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  He jostled her a few times, flopping her back and forth from one side to the other. “Just right, I think,” he said, sounding satisfied by her inability to move on her own.

  She lay limp over the sling of his arm. “Right for what?” she asked weakly.

  “There are some scientists paying a hefty reward for live lamians.”

  Her mind latched on to one key word—live. That meant there was a chance she’d find Shay.

  “By draining you of a lot of blood, I can now transport you to their facility,” he said.

  Scientists? Was it true? Was there a group of intelligent humans working to propagate prejudice and sway the weak-minded into doing their dirty work? What exactly were their plans for lamians?

  Hamner dragged her through a few rooms. Everything looked old, abandoned. When he got her outside, she saw he’d had her in a structure built from blocks of stone that she assumed to be an old mining station’s sorting and storage facility. Inside these storage chambers, humans had once kept their bounties from the earth away from heat, pests and thieves.

  Rye steered her thoughts toward healing. Her location wasn’t as important as why her body hadn’t regenerated. What prevented her cuts from healing? What kept her lethargic? Then she questioned the underlying bitter aftertaste from the sweetness of her blood. That putrid smell on Hamner’s hand she had accepted so easily as the stench of uncleanliness. Not suspecting his motives, she had let him feed her poison.

  Her iron-rich blood had masked the usually pungent odor of the garlic juice found in allium. With its paralyzing effect on rejuvenating tissue cells, the blood poison made Rye feel doomed.

  Chapter Two

  Sevrin Renault pushed opened the steel door of his steam-trekker. A wave of heat, heavy with dust hit him in the face. He stepped out on the running board above the metal-ribbed track wheel that carried his vehicle over the roughest land. It made a good mobile base for his wandering life in the wastelands.

  He wiped his leather-gloved hand over his face. The grit of dirt clung to his lips and he tried to muster up saliva. It didn’t come easily. “Damn weather.” He reached back inside the steam-trekker for his flask. He took off the cap. Taking a mouthful of water, he swished it around and spit it to the ground. With the dryness gone, along with the grainy residue, he took another drink and swallowed. He replaced the cap and slung the flask back into the steam-trekker.

  He hopped off the running board. Fine dust particles from the parched earth billowed up and coated his boots. He snapped back the tails of his overcoat, sending a flurry of filth from the worn garment. Then drawing his gun from the holster at his back, he checked to see that the chambers were full, the hammer unlocked and the weapon ready for use. Armed for any sudden surprises, he returned it to the holster, satisfied.

  The steam engine in his vehicle suddenly hissed, startling him. No matter how many times heard that in a day, he would never be prepared. The series of spits, sputters and several juicy popping sounds as the liquid cooled in the water-fueled tank reminded him he’d have to find a watering hole and refill soon.

  Curiosity drove his attention toward what someone had dumped on the wayside. He prided himself on being a man getting by in life by whatever means came his way. His brother, Zandt, called him an aimless wanderer. In reality, he was a salvager, hunting for valuables that made life easier, more comfortable and often interesting.

  Along the top edge of the sloped hill, he walked back toward the lighter than sand mound. Possibly a tarp, probably petrified wood, either way he wanted to know it wasn’t something better.

  He looked toward the bottom of the gully. It was normal to find odd bits of furniture or machinery in unlikely places. People discarded what they didn’t want whenever and wherever the mood stuck them. The last thing he had expected to see thrown out as useless trash was a person.

  Humans buried their own. Lamians burned theirs.

  Wishing his eyesight had played tricks on him, he rubbed his hand over his face. He scratched his jaw, giving a momentary thought to cutting back the whiskers when he fueled the steam-trekker. The image of the naked female quickly pulled his thoughts back on track.

  The sight of her was about as far from common as finding grass in the wastelands. Unable to turn away and ignore her, he climbed down the bank. Loose gravel rolled out from beneath him, making his steps shaky. Twenty feet later, he stood at the halfway point on the slope and stared at the mutilated corpse of a young female.

