She rises from the pilot’s chair, moving toward me until I back up against the ship’s outer wall. Then she leans into me, pinning me there with her body weight. I could push her away, easily, but I don’t. I bend my neck like she’s defeated me in the ring. But rather than taking her prize, she rests her cheek against my chest.
“You say the sweetest things,” she sighs.
I stroke her hair, purposely tangling my fingers in it so it pulls a little at her scalp. “Only you would think so.”
I feel her cheek round as she smiles. “I’m glad you’re not going to kill me. For your sake.”
A laugh bursts out of me, and I tug on her hair in reprimand. “My sake?! What about your sake? You’d be dead.”
“Exactly. You’re the one who’d have to live with it.”
I wrap her hair around my fist, squeezing and lifting until she’s on her tiptoes, mouth slack and lashes fluttering, scent of her greedy little cunt pouring out of her. She likes this, too, likes all the things about me that she shouldn’t.
“Wicked, wise, weird little female,” I hiss at her, bending so my lips are just a breath from hers. “You think I would remain among the living if you were not there with me?”
She sucks in a breath. “You should kiss me.”
I should. Her parted lips, a deepening pink in her pale face, beg for it. I let go of her hair and straighten my back, putting our height difference between us. “No.”
“Still too sacred?”
I’m tired of this joke. Tired of letting her paint humor’s thin veneer over my shoddy, pointless excuses. “I need to fix my ship, and if I kiss you even once, Alara, I won’t stop.”
“I think I love you,” she blurts out.
“Get out of my ship.” I point to the exit, fury pounding through my veins at her clumsy, transparent attempts at sabotage. “Your treacherous tongue is intent on poisoning me so you can have your way.”
“Just once,” she begs, as though there is such thing. I push her away, and she bounces back on the balls of her feet. “Idefinitelylove you.”
“Maybe I will kill you after all,” I lie, and kiss her instead. Then I send her out to the hangar so I can throw myself into ship repair.
No, that is a lie, too.
I lock the hatch and spend the rest of the day kissing every pale part of her pink.
Chapter 21
Lena
The next week is a giddy blur of busy days and sleepless nights. Lyro keeps me up late with tongues and teeth and fingers. He still won’t bite me or fuck me until he’s convinced I’m not a prisoner, but I can’t complain too much with his cock down my throat. I’m a little bit drunk on him.
In the mornings, he tries not to disturb me when he gets up early to exercise, and my favorite thing to do is pretend to sleep so I can peek at his incredible body as he goes through his routine. My appreciation isn’t even sexual...or not totally, anyway. He’s like a work of art, all long lines and efficient curves as he prays, shaves his head with his claws, and does his warrior workout.
Doesn’t hurt that he does it naked, dick strapped to one leg, imaginary knives in each fist.
The best part is after he finishes all that, though. While he waits for me to wake up, he talks to Elvis. Sometimes about his ship repair plans. Sometimes about me. He rarely says anything nice to my face. His compliments are always smothered between complaints about how I ruined his life. But when he talks to Elvis about me, it’s nothing but praise.
“Your keeper is the most beautiful female in the star system,” he says one morning, mixing fresh nectar to refill the flower’s reservoir. “She has skin the color of Irra’s second moon andcheeks as pink as Olethia’s sky. And everyone loves her. I think the tides would move if she smiled at them. Do you know how lucky you are,bug, to be loved by such a female?”
He'd never say that if I was awake, but I think part of him wants me to hear. Wants his love to seep into my dreams so my heart knows even if my mind doesn’t. So I pretend I don’t know his real feelings.
Every chance I get, I tell him that I love him. Instead of saying it back, he accuses me of committing crimes against him.
I’ve never been happier.
I should really talk to Ada. Tomorrow.
Breakfasts with Rose and Oljin are too awkward because Lyro and his uncle aren’t speaking. We’ve been skipping them entirely and eating out of the ration cupboard instead, even though Lyro is forty percent grumpier without his morning nomo. But today, we both need to face our fears, so I convince him to visit them by reminding him how much he hates the ration bars.
