Elanie & the Empath (Space Cruise Romance #2)

Chapter 1

So why did my boyfriend insist that they were?

I groaned at Sunny’s bright voice through my neural viewChip comms. Ever since my mainframe malfunctioned and I installed the LunaCorp hormone upgrade—because there was no other explanation for such a catastrophically bad decision—Sunny had started talking to me like I was a fussy baby who needed constant soothing.

In fact, all my fellow crewmates aboard the Ignisar—the KU’s premier luxury (if one thought live sex shows and well-catered orgies were luxurious) interstellar pleasure cruise—treated me like I was one mood swing away from scuttling the ship.

Even Rax, the grumpy, giant, green-skinned Aquilinian who headed up security alongside his twin brother Morgath, had started smiling at me.

I used to have precise control over my life.

Over every breath. Every blink. Every emotion.

Every nanosecond of my bionic existence had been meticulously balanced in perfect homeostasis.

I was calm. I was focused. I was prototypical.

Now? Now my eyes made tears at the drop of a hat, I had pimples on my forehead, and my breasts were apparently lopsided.

I missed the old me. The pre-upgrade Elanie. Life was so much easier when I felt…less.

I commed while reaching back to reclasp my bra.

Sunny said, sounding offended.

My stomach sank, because I’d just hurt the feelings of our ship’s hospitality specialist (and probably my only real friend).

But my statement was accurate. I was never late, and Sunny was always late.

Truth. Facts. Verifiable data. This was the stable and reliable framework of my existence. Or at least it used to be.

Sunny went on.

I said, even though I was. Because I was always hungry now.

Sunny asked.

I straightened my bra straps and pulled my sweater over my head. The backs of my eyes stung for no reason whatsoever.

Stuffing my inexplicable emotions as far down into my operating system as possible, I made my way to my door and smacked my palm over the sensor. And because tea did sound nice, I commed, while the door slid open.

Not only were my breasts apparently asymmetrical, but, to add insult to injury, they also ached.

With each step toward the staff room, bright impulses of pain traveled from my nipples deep into my ribs.

I’d finally let Blake touch them last night after he’d begged me for weeks.

He’d cupped them, then dropped them, watching them bounce.

He’d pushed his fingertips into them, kneading them like he was about to bake something with them.

None of it had felt particularly bad while he’d examined my breasts like a scientist finding a new species and trying to learn what might provoke it.

But none of it had felt good. And now they hurt.

Sunny had implied that having my breasts fondled would feel nice.

That most beings with breasts enjoyed it.

Which made me wonder, and not for the first time, if there was something faulty with my programming.

I ran another systems scan, then grumbled.

All my programs were running optimally, my upgrade integrating according to schedule.

But that last word I’d use to describe the way I felt was optimal.

I didn’t like to manipulate my sensory thresholds.

It tended to make me feel more automated than human, which was something my core programming resisted.

But I couldn’t function like this. And I needed to function.

It was what bionics did. We functioned. We worked.

We were productive and efficient. So I modified my sensory perception until my breast tenderness faded to a faint, dull signal barely worth processing.

When I reached the staff room, I scowled at the laughter seeping through the door as it slid open. What did everyone have to be so happy about?

“Good morning, Elanie.” Chandler, the Ignisar’s cruise director, waved his hand over the tray of macarons perched in the middle of the table. His white-toothed smile was suspiciously bright. “We have pastries.”

My scowl deepened. “I know. Sunny told me.” Scanning the room, I noticed that none of my crewmates were laughing anymore.

And that would be because of me. I had never been a cheery bionic; not one for smiling or small talk.

But these days, I was a dark cloud sucking all the laughter out of a room when I rolled in.

A dark cloud that had, apparently, started making metaphors.

I sighed, which was another thing I’d rarely wasted computing power or lung capacity on before the upgrade.

Because what was the purpose of a sigh? What was the point?

It was just a breath. A breath with drama.

