Page 56 of Alliance
Fásach closed the hatch and sat back on the terrace step, brushing his wet palms slowly. “Does it bother you?”
“Hmm?” I asked, blinking away from the antenna. He nodded up through the ceiling.
“The station. It’s gotta be noisy. You feeling okay?”
Would Fás hug me like he did in the market and the tent if I lied and said no?
I hugged myself instead.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just think it’s pretty.” I looked up at it again. “I bet I could see so much from up there. The whole world.”
Fásach chuckled. An amused one, not the deep growly stutter that made me clench my thighs together. This sound in his throat though—not quite a laugh, just on the edge of animal—made my heart clench instead.
“What?” I pressed.
Fás’s ear twitched towards me and he licked a fang, looking down at his claws. “Nothing, just… You’re so optimistic. It’s refreshing.” He cleared his throat, rubbing his forehead. Was it just me or did it look like he had bumps there?
“Are those—”
“Would you—”
We both started and stopped at the same time. I bit my lower lip and motioned for him to ask first.
“Would you sing every once in a while? Like in the tent yesterday. It was nice. The girls would like it,” he added hastily. He licked his lip away from a snag on his tooth and rubbed a palm over his forehead again. “There are a lot of yiwreni songs I could teach you, if you’re interested.”
“Me? Why?”
The fur around his shoulders and arms prickled as he clasped his hands together between his knees. “I like it. Your voice, I mean.” He smirked, pupils contracting to slash marks. “If you hadn’t run away yesterday, you would’ve heard me say that the first time.”
[Priority] Heat rushed into my cheeks, and Fás’s eyes fixed on my mouth. I licked my lip and then, on the thinnest, most tremulous breath, asked, “What do you like about it?”
“You speak Hja Erle with an accent unlike anyone else, you know.”
“I do?”
Fás nodded once. “Smoky and low, with trillingr’s…” He rolled his neck and looked away. “Your voice is beautiful.”
My pulse spiked.
“Okay,” I breathed. “I’ll sing sometimes.”
I liked that he liked my voice.
I liked his too.
I wanted to touch the place his voice came from, to feel his lungs work like bellows beneath my ear and to feel his deep chuckle of lust stutter through my skin. I wanted to take my clothes off for him…
To do what I was made for.
Maybe my coding wanted me to seduce him. Maybe I had no free will. [Inquiry] But if that were true, I wouldn’t be able to say no to myself, would I? My unit’s protocols would demand I complete my priority tasks, and if Fásach wasn’t my priority, then why was I thinking about his breath and tongue and thick hands, always so close butnot close enoughevery second of the day?
The fact that I’d questioned myself at all was a good sign, wasn’t it? I was just Roz. Not Rosy, not Roz-02. I had no master butme.I was a flawed doll, but I preferred it that way, so I could sculpt myself into the woman I wanted to be.
And shereallywanted to pull hair and bite and boss Fásach around. To defy him until she lost and he pressed her face-first into the ground…
And then she wanted to learn how to snuggle.
Fás rose, rolling his shoulders and brushing down his pelt with his thick palms. “We should get some rest while we’re here. I’ll stock up, you take the bedroll first. This is as cushy as it gets for the next couple weeks and—”
