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He leans forward and kisses me softly, our tongues twining lazily.

I realize then that he got off as well, his cock no longer hard between his legs.

I like that more than I care to admit. He found pleasure in mine. Of course he did. He’s my VySytheh.

What’s mine is his.

He finally pulls away, and I feel the absence of him as if someone tore out my hearts and set them aside.

‘Okay, now I’m going,’ he says with a soft laugh and kisses the side of my mouth before pushing himself up. ‘Don’t move.’

I watch him turn and walk toward the stairs leading to the rooms, drops of me falling off him and onto the floor as he moves, and I realize that this is more symbolic than it should be.

Gerald meanders in and shakes his head at me before turning to push a chair against a wall.

I know, I think. I’m disappointed in myself as well.

twenty-two

LUCA

Things are different now. Not completely. Eissa didn’t suddenly turn into a font of knowledge and secrets, spilling everything he’s been keeping back, but he’s also not holding me at arm’s length.

At least, not physically.

I wasn’t banished to my lonely bedroom when night fell. I didn’t have to beg for his attention. I didn’t have to ask him to stay. After he fed me, he gently led me to his room, laid me out over his cool sheets, then sucked two orgasms out of me before pulling me close and wrapping all four limbs and his tail around me.

I slept solid—like I haven’t slept in months.

Maybe years.

I was full of trepidation this morning when I woke, expecting to find him gone, but I was met with a cup of something that vaguely resembled tea and a bowl of brown sugar oatmeal he most definitely got from a market back on Earth. It wasn’t the best breakfast, but the fact that he sat next to me, eating his weird mossy stuff and occasionally meeting my gaze, felt like it meant something.

‘Do you want to go for a walk? I’d like to show you something,’ he signs after clearing our dishes.

The offer is startling, and a small part of me feels a pulse of apprehension because the last time I was outside, Jyrion was there. I still haven’t told Eissa about it, and I’m not sure why. At first, I told myself it was because he’s keeping secrets, so why can’t I?

But the reality is, something in my gut wants me to keep it quiet.

Guilt gnaws at me, but it’s forgotten when he opens the door and lets Gerald out ahead of us, then wraps his tail around my waist as we start down the path that curves to the right of the house instead of the left.

It’s new, and we’re almost immediately in the forest, a thick canopy blocking out half of the pale sun’s rays.

I like it here so much. It’s so different, gorgeous in ways I can’t really explain, and the explosion of color around me makes me wonder if they can see shades the human eye can’t.

It’s all so soft too. The ground, the bark of the trees, the leaves, the flowers. Everything on Erethar seems to be built for tenderness, to be delicate. And it boggles my mind how they can be at war with other creatures here.

Or that they can be treating humans like walking cum banks.

Part of me wants to ask, but part of me also doesn’t want to know the truth. I want to enjoy what this place is before I understand what the rest of it means and the glass is shattered.

His tail pulses against me as he gets my attention, and he’s pointing up ahead where the trail starts to incline. ‘Cave,’ he signs. ‘I want to show you.’

I stiffen. It’s not that I don’t like caves, except, well, I don’t like caves. They’re dark, which makes communication difficult, and they’re closed in, which is something I have never liked. Also, on Earth, they tend to be far beneath the ground, and I have seen way too many creepy reels of cave disasters where people have gotten stuck upside down and left for dead.

Eissa clearly senses my hesitation and stops walking. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I won’t be able to see you sign,’ I tell him, going for the easy answer.