CHAPTER 7
ANDROMEDA
I pretend to stay asleep long after I stir.
It’s lovely here, tucked against Sylvus’s chest.
I fear that if he notices I’m awake, he’ll move me from here.
I fear it because it’s what he should do.
I shouldn’t be snuggled here, basking in his warmth, soaking in his soothing scent.
Because I’m getting attached.
When I arrived here, the idea of being sucked at by multiple clients at once excited me. If I am, deep down, entirely honest with myself, I liked the idea of becoming a thing for a while, depersonalized and passed around, used for someone’s pleasure, using them for my pleasure in return.
Sylvus’s story about all the hucows hanging in that milking room had filled me with perverse pleasure.
Now, the idea of anyone else touching me sends a bolt of anxiety through me.
Sylvus notices, pausing.
I pretend to stir, as if from a bad dream, and snuggle back in.
He resumes his movement, whatever it is.
I need time to think. Before I inevitably have to eat again, then be milked again…
The thought sends a pang through my breasts.
Fuck.
I did not plan on being this into it.
I also didn’t plan on him having not one, but two irresistible cocks. His frontmost limbs, usually tucked under his humanoid torso, are like smaller legs that end in smooth dildos.
They’re firm enough to stretch deliciously, and flexible enough to not pinch. I love how they feel under my teeth and tongue, throbbing as I suck on them.
It’s deeply unfair how precisely he can control them, angling them into each spot just right to make me fall apart.
But that’s not what really gets to me.
How he drinks from my full breasts, eager yet steady…
It affects more than my cunt.
And that scares the shit out of me.
I liked his prickly exterior. I liked the way he egged me on, made me competitive. I was excited to go whore out my milk for his clients, make us both heaps of money, then leave him in the dust.
The most obnoxious thing about this prick? He has the fucking audacity to be noble.
I need to be sure you want this.
Fuck him. Fuck him and his warm, gooey center.
Fuck him for making me feel loved.
Cherished.
Like there could be more to life than surviving.
Fuck him for making me want him, for making me want to stay, for making me think, even for a second, that maybe it’s okay if he proves me wrong.
Fuck him for making think it would be cute to see his smug little smile when he says, I told you so. Nobody ever leaves.
Tears well in my eyes. Because I know something about myself.
I know I’m stubborn enough to ruin this.
Sylvus pauses again. His deep voice rumbles next to my ear.
“I understand the purpose of your little charade, but… maybe it’s better if we talk.”
I freeze. Rub my nose and sniffle. “Okay.”
Sylvus takes me somewhere new.
I stay tucked against his chest and watch as he climbs through the cave. We follow the path of a tube of silk that glows within: the one that refracts sunlight down throughout his cave.
Cooler, fresher air falls over me.
The brightness is blinding as we emerge to a clean breeze.
I hide my eyes against his chest, then slowly adjust.
We’re in a meadow on a plateau above the forest. To one side, the cliff’s jagged edge falls away. Far below, the crimson forest ripples out toward a misty horizon.
The sky is still blue here. Light is light. Air is air. Some things are the same everywhere.
A dense carpet of wildflowers spreads beneath us in colors that make my head spin. Impossible colors. Reddish-green and yellowish-purple.
Opposite the cliff, dense shrubs with navy leaves block sight of whatever’s beyond them.
Sylvus approaches a low rise and settles onto the flowers, tucking his legs in and hunkering down. Like this, his head is about the same height as mine standing.
He places me on the little rise, where we can sit and speak eye-to-eye.
My chest pangs to have him no longer touching me, but since it’s kind of the point, I suck it up. The flowers are velvet-soft beneath me, and their stems weave together into a strange, springy mat.
The breeze washes over my naked skin.
Sylvus tousles my hair, then tucks a curl behind my ear.
Somewhere along the way, I lost my hair tie. I don’t really care.
“Will you tell me what you’re thinking?” he asks gently.
Not a demand. Not even a request. Just a question. A musing.
I pull my knees up to my chin. “I don’t know.”
“Hm.” He turns and looks out over the cliff. The wind catches his dark hair and that white streak I want to run my hands through.
I turn so I’m also staring out over the cliff.
He asks quietly, “Your parents died in the cataclysm, didn’t they?”
My brow furrows as old grief rings in my chest. “Yeah. I was fifteen… How’d you know?”
“Ten percent of humans did. It’s not rare, statistically speaking. And… I could tell. From how you talked about them.”
I settle my chin on my knees. “Everyone thinks the ICSS is so great. But… they wanted me to forget them… forget my parents… and I couldn’t…” Grief chokes in my throat. I wipe my eyes. “Sorry.”