  Sprawled out in the rutted dirt, her limbs askew, she appeared unreal, as if she were one of those mangled rag dolls children sometimes carried. Her awkward position left an intimate part of her exposed.

  Someone had wanted her to suffer before dying. Mutilation came from anger. But who did it? A sex partner, a violent thief, what could anyone possibly want from her? With her naked, it wasn’t beyond imagining in their uncivilized society that someone had killed her for her clothes.

  Whatever the reason, he had no part of another’s business. Everyone had an agenda. He was no different and this was clearly not his problem.

  Still, he had trouble leaving it alone. The wastefulness of her death disturbed him. Females were few in the wastelands, especially beautiful ones. It didn’t make sense for anyone to go killing them off.

  Sevrin moved closer, stumbling the remaining few steps over the bumpy ground. Letting his gaze glide gradually over her sleek feminine curves, he shook his head in disgust. Marred by dozens of cuts, her perfectly shaped body showed all the signs of a lengthy torture.

  “Damn crackbrains.” He shook his head, disgusted by what people did to others. Then he turned away to leave.

  Partly healed cuts? He glanced back at the female.

  To make sure she was dead, he bent down, flipped back the blood-matted blonde hair from her face and pushed up her top lip.

  “Fangs,” he muttered. “That explains the exaggerated efforts of your attacker.”

  He pulled off his right glove and pressed his fingertips against the center of the lamian’s chest. Slowly, he maneuvered them under her left breast until he found the slow beat of her heart.

  “So, you’ve just been left for dead.” He pushed on her chest with the palm of his hand and studied the large puncture wound in her belly. Blood bubbled out. He pushed again, hoping to stimulate something better than a weak thump of her heart. Reviving anything half-dead wasn’t in his area of expertise.

  “Why aren’t you healing?” He tried to think of what else he might do to get a response from her.

  With her advanced metabolism, she should have recovered from her injuries shortly after receiving them. Even if she was not pure lamian and had a slower regenerative process, she should have healed as he watched.

  Sevrin rose and pulled off his other glove. He shoved the finely crafted pair of lizard-skin gloves into his pocket, not wanting to lose them.

  He scanned the area for signs of someone else, checking that there was nothing to say he too was in danger. The barren wastelands let a man see far and he saw no one.

  A sound from the lamian drew his attention back to her. How long had she been lying there exposed to the heat of the sun and bleeding to death?

  “Cold,” she suddenly but weakly complained. Her breathy voice, although lacking energy, had an incredible magnetism.

  Shaking off the disturbance to his senses, he squatted and placed his hand against her slender neck. She radiated excessive heat. Death nearing meant internally she would feel cold.

  He stood and jerked his arms out of his overcoat. Like his gloves, it also had been made of the slick hides of lizards. He took pride in owning the long, durable garment. While it was often a cumbersome part of his attire, it had useful purposes. Used to shield both sun and rain, it also made for a decent bedroll or tent.

  “Your body needs insulation from the sun’s heat,” he said, snapping his often-coveted possession out over her without concern for the blood that might get on it.

  He made adjustment
s, thoroughly covering her arms and legs. Reaching beneath the coat, he caught her leg by the calf and pulled her limbs together. He tucked her arms close to her sides and flipped the collar up near her neck.

  Her soft moan drew his gaze. Her lashes fluttered and then opened completely. She stared at him with the most gorgeous pale-blue eyes. The mesmerizing tranquility of the color confused him. Whether full-blood or half-breed, lamians usually had dark-brown or golden irises. Was his scientist brother right with his hypothesis that the species who evolved from humans only a couple centuries ago would continue evolving during their lifetime?

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said reassuringly, expecting fear, embarrassment or panic.

  She blinked once, showing a quiet acceptance to his statement. It either indicated the truest strength in her nature or was a sign of her eminent demise.

  While he preferred to stay out of time-sucking situations unless he profited, a soft spot in him also never passed up an innocent in distress. Something that seemed to happen to him a lot and the fragile female at his feet certainly needed his help.

