Severin looked toward the doorway.Downthe hall, in the mating chamber,CassandraandRavikwere waiting for him.Orsleeping, perhaps—he hoped they were sleeping.Cassandrahad been through too much today, andRavik’smind had only just begun to clear again.Theyboth needed rest, warmth, and whatever fragile comfort they could steal from the night.
He wondered if he should wake them.Shouldhe tell them what he’d found?Shouldhe explain that he believed he had discovered the delivery mechanism and that the only possible carrier was his own body?
Maybe so.Maybehe should admit that the compound he needed to inject into himself contained activeHungerVirusfragments altered byCassandra’shoney,Ravik’sinfected blood, and his own essence sample.Heshould tell them that if he was wrong, he might infect himself with a mutated strain no one knew how to cure.
He should tell them all of it…but he didn’t.Becausehe was sureCassandrawould try to stop him.AndRavik, even half-recovered, might tear the injector out of his hand before he could depress the plunger.
Severin told himself this was logic, not cowardice.Oneof them had to be the test subject, and he was the only possible candidate.Cassandrawas the catalyst and already infected.Ravikwas unstable and still fighting his way out of theHungerfog.Severinwas aBloodKindred, a scientist, and the one whose body was biologically suited to carry the cure if it worked.
It was a calculated risk…a terrible risk.
But what else could he do?Theycouldn’t stay here forever, trying and failing again and again as the virus spread in bothCassandraandRavik.Theirstores of food wouldn’t last forever and the machinery in the engine room of the bunker had been making some worrisome noises lately.Itwas an old structure—one of its vital functions was going to fail at some point—probably some point soon.
No—he had to take the risk,Severindecided.Therewas no other way.
He prepared the injection with slow, precise movements addingCassandra’sglowing honey,Ravik’saltered blood markers, and his own anti-viral base.Thena fragment of his essence to give the compound a map—a way to find the glands it needed to bind to.Headjusted the ratios twice—then a third time, because his hand was hovering over his own possible death and precision mattered.
When the injector was ready, the fluid inside was clear at first…then it turned faintly gold.
Severin stared at it.Sucha small amount of liquid to hold so much hope…or so much ruin.Whatwould happen toCassandraandRavinif he become anInfectedhimself?Whatwould they do?
He sat back on the lab stool and, for the first time in a long while, allowed himself to feel afraid.Notof dying—he had faced death before, in battlefields, quarantine zones, and the ruined lower levels of theDeadZonewhen they’d been running for their lives with hoards ofInfectedon their heels.
Death was not the worst thing, he decided…failure was.
IfSeverindied and leftCassandraandRavikwithout the cure, that would be failure.Ifhe infected himself and became another threat to them, that would be worse.Ifhe carried theHungerVirusinto his own blood and lost himself before he could help them…
He looked again toward the door—he could almost see them in his mind.Cassandracurled againstRavik’sbroad chest, flushed and exhausted and finally quiet.Ravikholding her carefully, as though she was the most precious thing in the universe and he was afraid his big hands might break her.Thetwo of them waiting forSeverinto return, though neither of them truly understood yet what they were becoming to him…what the three of them were becoming to each other.
Severin closed his fingers around the injector, then he bowed his head.
“Goddess,” he murmured, his voice low in the empty lab, “Ifthis is arrogance, forgive me.Ifthis is madness, guide my hand.Andif this is the only way to save them…let my body be enough.”
Nothing happened—no light glowed and no voice spoke to him as he had heard theGoddessoften spoke to her children when they were in need.Buthe felt a warmth around him—as though someone was giving him a gentle, comforting hug.
It was enough.
Severin pressed the injector to the inside of his arm and depressed the plunger before he could think any longer.
The compound entered his bloodstream in a single cold burn.
He hissed through his teeth and gripped the edge of the table as the sensation shot up his arm.Atfirst, it felt like ice flowing through his veins.Thenthe cold became fire, racing toward his chest…his throat…his jaw.Hisfangs throbbed so violently that black spots crowded the edges of his vision.
“Gods,”he choked.
His heart stumbled in his chest once and then again.Forone terrifying second, every scent in the room sharpened into something unbearable.
Antiseptic.Metal.Oldblood.Viralmedium.Cassandra’shoney still clinging to the wand case.Ravik’ssmoky scent from the bedding fibers onSeverin’sown skin….all of it washed over him, filling his senses unbearably.
Then his mouth flooded with saliva and his fangs burned with the sudden, brutal need to bite…to deliver the cure he could feel boiling in his blood.
At least, hehopedthat was what why he had the sudden urge to sink his fangs into flesh.
Severin forced himself to breathe through the intense and overwhelming sensations.Hecounted the beats of his heart, noted the tremor in his fingers, the heat in his jaw, and the pressure building behind his fangs.
TheHungerdidnotrise in him—not the way it had inRavik’ssamples and not with the feral blankness and the predatory appetite of aVisskouswho had been turned into anInfected.
But something was moving through his blood…something alive, he could feel it.
