should be in an agreement whether you’re thirsty or not—you look like you share a stomach after all.”
I walked to the bathroom, getting a drink for myself. The cookie had made me thirsty, too. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be a water shortage in this place. It ran freely from the faucet in a wide continuous stream. I filled a large, empty soap dish then brought it over to Wyck’s pet.
He got to his feet as I approached. All heads lowered to the ground with a joint hissy growl as the eyes glowered up at me menacingly.
“Great, now you’re in agreement,” I mumbled, setting the dish down. “All three of you unanimously hate me.”
The chain clanked as Lesh strained to reach the dish, but it turned out to be just a little too far. All that growling from him had scared me from placing it any closer.
He glanced up at me.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault your master dumped you here.”
He sat back on his haunches once again, and I shoved the dish a little closer with my foot. There was no way I’d come any closer to this beast than that, especially while he was watching me with his sharp, translucent teeth bared in warning.
Only once I’d stepped back to my sleeping pallet did Lesh lower his left head to take a sniff at the water. The other two kept watching me, unblinking.
“Are you picky or just mistrusting?” I threw him a glare of my own. “Well suit yourself, I’m going to bed.” I climbed under the blankets.
The slurping sound of Lesh drinking reached me as I closed my eyes.
“If you need to go to the bathroom,” I mumbled through the warm, heavy haze of the approaching sleep, “hold it until your master is back. There’s no way I’m going to clean up after you.”
Chapter 6
I WOKE UP TO A VOMIT-inducing stench.
“For the love of all that’s holy, Lesh!” I groaned, burying my face in the blankets. “What the fuck did you do?”
What had Wyck been feeding him?
The cookie couldn’t have caused that smell, could it?
“No, no, no,” I moaned into the blankets. “No way. I’m not cleaning that. Wyeeeeck!” I yelled in desperation. It was unlikely that the broody errock would hear me or rush to my rescue.
I had no idea what time it was. The lights outside the glass moved in the same chaotic pattern as they did when I went to bed. I still felt tired, needing more sleep. But not in this stench.
Cursing and groaning, I rolled out of the sleeping pallet and climbed to my feet.
Lesh’s chain clanked, but he remained lying by the door. All of his heads were wide awake, six glimmering eyes watching me intently.
On the glass floor between me and the hound from hell, a huge steaming pile lay.
“I can’t believe this.” I speared my fingers through my hair then shook my hands out. “I told you to wait for your master, didn’t I? What am I supposed to do with this?”
There was so much of it, too.
Lesh tilted all of his heads to the same side. They moved simultaneously like a synchronized swimming team.
“Don’t you stare at me like that,” I snapped at him. “Like you’re proud of what you’ve done.”
I paced the floor in front of the offensive pile, pressing both hands to my nose and mouth and trying not to gag. It smelled like something huge had died in here, then had been baking in the sun for months while its decomposing corpse had been used as a place to go to the bathroom by every space creature imaginable.
“Wyck is insane!” He must be crazy. Only a man with an intense, unhealthy attachment to the animal would keep it around and clean after it regularly.
I had no idea how long the stinky Cerberus was supposed to stay with me. However, there was a good chance I wouldn’t survive this stench long enough for Wyck to starve me.
“I hate him! I don’t have anything to clean up this shit with.” I stomped my foot. “Nothing!”
No automatic cleaning machines like we had on the ship. No soap, no rags, no hot water.
I stomped over to the rack that held the shimmering evening wear. The clothes were less useful to me than the bedding. If I had to rip something for rags, it had to be one of the dresses.
It hurt to ruin the gorgeous outfits, but they were out of place here, and I