Pre-upgrade Elanie never felt the need to breathe dramatically.

The thought alone made me sigh a second time.

Across the table, Rax and Morgath leaned back in their chairs, their muscular arms crossed over their broad chests. Raising his brows at me, Rax dipped his chin toward the macarons, his lips pulling into an encouraging tilt.

I tried to tilt back while I took my seat, giving up when what my lips did felt more like a grimace.

Sunny slid the tray of macarons my way, and I noticed Tig, our pink-haired head of IT, sitting beside her, avoiding eye contact with me.

Sitting on Sunny’s other side was her new partner, Freddie the Venusian.

Freddie was the ship’s languages and customs expert, and he welcomed me with an expression I could only describe as aggressively pleasant.

In fact, everyone at the table aside from Tig was staring at me. Watching me. Silently. Pleasantly.

Why couldn’t they just be normal? Why couldn’t everything just go back to normal?

“What?” I snapped.

Freddie winced.

Tig flinched.

Raising his hands, Morgath said, “Whoa. Chill.”

“No, I will not chill, Morgath. You’re all staring at me. Why?”

“We were, uh, just noticing how nice you look today,” Rax stammered. “That’s a pretty sweater. It’s…fuzzy.”

I glanced down at my plain black sweater, baffled. “Fuzzy?”

Rax blushed, his cheeks turning purple. “It looks soft. Delicate.” He cleared his throat. “Luxurious.”

Morgath shook his head at his brother and muttered, “Nailed it, dingus.”

“You’re the dingus,” Rax muttered back, sinking into his chair while Morgath snorted.

Silence enveloped the room, all eyes still on me. Deciding that I was, in fact, hungry, I swiped a frog macaron from the tray with bionic speed, and abruptly bit off its head.

With a more than mildly concerned expression, Sunny slid a steaming cup of tea across the table toward me. she commed.

I shot back.

she soothed, nudging the tea closer.

And because it smelled good, sweet and herbal, I took a sip. When Sunny grinned at me like a proud parent, I set the tea down with a clank, picked up my frog, and bit it in half.

“So,” Chan began, readjusting his position in his hoverchair. “Where is everyone placing their focus today?”

Tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear, Tig said, “I’m installing that firewall upgrade on the gravity simulator.”

“Fantastic,” Chan said. “I’m sure those Delphinian hackers had a blast at their null-grav dance party, but we can’t have our guests waking up bumping into their ceilings.

” He shook his head. “This prank was even worse than the time they reprogrammed all the ship’s holos to resemble cats during Vorp’s Winter Revel. ”

“Don’t forget the time they hacked all the toilets so they sighed and moaned when guests sat on them,” Sunny added with a raised finger. “That one was actually fairly popular, if I remember correctly.”

Freddie laughed. “I’m almost sorry I missed it.”

Next, the twins detailed their plans to run diagnostics on all the pleasure pods throughout the ship and decommission some of our older models.

When I finished informing the crew that I’d be adjusting the humidity settings in the deck five ballroom for Gorbulon-7’s Swamposium conference, Sunny commed,

I commed back, wondering how many times I’d uttered those two words in the last few months. Wondering why I felt so not fine. Wondering if I’d ever feel fine again.

she asked, not believing me.

Sunny would know. She’d kept the loss of her son from everyone on the ship for years, and it had nearly made her miss out on the life she now had with Freddie.

The life that had inspired me to install the damn upgrade in the first place.

The life I was pretty sure I was not on my way to having with Blake.

I admitted, prying the legs from my frog and dropping them onto my plate one by one.

While Chan asked Tig to check the humor settings on the lido deck serving drones after several guests lodged complaints about them making your mom jokes during brunch, Sunny asked,

I waited while Sunny took her turn, informing the crew of the high-profile guests planning to arrive this week: a New Earth Space Administration flight director and his wife, a wedding party from Argos, and some bigwig Royal from the twin planets of the Aquilines.