Sylvus offers me a silk handkerchief, though his gaze remains on the horizon. Spared the weight of his eight eyes, I take a deep breath.
“Of course you couldn’t forget them,” Sylvus murmurs. “It was cruel to ask you to.”
I bark a wry laugh. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re part of some sappy criminal enterprise that nobly rebels against the cruelty of the ICSS.”
He turns and flashes a wicked, fanged smile at me. “Not quite.”
I smile and return my chin to my knees.
Sylvus sighs, as if searching for words. “I do what I do because… people have desires that the ICSS can’t meet. Supplying those desires… is incredibly lucrative. It gets me money. Money is leverage.”
I glance over at him. “What do you do with leverage?”
He slowly shakes his head, then shrugs. “Nothing of consequence. I just… like to have it. It’s my unsanctioned desire.”
“Is that what you like about bullying me? The leverage?”
He glances over at me with a laugh. “Bullying you?”
“You’re quite cruel,” I pout.
“Careful what you wish for.”
The words shudder down my spine.
He chuckles, then returns his gaze to the horizon, expression thoughtful. “Yes, that’s what I enjoy about bullying you. The leverage. I like… impossible challenges.”
“And I’m an impossible challenge?”
“You have to ask that?”
I hide my smile behind my folded arms as they wrap my knees. “I want to hear you say it.”
He turns to me, affection in his dark, eight-eyed gaze. “Andromeda. You are utterly impossible.”
Pride bubbles in my chest.
Peace settles between us again.
“Why’d you ask about my parents?”
His reply is quiet. “I wanted to know.”
“Well… is there anything else you want to know?”
“Yes. What was your goal number? The approximate amount of money you thought would secure you the leverage that you want for the rest of your life?”
I chew the inside of my lip. “Unbinding? For illustrative purposes only?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know…” Except I do. I calculated the number precisely, accounting for inflation and contingencies. But will he hold me to it? Will he make me leave when I meet that goal? On impulse, I add a zero to the end of it, and the numbers tumble out of my mouth.
Silently, Sylvus produces an interface tablet. He taps away at it, and it emits a light chirp. He hands it to me.
I see a transfer statement between two accounts. The number is double what I said, which was already ten times my plan.
“That account is yours and yours alone,” Sylvus explains. “It’s completely secure and encrypted. I’ll provide you all the instructions for accessing it, and for using the new identity that will allow you to move through any space, ICSS-governed or not, unbothered and unrecognized.”
I stare at him, open-mouthed. “You… what… you have this much money?!”
The corner of his mouth twitches upward. “Quite a bit more than that, actually. Though I’ll admit, this is the most money I’ve ever spent at once.”
My shock turns sour, and my heart rapidly tries to retreat into its shell. “So… you’re kicking me out. Because that’s… probably for the best.”
“No. I’m not kicking you out.”
Relief floods my chest, but confusion lingers. “Okay, so… why?”
“So you can choose,” he says softly.
“I was already choosing to be here,” I snap back.
“I know. I only mean… so you have at least one other option that’s… comfortable. Secure.”
My thumb fidgets with the edge of the tablet. “So this is because you feel guilty? For the… hormones?”
Sylvus’s laugh is dark and wicked, and for some reason, that comforts me more than sugared words ever could.
“No, no, no,” he chuckles. “I’m doing this out of pride.
” He turns toward me. “I want to win. And I’m not a cheater, Andromeda.
I don’t like it when the deck is stacked in my favor.
That’s no fun. To me, there is no greater victory than to offer you every worldly comfort you could dream of…
and then have you prove me right anyway. ”
God, I want to wipe that smug smirk off his face. I want to do it by grabbing his cocks and stuffing both down my throat and making him moan and shake with pleasure, bursting down my throat until he can’t help but fuck me senseless.
His smile deepens. “You could, of course, ignore the money. Continue your little schemes, if you prefer. It’s fun to flaunt the ICSS, to toy with them, just because you can. Not because you have to. It’s your choice, Andromeda.”
I like how my name sounds in his voice. Like a little song. The way his tongue curls around the middle.
I dig my thumb into my palm to distract from the warm feeling in my core. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“Does this scare you shitless? The way that this—” I gesture between us. “—feels?”
“Yes,” he answers easily, honestly. “More than anything ever has.”
I sigh. “If we… keep going. It’s only a matter of time before I beg you to bite me again.”
“And it’s only a matter of time before I can’t resist.”
“So… we’re on the same page. This is the crossroads.”