voice came out breathy. For whatever reason, I kept clinging to his neck and shoulders instead of letting go and retreating into the safety of the room where I knew he wouldn’t follow. Despite my upbeat words, the closeness of his massive body appeared to subdue if not paralyze me completely. “It’s not going to happen.”
He yanked his head back up. His yellow eyes glistened bright like two flashes of lightning.
“You will listen to me,” he said with force. “You’ll do what I say, exactly when I say it. Or you’ll end up as a piece of ‘dead meat.’”
His nostrils flared as he drew in the air around me again. The look in his eyes turned from wild to outright feral, and he shoved me away from him.
Startled by his words and his actions, I still managed to snatch the plate from his hand the moment he lowered it. I then scurried backwards into the middle of the room.
Whatever kept him at the door restrained him more effectively than Lesh’s chain. He didn’t follow me. He didn’t even appear to notice the plate was gone. Closing his eyes, he kept breathing deeply, a pained expression on his face. It was as if he were eager to fill his lungs with the drug he knew would hurt him.
“Take a shower before I come back,” he finally growled, tossing a small rectangular package on the floor next to me. “Make sure to use the soap.”
Then, he was gone.
Chapter 8
FIGHTING WAS NOT IN my nature. The confrontation with Wyck had drained me. It had done something else, too. For whatever reason, I could no longer think about him without an odd feeling fluttering in my stomach.
The sensation of the hard as rock muscles in his neck and shoulders stayed with me. The brutal power I sensed in this man could be frightening if directed against me. Yet there would certainly be some comfort and reassurance in his strength, were he on my side.
The feeling of his presence lingered in the room, even after he was gone. I couldn’t forget his scent—warm and heady, with a hint of some exotic spice. I found it pleasant and...invigorating.
He obviously thought that I stank, though.
Resisting the urge to sniff my armpit, I threw a resentful look at the bar of soap he’d tossed to me.
My suit was made from an experimental self-cleaning material. It kept a pre-determined shape, requiring no undergarments. It also absorbed impurities, leaving only a thin layer of body oil to maintain healthy skin but eliminating dirt and offensive odors.
While wearing the suit, I could go without taking a shower for weeks. It helped reduce water consumption in space. None of my crew had ever complained about my smell. Neither had I ever noticed any of them stinking.
But then again, errocks did have a superior sense of smell. And something about my body odor must have offended Wyck.
Not that I should care about offending the man who had intended to starve me into obedience. Chasing the thoughts of Wyck away for now, I focused entirely on my bounty—the plate full of food.
As hungry as I was, it filled me up quickly. With still more than a half of the meat, grains, and bread left on the ginormous plate, I offered the rest to Lesh.
The beast eyed me suspiciously when I placed the plate on the floor in front of him. I stepped back to give him space to eat in peace. Slowly, he crept toward the plate. His central head keeping its eyes on me, while the other two salivated over the leftovers.
“You have more control than they do over that stomach of yours, don’t you?” I asked the central head, which somehow seemed to be in charge of the other two. Although Lesh was one animal, there were subtle differences in the behaviour of his heads.
The left one, the most impatient of the three, lunged for the food first, snatching the dark dinner roll. The right one gave me a once-over then calmly started eating as well. The middle head watched me intently for a few moments as the other two ate.
“I’m not planning to attack you or to snatch the food from you,” I assured it.
My presence obviously unnerved the creature. I decided to follow Wyck’s advice—more of an order, really—and take a shower. Not because I worried about offending Wyck’s sensibilities with my body odor, of course, but because the chance to have a soothing shower felt enticing.