Page 21 of Essa

I give him a surprised look as he helps Avery out of the nest. She's not crying. In fact, she doesn't look nearly as scared as anyone else. Phial catches me looking at them, and his feathers stand on end.

"She didn't have a chance to see you being all scary," Phial says, easing some of my worry.

It also confuses me because if she didn't see me, her vision of me was already cut off. The only way for that to happen is if Phial were already on top of her. My eyes go wide, my lips pulling back in disgust as my tongue pokes out.

"We were kissing!" Phial's much too defensive.

"Okay, you all have fun deciding how far Phial and Avery got during the movie." Jovi laughs as he hoists Sloane into his arms and cradles her like a babe. Her crying has softened, but it might still be a while before her adrenaline wears off. "We need to go tend to Sloane."

"You'll apologize to her tomorrow," Alik tells me as he walks past me. He's upset that I scared his mate so badly, and I understand. I feel just as bad for hurting my best friend in that way. He turns when he gets to the doorway and frowns. "Tell Seth they no longer have a seven-day time limit. He'll know what I'm talking about."

He walks away before I get to ask any questions, even though I'm now very curious about what Seth had seven days to do and why Alik is giving him more time.

As much as I'd love to stand in his room and listen to Phial poorly excuse having intercourse with Avery while we were all in the same room with them, I have other things to do.

I stick out my tongue once more toward Phial, who looks even more upset at me mocking him than at me getting all scary on them. Avery wraps her arms around him, pulling his attention off me. I use the moment to head out.

"I was only kissing you," Phial grumbles as the door opens. "I don't like anyone knowing what we do."

The statement piques my interest because I now have a wonderful way of getting under Phial's scales when he irritates me. I'll stash it away in my arsenal and make sure to come up with good quips to really get him.

But right now, I need to get to the pleasure crew room. I have two males I need to watch sleep.

eight

Essa

When I head into the dark kitchen to grab a late-night snack, a big part of me hopes Adam will be there, and maybe he will try to fight me again. I'm alone, though, which is fine. I'll grab my snack and head back to bed.

I never thought I'd be so turned on by a male attempting to fight me, but here I am, hoping it happens. Not because I want to be hit or think Adam would hurt me—okay, I don't know if he'd try to hurt me, to be fair—but because I know I'm stronger than him.

Even if it weren't for my venom, his humanness makes him weak. Sure, he's stronger than many of his species' males, but that doesn't miraculously make him stronger than a Haventh.

There's also the fact that he loves having my venom in his system. Loves relinquishing that control, but I don't think he would ever admit that to anyone. No, he's much too strong-willed a male to do that.

So, he'll keep trying to fight me as a petty way of getting me to sink my fangs into him. I don't mind. If he needs to feel like this is happening because I feel threatened, so be it.

If he and Seth are on the ship for much longer, maybe we can discuss why Adam feels the need to behave this way instead of coming up to me and asking very simply for me to put my teeth into his shoulder. I'd do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked, no embarrassing things done to him. I'd care for him as though he was my concubine and lavish him with praise and soft touches, rewarding him for his trust in me.

"Essa?" Sloane's voice catches me off guard as I begin swiping through the food synthesizer's catalog to pick out my nighttime snack. "Why are you up so late?"

"I could ask the same of you," I say over my shoulder, smiling at her.

We haven't been able to talk just the two of us in a little while. Jovi and Alik always want to be with her. There's also Seth and Adam on board, though Seth is the only one who's come out of the pleasure crew room since movie night four nights ago.

I think Adam might be having trouble accepting that he enjoys things that don't fit into what he thinks a male should enjoy. I'd love to talk with him and tell him that it doesn't matter if he's male or female or anything else. He can be a good concubine no matter what he is if that interests him. But, I need to let him be the one to broach the topic. I can't very well pull out the collars and wrap one around his throat while he's drugged. A Haventh concubine offers themselves willingly.

"I had Alik set up an alert for if anyone came to the kitchen tonight, and if they did, to send a chime to his comm. When it did, I came down here to check on you," Sloane says it all with a shrug.

I try very hard to follow her logic, but I'm lost. She tells me before I can try to piece together what she might need to speak to me about in the middle of the night.

"I wanted to check in on you."

She gives me a half-hearted smile as I walk over to the island and settle into a stool while I wait for the food synthesizer to make me a breaded dessert known as a donut. My tail wraps around Sloane's ankle as she settles next to me. It's an involuntary move, a way to symbolize this creature is under my protection. Sometimes, when the whole crew is nearby, I get agitated because I don't have enough tails to wrap around all of them so that everyone knows they're all mine.

"Why did you want to check on me? I've been doing fine."

"Jovi and Phial were going to get you a pleasure crew," Sloane says in a practiced way, making it clear it is anything but casual.

---