Once she finished up, I commed,

Her head whipped around so violently the sharp points of her blond bangs swung in front of her eyes.

I repeated.

Her head tilted, eyes narrowing.

I commed, defending him even though I didn’t entirely disagree.

He was a gen-23 bionic, after all, an iteration not known for their processing power.

But I didn’t care that he spoke in short sentences and had never read a book in his entire life.

He was nice to look at, and he liked me.

That was all I was supposed to need, right?

Sunny’s expression was dubious.

I insisted.

Compassion warped Sunny’s features, and when her hand reached across the table for mine, I gasped, nearly knocking my chair over backward to get away from it.

Chan scolded over a shared comm.

Sunny replied, pulling her hand back while I breathed a sigh of relief.

Ten minutes later, Chan dismissed us. I stood, did not look at Sunny, and bolted from the staff room and everyone inside. I didn’t get far.

“Elanie!” Sunny shouted. “Wait!”

I turned around to find her running after me down the hall—or trying her best to in a black pencil skirt and stiletto heels.

“Are you all right?” I asked once she reached me, frowning while she bent at her waist, placing her hands on her knees. Her face turned pale, almost green.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, waving me off.

“Really? Because you don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to be sick all over my shoes.”

She straightened, her normal color returning, and reached for my elbow. “Enough about me. It’s you I’m worried about.”

I bristled, pulling my elbow right back out of her grip. “Why?”

“Well, darling, you are going through so many changes right now. Your body. Your emotions. And I think you need someone to talk to about it.” Her jaw muscles ticked as she gritted out, “Someone who isn’t Blake.”

“Blake and I don’t really talk.”

“Precisely,” she said, her blue eyes wide. “And I know you don’t really want to talk to me about it either.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, suddenly feeling…something. Guilt? Remorse? Bad?

Was bad an emotion?

“Have you ever considered visiting Dr. Semson for a checkup?” Sunny asked.

“Dr. Semson?” I repeated for clarity. Because the idea that I would visit the ship’s physician was ridiculous.

“Bionics don’t see doctors, Sunny. There’s no need.

” We didn’t get sick. We didn’t need checkups.

And we definitely didn’t see Portisan doctors.

Portisans were empaths, and empaths couldn’t read bionics.

I wasn’t about to entrust my personal issues to someone who would never trust me back.

“Bionics most certainly do see doctors,” she insisted with a hand on her hip. “I’ve been researching, and it’s quite common and helpful for bionics to talk to a medical professional after installing a hormone upgrade.”

“You’ve been researching me?” The sting of tears threatened again. I blinked it back. “I’m not… There’s nothing wrong with me. All my systems are running optimally.”

Her voice eased into some tone that was supposed to be soothing.

“What you’re going through right now has been, up until recently, a distinctly non-bionic experience.

It’s something I’ve been through myself, and even though it was a lifetime ago, I might have a bit more experience in this area than you. ”

An appointment reminder popped up over my central vision. “Did you already make me an appointment? Stars above, Sunny.”

“Don’t be mad.” She tugged her top straight. “You can cancel it if you want to. But Sem is a very busy man, and I didn’t want you to miss—”

“Sem?” I pulled up short. “His name is Sem Semson? His parents should be ashamed of themselves.”

“No.” She laughed. “It’s a nickname.” Her lips pulled to the side. “Although, now that you mention it, I’m not sure what his first name actually is.”

When a Sustained Abnormal Settings warning flashed behind my eyes, I allowed my sensory threshold to return to normal levels. While the weight of my body resettled over my bones and fresh pain twinged in my breasts, Sunny reached out to take my arm.

“Will you give him a try?” she asked. “Please? I really think he could help you.”

I wasn’t so sure. But I did have one question he might be able to answer. Something any physician worth his salt should be able to sort out. “I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think too long,” she said with a triumphant grin. “Your appointment is in fifteen minutes.”