Page 47 of Alliance
Fásach’s heart clenched. Roz looked miserable, tapping her fingers against her knees in an arrhythmic beat that probably didn’t help at all. He pulled up a vid on his holotab, one of the sing-a-longs that Safia was currently obsessed with, then opened several apps. His vitals deck, a seismometer, a game.
“What are you doing?” Roz asked.
“Making some noise. Is it helping?”
Roz blinked, sitting up straighter, and nodded. “Actually, yes.”
Fásach then unlatched his polar coveralls and doffed the arms so the suit hung around his waist. He held his arms open with a chuff of heat, maintaining a neutral expression even if he wanted to swallow the lump in his throat. “Do you remember the market?”
Roz unlatched herself enough to press her arms to her chest, then leaned into Fásach’s warmth.
Touching her was like coming home. Exhaustion melted off Fásach’s fur like frost as he squeezed her tight, splaying his claws across her shoulders and waist. She was supple from head to foot, covered in a soft brown fuzz that was nearly invisible if you didn’t look closely. So different from venandi plates, or shilpakaari muscles that couldn’t relax. Her flesh slipped overthe bones of her hands and elbows, and her pillowy breasts spilled against his chest when he squeezed her shoulders.
Scocite,it was getting harder to deny harmony.
“Thanks, Fás,” she sighed, sitting back. “I owe you.”
“Anytime,” he rasped, flexing his claws.
Rut, rut, rut.
He was so fucking hopeless.
Instead of thinking about how warm she was or how the rut was turning his silver stripes black, Fásach busied himself with preparing snow melt for a pot of tea and rehydrating a ration meal to share. But the distraction didn’t last nearly long enough.
Roz hummed, running their daily diagnostics on the vital pods, recording their battery usage and making sure that Safia and Misila were healthy in stasis. She sang a song inYspaenyolwhile Fás pointedly kept his distance. Harmony warbled through the shelter like a delicate gong as her mood improved, the chime tickling his ears, shivering down his spine, making his cock swell and his gums itch.
It didn’t matter that she was singing off key and under her breath, it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Tears wet his lower lashes and he brushed them away, leaving a streak of dark across his knuckles.
And then she stopped singing.
Fásach’s ear twitched. He wanted her to keep going, but he clenched his jaw shut. All it did was stoke the fire growing in his groin to hear her, and there was no way to alleviate the ache unless he was willing to sneak out and risk his hand freezing to his shaft like a tongue to a metal pole.
He closed his eyes with a self-deprecating snarl. As frustrated as his body felt, it was the best option for pushing further into his pred state. He swallowed hard, directing his words over his shoulder.
“I like when you sing,” he murmured. Roz didn’t respond, filling the shelter with a thick silence. Fásach scraped his claws along the sides of the metal canister working up to a boil. “It… It fills my silence.”
When Roz still didn’t respond, Fásach’s brow creased. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see her staring at him.
His eyes shot wide open.
She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the shelter.
Fásach slid across the shelter barely tall enough to stand in and whipped the entrance aside.
He found Roz immediately—the eerie night glow bouncing off her polar suit—but a tight, anxious wire in his chest snapped as her hair bounced and her feet pounded down on the ice. She was running as fast as she could.
Instinct took over, saliva pooling in Fásach’s mouth. He fixated on her with unblinking eyes, and flexed the muscles in his padded fingers so his claws would fully extend. He sank each tip into the ice like miniature ice picks, ripping through the open flap and into the wild wind on all fours, scrambling to give chase.
As soon as he got his feet beneath him, he was sprinting. Cold air pierced his lungs, and even though he was pushing himself to the limit, his inner hunter couldn’t help expending breath on a hollow war chuckle.
Roz glanced over her shoulder, and hefelther gasp. Relished her wide, fearful eyes. Licked his teeth when she nearly tripped. He was close enough now to hear her gulp down lungfuls of icy air, and he timed his own breaths to the rhythm of her fear.
Fásach lunged, tackling Roz to the ground in a wave of snow so cold it pelted them like glass as the wind picked up the spray from their thunderous fall. A whiplash echo snapped across the ice like a buoyant wire as the clear sheet beneath them cracked in a web of white.
“Fás! I—”
Roz struggled to get out from under Fás’s weight, but he snarled, pressing her cheek to the ground with a claw gripping her head like a ball.
