I shut the door behind us and look back to Thalara.
“It translated pain into pleasure and I had an orgasm that wouldn’t stop until the device was physically removed,” I murmur. “And now…now every time I’m touched?—”
I pause, thinking about when she bumped my shoulder.
“Flick me,” I say.
Thalara blushes bright red. “You want me to…”
“Just—” I mime the motion. “Like this. My shoulder.”
“But what if you come?”
“I’m testing it,” I say. “That’s the point.”
Thalara still looks skeptical, but she reaches out and flicks my shoulder with two fingers. It stings for a second, but…
…nothing happens.
I blink.
“Again.”
“Did it work?”
“Obviously not, or I would be doubled over moaning right now.”
Thalara’s entire face turns pink.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Just…do it again, okay?”
She flicks me again, harder this time.
And there’s still absolutely nothing.
I look down at myself, then back at her. “Okay. So…it’s not everyone.”
I start to pace as Thalara takes a seat in the little chair next to the desk. My thoughts are…racing. Not just because of the implications of all this for me, but because of what this means for the technology. If what I think actually happened did in fact happen, then this could be used for truly sinister purposes—for forced mate bonding, specifically.
Because I think…I think…
“How does mate bonding work?” I ask.
Thalara’s eyebrows go up. “I mean…it’s different for each species—and I’m no scientist, so you would know more than I do—but my understanding is that it’s a pheromone response where scents intermingle. I mean…humans even do it to a certain extent, you just don’t notice.”
I consider the possibilities, thinking out loud.
“Okay,” I mutter. “So here’s the theory. Say the translator took pain input and translated it into pleasure output rather than muting the effects. It’s all chemical signaling, right? But because it wasn’t just numbing or dull, it had to find a positive analogue, which…in the moment it was looking for what my body associates with that level of intensity…”
Thalara is listening, but not getting it. I can see the glazed look in her eyes—the polite “mmhm” on the tip of her tongue.
“I think it told my brain he’s my mate,” I explain.
Thalara blinks rapidly.
“I don’t—Lyn, it doesn’t really work that way except with specific species,” she says. “Like…the Skoll are pretty much theonly oneswith mate instincts that strong. Not humans, not the Nyeri’i.”
“It doesn’t matter when you’re fucking around with rewiring the brain,” I say. “So…the pain input goes in; the pleasure output results. I’m on the floor, panicking, unable to stop repeated orgasms, and then who shows up but Kaelion? And his scent is all around me when I’m already hyper-aroused, and he’s touching me, asking if I’m okay…”