  “You’ve got to replenish your blood loss.” He pushed his sleeve up to his elbow.

  “No.” She closed her eyes and turned her head away.

  He’d met all kinds in his travels, from starving, flesh-gorging humans to greedy, blood-drinking lamians. Run-ins with the dregs of the world left him biased about not giving up his blood to anyone. This was something new—a lamian who didn’t want to rip open his flesh and suck his veins dry. She reminded him that good existed in the least likely of places. It made him want to help her even more.

  He slid his hand under her head and lifted it up. “You have to do this.”

  “Bloodletting perpetuates falsehoods,” she grumbled.

  “You have sun-fever. If you don’t get fresh blood into you soon, your body will become combustible, heated enough to burst into flames. I don’t reckon I’d be too interested in seeing that happen.” He offered his wrist, something he had never done for another lamian.

  “Then leave.”

  He understood pride, yet she was too pretty to let die because of it.

  “No one will know…except us.” He put his hand under the coat and rubbed his fingers between her breasts to stimulate her heartbeat. “I’d think you’d prefer drinking my blood rather than having me fondling you.” He moved his hand to her hot belly. Blood still pumped out. “What’s your name?”

  “Rye.”

  Just having her answer showed she wasn’t ready to give up life.

  “Is that it?” he asked, trying to start a conversation of any sort just to keep her awake.

  She looked at him again. “It’s enough.”

  “So that’s the name you want carved on your grave marker?”

  “Don’t trouble yourself.” Her obstinacy showed spunk.

  If he were the one lying near death, he might have said the same thing. With hardships of day-to-day living and the lack of beauty in the world, why not give up the struggle to hang on? On the other hand, perhaps her display of stubbornness was a sign she was healing on her own.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me to burn you instead of burying you?” He needed to keep her talking to prevent her from sliding into a coma.

  “According to you, I’ll burst into flames soon enough.” She gasped a weak sound. Her eyes closed and her head lolled to the side.

  “Rye?” He gripped her chin and turned her face toward him. “Rye, look at me.”

  Her thick golden lashes lifted and her glistening blue gaze lacked the resolve of her words.

  “Your temperature is rising. You should drink before it’s too late.” He offered his wrist again. “You must have some reason left to live.”

  Her eyes widened and he knew he’d found a chink in her obstinacy.

  Then she let out a sigh of defeat. “I was fed an extract from allium.”

  Blood poison. Still, she could survive it or so he had heard.

  “You have to try,” he said again, not knowing to what extent his blood could help. As a loner, he didn’t have long or detailed conversations with purebreds of the lamian species to know all the differences in them compared to humans. And half-breeds, those who had a mix of lamian and human blood, had enough dissimilarities that it wasn’t a topic that came up in his travels.

  “I need…too…much.” She coughed on the last word.

  Rye convulsed with sickening sounds of distress.

  Sevrin’s stomach knotted. The haunting memories of his mother’s illness flashed in his thoughts. He pulled Rye forward, rolling her on her side. Vomit and blood spewed from her pale lips. He grabbed her shoulder and steadied her as she continued to heave. Bile hit the bottom of his trouser leg and his boot. When he touched her bare back to hold her from falling on her face, he felt other gashes in her skin and more sticky blood.

  “Fuck.” What sadistic son of a bitch did this to her and why?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, anger fringing the apologetic tone.

  Realizing how his disgust for her abuser could sound aimed at her, he swept her hair back from her forehead. “Don’t be.” He moved his hold away from where his fingers dipped into the split skin but he found no safe place to hang on to her without touching an open cut.

  She tried pushing herself away but another round of vomiting forced her forward. He held her tight, helping her back to the ground when she stopped shaking. Shifting his coat back in place to cover her, he felt around the garment for the pocket with his flask.

  He opened the lizard-hide container. “Here, drink this.” He raised her head.

  “No,” she protested. “It will dilute my blood and make the poison recycle easier through my veins.”

