19
Traveler never did anything by half. Just as dramatic and showboaty as the captain himself, the blizzard continued into nightfall the next day. Snow still fell from the sky in a steady veil of white, the wind whipping it into a race across the sea ice. It had lessened by half, but the trek out of the cove would still be treacherous, maybe even more so, according to Gil. The new snowfall would put weight on the cliffs, cause avalanches, and hide deep trenches that could swallow a hiker and crush them at the bottom of a twenty or thirty foot cut in the rock.
Which meant they couldn’t leave. Friendly gambling games and taking turns smoking fish on the fire could only hold their attention so long. The Buoy had been a boon when they’d first found it, but now Fásach felt like he was pacing a cage.
A very erotic cage.
Roz’s scent was stronger than ever thanks to the snow-in. Musky rather than slightly chemical. It was delicious. Fásach found himself licking his teeth more and more just to have an excuse to let his tongue taste the air without lolling out of his mouth.
Did she smell like this all the time? Yiwreni does presented their scent only during their heat, and none of the other non-mammalian species did at all. At least, not like this. He wanted to strip off her clothes and push her legs apart so badly he couldn’t see straight.
Can you teach me to sleep in a bed?
Fásach chuffed, flexing his nostrils, twitching his ear. He was sure he’d fucked up in the cave before Roz’s seizure. She’d told him to wait, and he’d barely held on, preparing himself for rejection. He was still expecting it, one way or another, knowing that he couldn’t push her for what his rut fever demanded, no matter how it drove him mad. He hadn’t even talked to her about it yet.
Fás turned heel and walked in the other direction.
Then whined.
Because when he walked in this direction, he could watch Roz as she finger-combed her spiraling tresses and hummed softly, butt planted on his bedroll with the vital pods hidden in her messy pile of supplies, clothes, and blankets. It was practically a fucking nest. She’d sat there any time she wasn’t asking Gil a thousand questions about the relay, and Fásach knew, he knew, that if he fell to his knees and pressed his face into the mat, he’d be able to smell her cu—
“You okay over there?” Gil called.
Fásach’s ears stood at attention, and he jolted upright. Roz glanced at him with her sweet little smile and those big brown eyes. Then she looked back out the window, staring up at the relay’s behemoth silhouette.
He licked his teeth and turned the other way.
“Yeah, I’m—” Something tickled his forehead. He rubbed his hand over his facial velvet, and it came back sticky with blood. “Scocite.”
Fásach stalked over to the wall of cabinets and opened the wardrobe. He inspected his forehead in an old-fashioned steel mirror and grabbed a towel, rubbing at his pedicles with vigor.
“You sure about that?”
Gil leaned against the cabinets with a cocky grin. They held up a trash bag and a new rag. Fásach peeled away the velvet over his pedicles and tossed it in with a wet thlump that made the operator grimace.
“Gross.”
Fás snapped his teeth. His forehead itched so good, a mixture of pain and pleasure. He needed something hard to rub against, not his palms. Glancing around impatiently, he grabbed a boot from the bottom of the wardrobe and rubbed his head against its treads with a groan of release.
“At least wipe the blood off first,” Gil said, wetting the rag in the food bay.
“Thanks,” Fásach gruffed. Then he paused, staring at his forehead in the mirror.
Black and shiny, with a hard surface like onyx tree rings, his antlers were about as long as his thumbs, with clean, sharp points. Seeing them was surreal. Something he never thought he’d experience, especially after his youth flew past in a blur of hardship and heartbreak. Most men saw their antlers for the first time in their early twenties.
He looked so much like his tadau now that he hardly recognized himself.
His sire was a welcome ghost, chilling the haze of lust and impatience as he imagined his tadau’s impressive rack. He’d remained in his rut for two decades and had sprouted two sets of straight, black antlers that rose from his head like a crown. When the rot had weakened him and they’d fallen off near the end, his mamau had helped him carve their story into their surfaces with a cap she’d had made to fit his softening claws.
Years later, she’d died on Huajile, and Fás had made sure she was cremated, hugging his tadau’s rack to her chest.
Would Fás ever get the chance to carve his own?
He imagined his head bowed as Roz held a chisel to his antlers, marking the years—
Then fucking her into the bedroll, his teeth around her neck, tongue laving her throat as her esophagus bobbed with a needy gasp, his saliva pooling between her breasts.
“Are you alright, Fás?” she asked from across the room.
He squeezed his eyes shut and hid his face, feeling every ridge of his teeth in a slow arc of his tongue, and gripped the cabinet door for strength.
“Good,” he grunted, hackles rising with an audible shiver. His cock throbbed in agony, but what could he do? They were stuck there with Gilladh until the storm dissipated because they needed to appear poorly equipped, grateful for the shelter, not suspicious at all. He could go out there and tug himself senseless to relieve the pressure, but Gil would question why he didn’t lay with his priya instead. He was screwed, no matter what.
Roz’s hum rose to a soft song and harmony filled the room with warmth and light. Fásach tilted his face to the ceiling, centering himself in the swell of his symphony. That supposed doll breathed life into his jaded, dim flicker of a soul with every heartbeat. She was whiplash incarnate, stirring him into a frenzy one moment, making him drowsy and content the next…
No wonder living code was such a major crime. Roz was in no way an object for entertainment. Who could ever be fooled into thinking so?
No one. And that was the crime, wasn’t it?
She was alive, and whoever built her knew it.
Gil tossed the trash into a compactor and wiped their palms together. “I’ve gotta check on the relay. Make sure the bowl is clear.” They leaned around Fás with a clap to the shoulder, grabbing polar coveralls and the boots he’d violently nuzzled.
