She turns away and picks up her small bag.

I rise and follow as she gathers her things. She turns and bumps into me, then looks up and smiles. It pierces my chest in a hundred places.

She loops the bag onto her shoulder. “How long does it take to get to the cargo bay?”

“A few clicks.”

She glances at the chronometer.

I want to hold her in my arms and never let her go. She’s standing in front of me, but it feels like she’s already gone.

“It’s probably for the best,” she says again and scrapes an invisible line on the floor with her skinsuit boot. “Is there any other option? Can you see one? Because this universe is big and dangerous. When I leave here, we’ll no longer affect each other’s lives, and this time together has been intense and precious to me.”

She snatches my feelings out of the air and puts them into words. Yes, this time has been intense and precious to me too.

And while I’ve never feared for my life, being with her has torn off my skin and exposed hollow caverns beneath my bones where I thought I was whole. The longer we’re together, the more I learn of what I lack.

My future, my past, everything has been altered by our meeting and interactions.

And yet, for all the ways I’ve changed, some things have stayed the same. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Well, I can, but…” She chuckles low and moves one arm expansively while hugging the other to her belly. “You could come with me. Just blow off everything and come. We’ll go to Vanadis, and I’ll get the lusteal taken out, or treated, or whatever they can do to make sure my fog’s gone for good. No one would bother us if you were on our ship, and you’d make sure we got there safely and our needs were met. And then you’d help us get home again and—you know, it could actually work. We could stall the captain until your supervisor arrived. You could ask him if it was possible. Or maybe you could get stationed by Humana, and we…I could be an ambassador, and you could help us, maybe, try to get our vassal planet status upgraded, and we could become an ally.”

She is all enthusiasm and smiles, starlight and hope. Envisioning it is as uplifting as the sensation of floating in orbit with the gravs off.

But then there’s the plummet.

“Blades are never stationed anywhere except on Arris Central,” I point out, telling myself as much as I explain it to her. “And I can’t demand an assignment. If I actively move against Zai, he’ll have me killed. ‘A weapon in the wrong hands is worse than a broken blade.’ I must pledge my loyalty and obey.”

Her face falls.

But she’s not surprised.

She wriggles her fingers into my clenched fist, and I open it to interlace my fingers with her small, fragile digits. “I know. And I can’t stay on this ship because someone’s always going to be against us. Last time was Atana, but next time, it’ll be the science officer again, and then it’ll be someone new that we’re not expecting. You’ll eventually get an assignment that you have to go to, and I won’t be able to go with you, and so this will happen anyway.”

She’s right.

The chaos in my head calms.

She understands everything so clearly, explains it so thoughtfully. It makes sense. I feel like she’s given me an order, even though she’s said nothing but what is now obvious. It’s obvious because she makes it so.

Catarine sniffs and presses a hand to her mouth, then smiles up at me again through watery eyes. Rains in the desert, sere brown turned to a dark sea. She presses her lips to mine and murmurs, “Can we? One more time?”

I hook a finger in my skinsuit and tear it off in one fluid motion. She drops her bag and falls into me, meshing our mouths, her suit parting to meld our chests. My desperation is equivalent. I must feel her, squeeze her, know every part of her is still here, still with me, still mine. Her breasts swell in my hands and her socket slips beneath my fingers. Her arms wind around my neck. I lift her onto my already hard jack, and she wraps her legs around my waist, hooking ankles. My jack eases home, and she moans.

Then she grips my hair in her hands and forces her fierce gaze into mine. “Why do we fit together so perfectly in every position?”

You were made for me, I want to say, and I was made by you.

The skinsuit falls off her shoulders. She lolls her head to one side, offering herself to me.

I will not bite.

But she always puts her mouth on me. On my face, on my chest, on my jack. Is that what she needs?

I lick her skin. It is smooth, and has an unfamiliar metallic flavor that hooks into me, forcing my recessed teeth to become erect.

Too dangerous.

I clench on air, swallow, and pull her back hard, her shoulder blades hitting my chest, even though the warmth of her burns through my skinsuit. Looking down at my hands gripping her waist, my skin is gray with black lines against her copper coloration. We make such a strange contrast, like metal against earth. We are elemental now.

