And she touched me anyway?
“It must be like your lusteal,” she says. “Getting in your mind, forcing you to mate without any choice.”
“Lusteal doesn’t force us to do anything. It prepares us to act. It does not require us to act.”
She tilts her head. “Then why did you?”
That question has been bothering me this whole time. There is no satisfying answer, and so I settle on an unsatisfying one. “Surprise.”
“Oh. Because I…right. Whatever’s gotten into me is way worse than your lusteal, then, because I can’t control it at all. I’m sorry.”
No wonder she continues to eye me. “You suffer still?”
“Usually I get a few moments’ relief during the refractory period.”
Refractory period?
“Oh, don’t worry,” she assures me. “Right now, I feel very in control.”
She mated with a crew of Eruvisans.
Then she mated with me.
And the mating act is not unusual for her species. It’s not rare. Twice a gora? Meaning every few shifts?
The Arrisans have purified reproduction into the most efficient method. The best warriors in the empire are chosen for rigorous genetic combinations in the arena, but most new Arrisans are grown from stored embryos.
The intensity of the real act, the driving primal need that demands satisfaction… Lessers must endure this broken sensation constantly.
What an impossible way to live.
And somehow she is forcing me to experience it. Outside the confines of the arena. The need is building again, heat pooling, engorging me, concentrating my thoughts.
When she touched me, I should have scythed her.
I should still.
Her apology means nothing. She knew the rules.
And yet I didn’t scythe her.
My shock was total. I was confused. But I was not paralyzed. Somewhere inside, I made a decision not to enforce the rules. And I think I’m still trying to reconcile that unprincipled decision with the hyper-moral blade I think I am.
“What happens when the Spiderwasp arrives?” She rests her wrists on the table, showing surrender. “You’re going to turn over the stolen cargo?”
“Yes.”
“And the dead Eruvisans and their ship?”
“No.” The Spiderwasp would have no use for them.
“You’re just leaving?” She studies me intently. Those odd irises are hypnotizing. She is doing something to me again. “Leaving me behind too?”
Of course. She is nothing to my mission. How is it not obvious? “Yes.”
“Alive?”
That is up to her.
“Assuming that we part friends,” she adds.
Allies… We will never be allies. I am Arrisan and she is not.
But assuming she does not interfere with my orders, I will leave her and her damaged ship behind. “Yes.”
“Do you think we can actually get to our destination with the other ship attached?”
I would not fly in this modified cruiser even before the Eruvisans cracked it. “Close the chute and detach it.”
“And me? Do you think I can reach Vanadis before the bloodworms eat off my skin?”
I am no science officer.
But I have a sudden driving need to see her interior again.
A need that I should resist.
A need I have been resisting, but now I’m all too aware of it. “It is time to apply the ointment again.”
She opens the medical kit, holds the Arrisan ointment in her hand for a long moment, and then rests it on the table. Her movements become less coordinated. Her fingers fumble with her blue fabric. “Did you want me to apply…?”
“I will.” I pick up the ointment and rise, adjusting my hood for optimum vision.
She bends over the table and bunches her fabric like clouds above her plump cheeks.
The split where her body parts and allows her partner—her chosen one—to tunnel his jack into her socket is tan-pink and looks like the softest substance in the universe. What is the function of these small dark hairs?
Hot blood pumps into my lower body. My abdomen hardens, and my heartbeat localizes in my spongeflesh, engorging it.
The only sound is our breathing. Hers increases to a ragged edge.
Why did I say I would do this? I already checked her interior when I applied the ointment the first time. And yet I am here, before her, the tube of ointment in my hands.
I squeeze the ointment onto my fingertip and touch her—
She jumps.
I freeze.
Tremors escape down her legs. She sucks in a deep breath and releases it. “Okay.”
Using my other fingertips, I part her flesh.
As a lesser, her biology will not be as compatible with ointments created for Arrisans. The deep scratch will require multiple applications to fully seal.
But it has disappeared.
What is this?
There is barely a shadow to indicate where the scratch was before. I slide my finger across the inner skin. It is moist, soft, and whole.
The ointment has healed her faster than it would heal the same scratch on an Arrisan.
“What…?” I close my mouth. What does this mean?
She rises onto one elbow and tries to peer over the fabric. “Is it bad?”
“No. It has healed.”
“Oh. Good. And the bloodworms?”
“You will need to visit a medical center.”
“Right.”
But we are still arrested in these positions.
Maybe she did not heal faster. Maybe I mistook the size of the injury before. Maybe she has a strange ability to seal over injuries while they are still healing.
Or maybe she is affected by the substances used on Arrisans even more than we are.
So many questions I should never try to answer. My role is to execute and report, not to wonder.
And all while my fingertips are still touching the softest substance in the entire universe.
It is one thing that feels exactly how it looks.
Heat floods my jack.
“Are you done?” She rises up on her other palm and cranes her neck to see into my face.
If I couple with her, the heat will leave me. It will flow out into her where it belongs. If I take her on my terms, instead of having my fluids torn from me, I will be able to control this.
And she has already chosen me as her partner.
But before I make a single movement, she pulls away and straightens, the fabric piling onto my wrists. “You have to ask every time. They have to agree. Every time.”
As if she can dictate to me. This lesser who took my body without my agreement, who wrenched feelings from it, who compelled me.
Her very gaze is hypnotizing.
I ask. “Will you?”
Those long lashes flutter. She focuses on my flat cloak. “You want me?”
I separate my suit to expose the critical part.
My jack, hot and throbbing.
She reaches her hand out to touch it.
I angle away. There is no need to experience the mouth, the fingertips. I am ready to couple and lose my release in her. Get my own fix so that I can repair this fissure in my brain.
Her fingers curl around empty air.
She meets my eyes. “What’s your name?”
I have so many. Blade, Arrisan, destroyer. “Sithe.”
“Sai…th.” She sounds it out, her tongue curling around the unfamiliar syllables. Perhaps I was mistaken about needing her mouth on me. One taste of that sensation was not enough. “You have to know my name to ask me.”