“Isn’t it dangerous?” Roz asked, her fingers pausing their busy work. She tried hard to keep the hope out of her voice, but she was a terrible liar. Gil chuckled.
“Don’t worry, na’syalī. I’ve been on this rotation for years.” They squeezed Fás’s shoulder and gave him a pointed look. “I’ll make sure to take my time.”
Oh no.
The shilpakaar disappeared out into the towering snowbanks moments later, leaving them alone. With each other. With questions.
Questions like, if Fásach asked Roz to take off her clothes, would she say yes because she wanted to? Or because her coding obliged her to and she’d been brainwashed into thinking it was her own choice? He didn’t want to pressure her. Even in his growing haze, he knew better.
It didn’t stop him from imagining what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped her from fucking him back in his shanty on Huajile though. Full hips, snarled tresses, that thick mocha mouth that was pink on the inside of her lips. He wanted her heavy breasts bouncing in his face and she’d been more than willing to—
“Hey, Fás?”
He snarled, nose scrunching up with self-disgust, then looked for something new to rub his forehead on.
Roz stood up and he ignored her, rummaging with increasing haste to find something, anything, to relieve the itch. When she pulled on his bicep, he resisted.
“I’m in a rut,” he blurted with a frantic edge to his voice. His hackles rose, body greedy to brush against her skin. “A rut, as in I really, really want to—” His mouth snapped shut with a growl.
“Go on,” she urged sweetly.
“Roz,” he rasped in a plea.
He felt her smile at his back, a jest in her voice just between sweet and sinful. “You want to fuck me into the ground?”
Fásach clutched the cabinet in his claws to keep from doubling over. Every ounce of thought and blood had migrated to his cock at the seductive tone of her voice, and it was painful to stand. “Yes,” he gasped.
She retreated with a deep inhale. “I understand, and I won’t push you.”
Fásach turned, following her with his eyes. Whether because her heat had retreated or because he chased the sincerity in her words, he wasn’t sure. Their eyes met, but hers quickly jumped up to his forehead and her mouth fell open.
“Dios mio…Your antlers! They’re so pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“And they’re for me?”
Fásach whined, wondering if he could survive the sweet torture of her touching them. He wanted her to so badly. “We’re alone, and I’m struggling here, Roz.”
Her cheeks turned red, and she took another step back. “Right! Right, sorry.”
Fásach clenched his teeth together so hard that his jaw creaked under the pressure.
“Did I hurt you in the cave?” he asked, giving voice to his worst fear. “Your systems didn’t overload because of me, did they?”
Roz shook her head, worrying her bottom lip with her bright white, square teeth. It helped him stay focused, even when she glanced down at his hips, then away. He swore, putting a hand over his swollen erection, straining the latches of his pants, then smacked the back of his head against the cabinets with force.
“Say it out loud,” he demanded.
“No, you didn’t make me overload.”
“You’re lying,” he panted, closing his eyes, trying to breathe through his mouth to negate her scent. “Fuck—”
“No! I’m not lying. I was nervous. I-I’m not coded to please a yiwren, so I didn’t know what to expect. And the questions! So many questions. Did it feel good because I liked it? Or because I was programmed to like it?” Roz carded her fingers through her curls and shook her head with wide eyes. “It’s so overwhelming. How do I know I’m me?”
“Roz…”
“Asking you to stop wasn’t because I didn’t like it, like you,” she insisted, chiming pure. She shrugged in a small way, wringing her fingers together. “Denying my coding just made me feel more in control. Reminded me that I am me.”
Molten lava raced through Fás’s veins at her first words, followed by a shot of ice. She questioned if it was her coding? He swallowed hard, forcing himself to be soothing and steady. Even if his heart was racing, his voice was low and calm.
“You shouldn’t apologize for taking time to understand yourself, Roz. I’m fine.”
“Obviously, you’re not.”
“Well neither are you.”
They paused, then both laughed under their breath. Fásach bit his lip with a fang that had gotten markedly longer. “Look, pining aside, I’ll take care of it. You don’t need to worry about me. You do have to deal with my mood swings though. For which I won’t apologize.”
She bit her lip again, looking like she was going to speak. To offer herself up.
Fás snapped his teeth to stop her.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“I did like it though,” she murmured, ears and cheeks still red.
Fás breathed deep with a devilish spark in his eye, the knot in his throat bobbing as he swallowed her scent down. He had an idea, a way to catch his doe with honey instead of sour denial.
“Do you think about it?”
“About the cave?”
“Or other things. About me.” Her brow creased, and she licked her lip. Fásach tapped his ear with a dark chuckle from deep in his chest. He was on the hunt now. “You can lie if you want, but I’ll know. And if you do think of me, I’ll like it.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Of course I do.” Fásach tipped his head back and grinned, showing off his mountain range of massive teeth, gliding his tongue across their peaks in slow triumph.
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Because if you were thinking about Gil, I’d have to kill them.”
Roz laughed, surprised by the joke. Fásach winked, enjoying the chime of her harmony. He rolled his hips, pressing his cock against the seam of his pants, enjoying the pressure.
“You can do anything you want, Roz. You get to choose what parts of your past you keep and what you throw away. Delete the protocols you don’t like. Shred some memories. Make room.”
“For what?”
For me,he didn’t say. “Can I show you something?” Fásach pushed his shoulders off the wall and stepped down one terrace, looking up at Roz in front of his bedroll. “No spoilers, but you’ll need to spread your legs for me.”
Roz’s breath hitched. She nodded a fraction, then swallowed hard.
“I would like that very much.”