I slide my hand over her belly, across the small indent in her abdomen, to crimpy black curls. Yet another texture, these are nothing like the long hair on her head or the thin hairs on her arms.

Her legs part, offering me her slick opening.

I explore, cupping and stroking, memorizing her folds, how she grows wetter and moans, how the little nub swells, how she trembles. I could study this for clegs and still have so much to learn.

And she is fascinating. Every time our bodies unite, I discover new things.

She lolls her head to the opposite side.

A mild red mark is still on her neck.

My recessed teeth pulse. Rage. I have so much power, and yet another Arrisan touched her.

She twists in my arms to look back at me—because I’m gripping her slick opening too hard. I relax, but she grabs my hand, presses it firmly to her socket, and I obey her direction, finely adjusting my motion, coating my longest fingers in her liquid.

And then she tips her chin up and suctions onto my mouth like before, but this time, I open mine like she does. She likes doing this to me. I want to give her the same pleasure.

Our lips mesh, and her tongue delves in, finding mine and entangling, thrusting and withdrawing, enticing me to sink deeper into our connection.

Is this what she finds pleasurable? Finally, I understand. Our mouths join like jack and socket, and her liquid wet tongue-stroking hardens me into an unbreakable rod. She has an addictive flavor like nothing I’ve tasted before, and I crave her as I crave water.

I tear my skinsuit open to my thighs and drag hers over her back and completely off, baring her whole body for the first time.

She is like an Arrisan and yet so different. Large breasts, of course. Thicker thighs and rounder curves at her hip and bottom. I have this bizarre urge to stroke my jack against her coppery skin and spray my seed uselessly across her exterior just to see her bathed in my liquids.

But then she rises onto her knees, facing away, and looks over her shoulder. She reaches out to capture my jaw, and smears a needy kiss against my mouth.

I follow her back down. She rests on her hands and knees facing away and I cover her, align my jack with her socket, and surge.

Her cry is immediate, and she shudders, clamping around me, but I am full of a rage that will not be quenched. I drive into her, crackling with fury, caging her with my need.

“Yes. Ah. Yes,” she moans, and then her elbows collapse into the resting cushion, her buttocks jutting up to meet me. I grip her hips, fit her hard against me, and thrust into her over and over.

Her encouraging cries ring out, dragging me endlessly toward my release, and then I…I can’t stop. The roof of my mouth tingles. My tongue moves to the side. My inner teeth extend.

I must…

Not do this.

My lips part. My inner teeth graze over her skin where her neck meets her shoulder, the exact place I want to mark, and just the thought of it makes my whole body shudder and my seed unleash. I fill her socket with my liquid, wringing greater cries from her. My teeth snap on air, a guttural cry is torn from my throat, and then I collapse on my elbows over her.

I keep saying that I’m not affected, but the day I bite her is the day I’ve lost all control for sure. I’m not a child. She is not mine. She is a valuable resource, a weapon, a training tool.

She wiggles beneath me.

I slide my jack out and roll her to face me, but I keep her caged in my arms. Her hair splays wildly around her, and a pleased smile illuminates her profile. She nuzzles my jaw, totally unaware of my thoughts. That simple act almost undoes my resolution.

I have not bitten her, but that doesn’t mean I’m free.

I slide my fingers through her hair. She is this kind woman, speckled with reverse stars, filled with the serenity I deeply need. Her smell is intoxicating, and when I close my eyes and rest my forehead against her cheek, I can see it. The stars that I took her from. I plucked her escape pod from the abyss. And that is why she is mine.

No one will take her from me.

No one.

She lies beside me, tracing my abdomen and curling her clever fingers around my still-hard jack. “You aren’t done.”

“I can sense you aren’t either.” I roll her on top of me and massage her sweet thighs. “I wish you were somewhere else. Somewhere safe, where no one could find you.”

“Doesn’t exist.” She runs her palms across my chest and squeezes my pectorals. “Besides, I prefer to choose the pitch, not have it chosen for me.”

The fierce scent of the lusteal plucks at my nerve endings. “Then tell me. What battlefield must I choose to gain control over the noble houses? What terrifying persona must I assume to dominate them into submission?”

“You’re awe-inspiring enough. Just be yourself.”