  “And if you don’t get cooled down soon, you’ll die. It’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation.” He flipped back the coat from her upper torso and poured some of the water on her neck and chest. The clean liquid cut paths through the grime.

  With bloodstained hands, he wiped the water along her collarbone and up her slender neck. The mixture of blood and dirt smeared together. He splashed more water on her face and wet her dry-cracked lips. She didn’t protest.

  “How does that feel?” Not getting an answer, he grasped her jaw and shook her by the face. “Rye?”

  He continued to pour the water on her until it was gone. It wasn’t enough. With the coat over her, he scooped her up. He climbed the slope to the steam-trekker. There he laid her on the ground. He had some extra water in the steam-trekker meant for powering the vehicle. The moment he opened the small hatch to check the fuel reserve and heat wafted out, he knew he’d have to use what water he had stored in the cab to pour in the fuel tank.

  He opened the door of the steam-trekker and retrieved the government storage can from behind the seat.

  “Damn, not even half-full,” he said, shaking the gray metal container.

  He emptied it into the fuel funnel and then flipped the hatch shut.

  Rye remained motionless on the ground. He could have used the water on her, but then where’d they be if he couldn’t quickly get her to more water? Putting the can back behind the seat, he picked Rye up and hoisted her to his shoulder. He mounted the running board, leaned inside the cab and dumped her into the passenger seat. She fell toward the console. He pulled her back up and realigned the coat over her as best he could. When she slumped toward both him and the open door, he saw no other choice other than to climb in with her. From there he could get into the driver’s seat.

  He first straddled her to pull the door shut. Once in that position, he decided to try to give her blood again.

  “No more arguments, Rye. I haven’t the water to keep you cooled down, so you’ll have to suck up your pride and drink my blood.”

  She lay unresponsive. Had her body gone into hibernation? While normally that could be a good thing, she had the blood poison flowing through her veins. She’d never heal if hibernation turned into a coma.
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br />   Sevrin pulled the petrified-wood-handled knife from the sheath in the side of his boot.

  “You better appreciate this,” he said, clenching his jaw as he sliced into the soft flesh of his inner forearm. He held back the groan rumbling to escape his throat. Grasping Rye by the back of her head, he pressed his bloody arm to her mouth, forcing her lips to part. “Drink, dammit.”

  Unable to get her started, he put his arm to his mouth. He had never tasted blood beyond the occasional drops that oozed from a split lip obtained in a fight. The salty warm liquid had a metallic flavor, unusual yet palatably sweet.

  He jerked back Rye’s head and angled her into position. He stuck his fingers between her lips and pried open her mouth. Helpless and vulnerable, she succumbed to his guidance. Then with a grip on her jaw, he moved his mouth against hers and spit his blood to the back of her throat. He withdrew and waited a few moments.

  Her lack of response prompted him to take another hard suck at his wrist. Filling his mouth with more blood, he repeated the insertion of it into Rye’s mouth.

  She gagged on the second, larger dose and then gulped. Her tongue shot out and whipped expeditiously over his lips. He leaned in, allowing her frenzied licks to swirl into his mouth. With a wildly smothering kiss, she sucked on his tongue. Drawn to the aggression that matched the uninhibited passion of sex, he held her face. Hit with a ravenous need of his own, he hungrily kissed her.

  Rye’s soft lips yielded to the force of his. Her mouth opened to the press of his tongue. For several moments, he licked the interior, savoring the rise in energy between them.

  When her teeth scraped his bottom lip a little too hard, the pain stung him out of his irrational indulgence and he jerked back.

  Rye let out a ferocious growl of annoyance at the interruption. She grabbed his arm and pressed her wet lips over the cut. She clawed at his arms and shoulders with greed. Her hold tightened, her fingers dug into his biceps and her moans grew louder as she wildly slurped at the slice in his skin.

  An onslaught of unexplainable sensations and emotions gripped him. Sexual desire became predominant. His pulse hammered away at his insides. A sensual heat spread through his body, strangely timed, yet familiarly exciting.