking they did, Ravagers would take over the universe if not held in check.
Packs of four now grew to packs of six and seven, to better the chance of new offspring. Fucking humans and other Voiders wasn’t a concern. Ravagers took care of sexual desire with whomever they wanted, race and gender mattered not. But bringing mixed-blood offspring into this world screamed of heresy, an abomination the last king had tried so hard to end by disallowing permanent unions with non-Ravagers.
Eric knew this, yet he kept in his own pack two pureblood females and took neither to mate! The male was not only a fool but an illogical beast without the intelligence to lead. How he’d garnered so much support within the Ravager community remained a mystery to Nev. But no matter. Given time, Nev had every intention of taking back what was rightfully his.
He flexed his fingers and stared at his bloodstained claws. Power thrived in his guer, in the animal strength of primitive right. Who were the Savages to thumb their noses at tradition?
No one. They are nothing more than the crusted blood beneath my fingers. A strand of blond hair caught in the jagged end of a nail. He stared at it and wondered if Eric’s new female had such light-colored hair or if Dominic remained the token blond in the clan.
He was still holding the strand when Will reentered the cave.
Chapter Twelve
Monday morning, after a useless day and night spent arguing to go free, or to at least see her cousin, Vicki sat across from Eric and Dominic in Eric’s study. She’d had free rein of the house yesterday, but anytime she tried to leave, Ravagers blocked her. Despite the comfort of the bed they’d offered her, she’d spent the night twisting and turning, unable to sleep.
She shifted her gaze from Dominic—no, he preferred Dom—to Eric and back again. She’d had sex not just with any Ravagers. “Prime” wasn’t just the title for the head of the household, but for the king.
Eric and Dom studied her, making her more than uncomfortable while she waited for someone to speak. Logan and Jesse had gone, seeing to other matters as ordered by Eric. Thankfully, yesterday Eric had given her one of his shirts to replace the one he and the others had ripped. She’d knotted it at the waist and tried to pretend she wore a bra beneath, that the thin fabric didn’t highlight the peaks of her hardened nipples. Logan, the ass, had refused to give her any of her own clothes when she’d clearly seen him toting her duffel bag through the house.
She crossed her arms to hide her breasts, annoyed she remained in a constant state of arousal when around these two.
Bad enough she couldn’t help her reaction to the arrogant Ravagers sitting across the table from her. At least they’d dressed before meeting her this morning. Some part of her had feared they’d show up naked again, insisting on more sex. The clothes were a nice attempt at civility she appreciated, except for the guards they’d posted at her door while they’d changed.
Annoyed the prime and his stubborn guard remained mute, she broke the silence, feeling as if she’d lost round one of a game she didn’t know how to play. “So tell me what this marking means to me.” She stubbornly refused to be any man’s possession. No matter how that insane little part inside thrilled at the word. Freaked that she secretly liked the thought of becoming Eric and Dom’s love toy—so not normal—she ignored her inner longings and concentrated on the matter at hand.
Namely, her life.
“You’ll stay with us for a while.” Eric drummed his fingers on the table, his gaze intense.
“How long is a while? I have a life to lead, you know. A business to run.”
“Right.” Dom nodded. He pushed a file at her. “S&V Retrievals. You have a stellar reputation, which is probably why Tommy Chen is after you.”
She clenched her jaw. “Exactly. And why my being here could be very bad for you and your pack. Or clan. Whatever.”
Eric grinned. She blinked, not having seen that small dimple in his left cheek before. Her heart raced. Hell, this man was lethal when not in Ravager form.
His eyes twinkled. “You now belong to me, part of my family. We’re pack, but we’re also all part of the Savage clan.”