“Be myself.” I rub my thumbs over the corded muscles attached to her kneecaps. “I’ve had too much experience with nobles to maintain the pure principles of Zai or Ishula. I’ve spent too long as a blade to live flagrantly like a noble. What does ‘being myself’ for a person like me mean?”

“You’re open, flexible, and honorable. When the nobles see how much better you are than Orunfax, you’ll draw them to your side. You’re a man of your word. Make it known that’s who you are.”

My chest lifts. As always, I’m glad that this version of me is who she sees in her fierce brown eyes. It makes me want to be that person more than any of the other options available to me. “It’s going to be hard to explain why I almost raided the house of the current head of the High Command.”

“No, it’s easy. He violated your boundary and so you’ll stop anyone who does that. They will respect you. Trust me.” She grins. “I’m a kingmaker.”

And I feel this electrifying sense of possibility.

I guess it’s because my father saw me as a threat. When I got too competent as a blade, my brother pushed me aside. Everyone said our estrangement was only natural. I could never make myself small enough to put him at ease.

But Allie says that I don’t have to be small, that I should be as large and as devastating as I’m capable of being… It feels like I’m allowed to give my all, air rushing around me, dodging the feather-soft whisks of the decapitating blade. Total focus, total concentration, pushing myself to the limit and then having someone say, “That’s why I will love you anyway. We will all love you because you’ve finally stepped up and given your best.” It feels like my soul is coming alive. And I know she can handle me because she has never shied away from meeting me where I am.

Her hands trail lower, her fingers curl around my jack, and she doesn’t give me a chance to do more than savor the sensation for an instant before she fits me to her entrance and we unite. She rides me, undulating against my girth, taking her pleasure while giving me so much more than I knew to desire.

I have lived many different lives already—palace brat, heir, blade, noble—and yet this is my favorite. Partner to someone who understands me, understands the world better even than I understand myself.

She leans down, her breasts scraping sensual lines across my chest, and takes my mouth again. Our tongues interlock like jack and socket, wet and hungry, and our bodies loop in an infinite wheel of fire, flaming from her soul to mine and back into hers, as we both become much more than who we are.

I do not want a human pet.

For kortans, I’ve shot her with health serums, always carefully masked up to avoid exposure to her lusteal-infused blood. I’ve dragged her pod from ship to ship. I’ve hidden her existence from those above me above me and sworn everyone beneath to silence. And I’ve done all this knowing that I do not want a human pet.

The bond that exists between Arrisans and their infected lessers is strange.

Lusteal on its own does little to an Arrisan. It hardens a male, softens a female, makes us receptive. It doesn’t twist and coil in our veins, possess our minds, drive us insane.

Not until it gets into human blood—well, into certain humans’ blood—and then changes.

A human can be taken away, declared contraband, casually executed. Who cares about a lesser? Nobody. And yet the Arrisans who’ve been ensnared by lusteal-infused humans do care. I can’t understand them.

But I do understand risk. Too much has already been taken from me. I am above such stupidity.

And yet I look down on the human whose head bobs against my taut belly, her small suckling noises causing a strange tingle at the base of my spine. Rhythmic strokes of her wet hand and mouth harden my jack into an unfamiliar shape.

She is uniquely fearless.

Which means there’s something wrong with her.

She releases my jack and studies it critically. I am a problem she examines, like an engineer, and this is her solution. Is it effective? She gives a small nod, clambers onto the loading table, and tugs my waist, pulling me in and lining me up between her legs.

This is not my desire.

But it is a way to get the answers I want.

What happened to the other Arrisans? The ones who were ensnared by lessers? Were they trapped because of weak wills? All of them? Or is there something more to human-Arrisan mating, some secret that is only revealed once an Arrisan jack has touched a human socket?

I have wondered this since the first Arrisan broke the rules for his human.

He was a perfect blade. Honored, high-ranked, celebrated.

And he lost everything for her.

But I’ve already lost everything, haven’t I?

Can I rebreak my mind in such a way that I can set it in a mental cast? Train it back into the correct shape?

My jack touches her socket. It’s warm, liquid, and oddly inviting. She scoots forward, her legs folding around my buttocks.

I freeze at her entrance. Even hardened with lusteal, I don’t feel any sort of compulsion. Curiosity, yes. A driving desire to understand? Still yes. But obsession, like the kind that must be necessary to destroy a career? No. Not even a little bit.

She makes an impatient noise. “What?”

“I don’t want a human pet.”

Her lips curve and then smooth. Hiding a smile.

“What?” I repeat. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…” She tightens her legs, runs her fingers down my abdomen, tries to pull me in again.

I refuse her.

She looks up into my eyes. “I don’t want another master.”

“Another?”

She taps the edge of my mask. “Take it off.”

Will that change my opinion? I pinch the nose, releasing the edges, and drop the mask on the ledge beside the medical kit.

No tickle.

When I encountered the other infected humans, their scent burned my mind like an early test in the blades. I had to actively withstand its pull. Not because I wanted to couple with them, no. Their lesser blood, and hers, is a type of weapon. My only wish was to commit violence.

This Lia causes a subtle itch right where my neck meets my skull.

It’s not overwhelming, as it was with the others. It’s unsettling, like a whiff of overheated metal that warns of an imminent electrical fire.

“Hurry,” she murmurs. “We only have three clicks until the end of the world.”

Three clicks?

But I allow her to pull my jack into her socket.

And somehow, even though we are two separate creatures, for an instant, we are one.

Strange.

Her socket is similar to her mouth, the warm suckling sensation, but more intense. She draws me in, pushes me back, draws me in again. Wet friction grips my jack.

Is this sensation pleasant?

Do I enjoy it?

Does she?

She doesn’t make a single sound, only frowns with concentration. Unlike the other humans, who looked at me with apprehension or defiance, her expression is neutral. Impersonal.

Intriguing.

What hooks did the other humans sink into their Arrisan prey?

Am I immune?

“Move faster.” She locks her legs around my buttocks and leans back on her palms. “We have two…clicks…”

Faster, slower, shallower, deeper. Exploring this new sensation, tasting a human from the inside, I could go much longer than two clicks at this pace.

Her body shivers.

…Oh?

I repeat that angle, the quick and shallow rhythm, and she shivers again.

This is interesting.

I play with her like a toy. A red flush moves up her slender peach-yellow neck. Her breath hitches, and she tries desperately to control it, closing her mouth, swallowing a helpless whimper. Her elbows shake, and then she falls back onto them, collapsing.

I drag her arms around my shoulders.

She averts her eyes, brow wrinkled as she fights some inside reaction.

Is she trying to escape me? There’s no escape, small human. “Look at me.”

She resists, shuddering in my arms.

I lift her chin.

She drags her gaze to me and focuses with a new intensity.

Her eyes are a strange color. Brown, like a mineral, engine grease mixed with biological seal. Colored threads ring the black center. Her nostrils flare. And then the black centers of her eyes dilate.

Pressure builds in my jack. It pulls tight all the nerves down my spine. A giant hand squeezes my body, rolling upward, welling, until it feels like my very blood vessels will break.

And then I erupt.

All my pressure pours out of my jack in one endless, pulsing, release.

Her mouth opens. She gasps, a soundless cry, and closes her eyes. Her head rolls back. She goes limp.

White silence blankets my mind.

This is the peace I knew once.

Once, when I was apprenticed to the blades. When I was still wanted.

I could stay here for the rest of my life.

“Are blades allowed feelings?”

His smirk returns. “A reasonable question. Many would say no unless it’s important for an assignment. But of course, my perspective is a little different.”

I scoop out the tiny drop of healing cream and reach for his cut.

He pulls back slightly. “I was saving that for you.”

“I won’t get hurt again.” I grip his wrist and apply the cream in a smooth line, cap the tube because I know he prefers it tidy, and meet his gaze. “Now, I’m with you.”

He holds still for a breath. Two.

Outside, the snowstorm howls and the Vanadisans are looking for us. I can almost hear their shouts above the wind.

But inside, there’s just us.

He looks down at the tube. My body. And he hesitates.

Soon, this peace will be over. We’ll go back to being researcher and patient, Arrisan and human.

Or…

I clear my throat. “You know, I was serious.”

“About?”

My heart thumps. The moment stretches taut. If I keep my silence now, I will regret it forever. “Your mating bite is the only one that will set me free.”

He fixes on me like a predator.

All my hairs stand up.

Then he moves over me like a spider suspended over prey. His silver-white eyes flash in slivers of moonlight. Like fangs in the darkness. “Do you want me to bite you?”

And I…

I can’t breathe. “Do you want to bite me?”

His gaze flicks to my neck. “I’m a science officer.”

“You’re also a blade.” I curl my fingers around the back of his neck, align our bodies. Pull him closer, close enough for me to brush my lips over his.

He again shifts his head, like he thinks I’m moving somewhere else.

Even the brush is hot, and my lips tingle. “Do Arrisans not kiss?”

“Do you derive pleasure from pressing your mouths together?”

“Sometimes.”

Again, the night stretches tight. Poised. Neither of us willing to commit.

Heat washes over me in waves. Arousal tingles between my thighs. I know where this leads, where he’s trained my brain to expect, and I want this destination right now.

And I am the one who has to move.

My brain worm always has me look over my shoulder and wiggle my hips, rely on its targets to get drawn in, when I don’t even want them.

But this time, I do want Ukuri, and I have to come out, me, and demand what I want. “Do you want me to bite you?”

He snorts. “You biting me will do nothing⁠—”

I use him as a lever, pull up, and sink my teeth into his shoulder.

“—but break the skin.” His voice cuts out. The final words exit as a hiss. Like pressure being released into vacuum.

I bite harder, sink my teeth deeper.

He grunts. “Noemi.”

And even harder. I taste his blood again. Prickly spice, an unusual flavor, like licking a magnet or a fragment of an asteroid.

This is what Arrisans do to show their love. It’s not what I would do, but I can be what he needs so that he can understand my feelings.

I growl in the back of my throat.

And it works on him.

He thrusts, his hard cock sliding against my upper thigh and waist.

I lift my hips in welcome.

He nudges between my thighs. My pounding center turns liquid. His fully erect, trembling cock glides in straight home.

My womb contracts with unearthly pleasure.

I let go of his shoulder to cry out my release.

“This is what you do to me, Noemi.” He winds his hands around my hair, drags me back. Stares down at me as he thrusts rhythmically, exploding my G-spot and stretching my clit, fireworks underwater burning so hot they will never be extinguished. Even without air or oxygen, they burn. “Cut me open with your eyes, set out my organs. Neatly label things I can’t even identify. You have words to describe planets I’ve never seen, and you see them all with your green, green eyes. You’re absolutely terrifying.”

And I buck, writhe, scream as he pulses himself into me. I dig my nails into his back and he groans. I scratch him, draw my initials in his blood. And my own bite mark gleams purple-red against his gray skin.

I try to bite his other shoulder. My teeth snap on the air as he drags me back.

“I’m already yours,” he says.

“Not…yet…”

“You are terrifying.” And then he drags my face to the side and bites my shoulder.

Falkion rises alongside me and stops me. “I will stop anything, Zeerah, if you will only stay beside me so that I may do so.”

His silver eyes are so intense. So sincere.

I scent his male essence, hear the pained fracture in his gruff voice. His nearness sends little shivers down my spine.

Delicious little shivers.

No.

“Stop saying things like that.”

“Like what?”

“The drug is going to wear off, and you’re going to feel really, really embarrassed.”

“It’s possible.”

“See!”

“Because I have already reflected a great deal on my past behavior. I’ve always used force to get my way. My blades give me an edge. Arrisans respect that. Humans don’t.”

“Oh, we do. Trust me, we do.”

“But force does not get me what I want.”

My throat is dry. “What’s that?”

“You, beside me, at all times, with no barriers.” He rests his forearm over my head and presses me into the clear wall. He’s a little shorter than me, but when he’s intense like this, there’s nowhere left to run. He nuzzles my cheek, my jaw. “Skin to skin.”

“We can’t.” I breathe in his liquor, the musk and spice with a hint of electricity that makes him brash and bold and Arrisan. “We can’t just sleep together.”

“I very much want to sleep together.”

“Humans have to kiss first. And other things. But at least kissing before they…uh…You know what? Never mind.”

He pulls back. The fire in his silver eyes is unquenchable. “What is a kiss?”

“Touching mouths. But you—”

He presses his mouth to mine.

His kiss is liquid fire.

*

FALKION

Zeerah’s lips beneath mine are soft and warm and a little tart.

She draws me into a world of sensations I have never experienced before.

Ease, comfort, and something else.

Hunger for more.

Her lips part beneath mine.

I delve into her mysteries.

Her tongue teases mine, a ghost, and I chase after her, hunting her. Her softness is a steel coil, and it winds me tight. I have a deep desire to do something. Burst, thrust.

She gives a soft moan.

The vibration grabs hold of my spine and yanks my very soul. I need her. Deeper, inside me, more. I stroke her long cheeks, stroke my blunt fingers across her Arrisan-like short hair.

She is more complex than any rules I have ever memorized. Focusing on her takes all my attention. She can draw me back from the edge of oblivion, whether it’s from the Vanadisan drugs or the false Harsi alarm.

She brings me back to myself.

Her skinsuit is thick, protective, but the shape of her within it is perfection. The flare of her hip fascinates me. Her wide buttocks draw me in.

Her thigh lifts and wraps around mine.

I make a sound low in my throat.

She pulls back. “Okay, okay. I’ll sleep with you.”

I have that falling sensation again. “You will?” My voice is rougher than I expected, like I’ve lost time and am only now surfacing.

She breathes heavily, rubs her damp brow, and tilts her head back against the wall. “So help me, I will.”

Fire ignites in my veins. I grip her hand and pull her out of the ship, quickly, before she changes her mind.

She stumbles and snorts.

A petty officer stands on the dock. “Captain Falkion, Vice-captain Kollok—”

“Later.” I cushion her for the drop to the main bay, then urge her faster into the ship proper. It takes real time to cross a dreadnought, and time is what I don’t want her to have. I can already see her starting to doubt, to question. My room is much too far away. I take her back to hers.

Even so, her feet slow. “Um, Falkion…”

An engineer is patching the wall next to her door, which is shiny and new. He nods at us and treats me with the usual friendly derision. “Cap’n. You know we’re busy right now. Try not to break the ship.”

“Noted.” I open Zeerah’s new door.

She remains in the hall.

I drag her inside, close the door, and lock it.

Her breath hitches. “Um, what?”

“Sleep with me.”

She exhales. “I don’t know…”

There are rules in human relationships. Dating, now kisses.

I press my lips to hers.

She moans, melting against the new door. Her delicate hands clasp my face. The bursting sensation increases, exultation mixed with another sensation I don’t know yet. Another feeling I’ve never experienced before.

I drive my tongue into the most secret recesses of her mouth.

She breaks free with another gasp. “Okay. Okay, just…let me catch my breath.”

I step back and remove my skinsuit.

She starts to remove hers, then sees the state of her sleeping pod behind me, and her jaw drops. “Um…”

“I’ll get you a replacement.” I clasp her hand and draw her toward me. “Come, Zeerah.”

She takes a shuddery breath. “This is crazy.”

“Come now.” I push aside the remnants of the lid I shredded with my blades once I realized she had left and was not coming back.

“You should be mad. I locked you in.”

“You know I was never really trapped.”

Her gaze lingers on the tattoos at my wrists that mark the sheaths. “Anybody else would’ve been.”

“Is trapping each other a step of human courtship?”

“No, it’s…” She scratches her nose. “Look, if we do this… You could be embarrassed about it someday. If you hate it, don’t blame me.”

“You use words to create a fence around yourself, Zeerah.”

“Only because I don’t have blades.”

“Then you may borrow mine.” I pull her, one slow step at a time, to the sleeping pod and rest my hip against the broken side. “I will cut down anyone who endangers you.”

All of me glows, touched and made new by him, but I will not show it, even though I’m aching within. “Are you reassured?”

He walks around me, his fingertips ghosting over my shoulders. When he reaches my back, he whispers by my ear, “Yes.”

Shivers travel down my spine, lifting goose bumps.

He touches them. Not reassuring. Exploratory.

That feels dangerous. “I’ll put my skinsuit back on.”

His breath ghosts against my neck, my earlobe, my cheek. “No.”

Desire pools between my taut thighs.

I shift my weight. “If your alien foe lands here—”

“If a Harsi comes through the wall, I will murder it with my bare hands.” An unusual growl roughens his tone. He continues around to my front, his hood off and his silver eyes wild.

Oh, no.

Despite my promises to myself, despite my determination to be unaffected, the heat wave blossoms outward from my core, and my whole body lights up for him. My mouth goes dry, my breath hitches, and my nipples tingle, hardening into sensitive points.

“This area…” He brushes his thumb across the sweet pearls, shooting electric rivulets of desire to my throbbing center. “It’s supposed to have a lot of nerve endings.”

Again, my breath hitches. “Don’t.”

“I have to learn your body so I can fill your needs.”

“I don’t want you to fill my needs,” I snap, naked and vulnerable in front of this fully clothed Arrisan. “I don’t even know why we’re still discussing it. I’m not a sexual object to you. You need lusteal to feel anything.”

“Because I—”

“And I don’t want you to!” I lean away to grab my skinsuit.

He inhales sharply and jerks back.

“See?” I gesture at his resistant pose, defiant and burning with frustration. “You can’t fill my needs. You can’t touch me. Look, you’re doing it again.”

He inhales through his flared nostrils and lifts his chin so he’s looking down at me from an angle.

“You can’t even force yourself to stand this close. Your whole body is angled away just like that last day.”

He holds out a hand, palm down, the universal signal to wait.

“This is why we can never ‘pair-bond’ or whatever you call it,” I continue, starting to reach for my skinsuit again.

He reemphasizes his wait gesture more frantically.

I cut off my argument with a harsh sigh.

He remains still for several long breaths through his nostrils. His hands form and release fists like he’s kneading the air. His jaw muscles twitch, and I suddenly notice slight tremors in his face as though he’s holding himself back. Every single muscle is tight.

Ah. I’ve done it again. I lost control of my temper. Again.

Frustration surges through me. I’m not a sexual object to him, but he’s absolutely a sexual object to me. I didn’t realize I was so driven by my baser instincts. It’s a little disappointing, honestly.

“Sorry,” I mutter, again. “I, uh, wasn’t stomping away or anything. I was just stepping back to put on my skinsuit. I’m naked, and it’s chilly.”

He closes his eyes in relief, and his shoulders drop. He bursts out a gust of air as if he’s been holding his breath this whole time. He pants, but finally gets his voice back. “I wasn’t standing like that because I dislike your body. I was trying to stop myself from biting you without your consent.”

A tripping sensation short-circuits my brain. “Biting?”

“With these teeth.”

He curls back his lips. His teeth are clamped tightly. Then, after what seems to be a moment of psyching himself up, he slightly parts them.

In the dark recesses of his mouth is an unfamiliar shadow. It’s spiky, like jagged wires or broken-off pencils in the roof of his mouth and from underneath his tongue.

He closes his lips, moves his jaw back and forth, and seems to be adjusting things. When he speaks again, his mouth looks normal, the spikes hidden.

“This part”—he points to his skinsuit below the waist, clearly indicating his cock—“requires lusteal to harden for its purpose, but this”—he taps his normal teeth—“requires nothing but an intense psychological and emotional urge to capture something and mark it as my own.”

...

I think Erion has just confessed to me.

And, as when he asked to kiss me for the first time, it’s different from in my fantasies. I have no idea what to say.

My gaze involuntarily lowers to his skinsuit. It’s flat, of course. The suit is too thick to show any bulge, even if he were hard, but I know from bitter experience that his maleness is, or has to be, flaccid.

I lift my gaze back up to his mouth. Once again, a muscle in his jaw flexes like he’s trying to keep something under control, something contained. “You wanted to bite me? At our last meeting?”

“At our last meeting, ever since, and several times before.” He flexes again, his nostrils flaring as his mouth very subtly changes shape, then shifts back to normal. “And even now.”

The bite is their unbreakable connection. They mated for life before the Harsi nearly wiped them out. Then their genes became tightly controlled to ensure their population could recover and grow stronger, most Arrisan were born from a test tube, and their sexuality was uncoupled from their physical bodies.

The only humans who’ve been bitten are the infected. “I have no lusteal in me.”

“I’m well aware.”

“It wouldn’t do any good if I…how do I take it? Inject it or eat it?”

“Or use a spray,” he says, as if I’m asking for suggestions.

“Because my body would get rid of it right away. It can’t build up in me like it does in them. And I haven’t taken it anyway, but you still want to bite me?”

“With every breath.” His jaw flexes again, his voice softens, his eyes fix on me hypnotically. “With every fiber of my being. I want to make you mine.”