no matter where you go.” His fingers touch my cheek, brushing my hair away from it.
I lean away from his hand. “Why do you always threaten me?”
“That was a promise.”
“It was a threat.”
“You belong to me. I won’t let you go—not ever.” Something in his eyes changes, making his face attractive in its austerity. He’s in control, and he knows it. He needs me to know it too.
“Maybe if you asked me to stay and if you were nice, I’d want to be here.”
His pupils sharpen, as if what I’ve said makes me more interesting prey. Gripping my chin, he makes it so I can’t look away. “I’m never nice.”
“You could try.” I know what I’m suggesting is ludicrous.
“You crave strength.”
“I crave pancakes.” Lifting my chin, I pull it from his hand. “With syrup.”
“Then you shall have them,” he purrs.
“Are you going to make them for me?” In truth, I can’t picture him in a kitchen cooking—not that I can picture any Etharians cooking, since they rely on automation to do most of their domestic tasks. I’ve yet to see another living soul around here. It worries me.
“I don’t know what pancakes are. It sounds as if you’d like to eat metal.” His look is discerning. He’s trying to figure me out. “This isn’t Rafe—there’s technology that will sort it all out for us.” He speaks in a louder tone, “Oscil?”
A holographic screen materializes in front of us. It’s the size of one of the flat-screen televisions that used to hang behind the bar in Lumin, the nightclub where I worked in Chicago. “Requirement?” the sexy fem-bot voice asks.
“I require pancakes.”
Hundreds of different types of pancake recipes stream in front of us. I lean nearer to Kyon to scan the colorful pictures, my brow wrinkling at the selection. “These?” he asks, pointing to something that looks like crepes.
“No,” I murmur in concentration. “These.” I point to a picture of a stack dripping with syrup. “Buttermilk.”
Kyon takes my hand in his large one, and stretching my finger toward the picture of the pancakes I want, the image ripples like I touched water. The image fades, and then disappears. Items that pair with pancakes appear in its place: syrup, fruit, juice, whipped cream. Kyon selects all of them for me, sending the pictures rippling away.
My stomach growls loudly. “How long until they’re ready?” I ask.
“It will be here shortly. You can ask Oscil for anything you require. Just say its name and it will assist you, but only when you’re in or near the residence or onboard one of my airships. It doesn’t have the ability to respond to requests beyond a certain proximity to a receiver.”
“What is Oscil?”
“It’s a prototype intelligence technology that I developed and use throughout my estates. It only responds to a few select voices. Yours is one of them.”
“What does it do?”
“It controls all the automation and sensors throughout my residences. It is also meant to be a personal assistant.”
“Where is it? How does it work?”
“You remember being on my satellite?’
I think for a moment, recalling seeing Kyon in his medical stasis capsule onboard an elaborate space station. “That place is yours?”
“Yes. I designed it. I own it.”
“Technically, I was never there, not physically anyway—and it looked more like a space station to me.” I had projected there from the past in order to spy on Kyon. I don’t know how smart it is of me to admit that to him, but he seems not to be too worried about it now. He’d known I was there at the time.
“Oscil is primarily housed on the satellite, near the moon of Inium, but I have backup facilities in several locations throughout Ethar. They can all run simultaneously or autonomously.”
I don’t pretend to know how this all works, but the fact that he does makes me shiver at his extreme intelligence. The chill causes me to look down at myself. I have only a sheet wrapped around me. It has slipped low, but it isn’t indecent. “Do you have something that I can wear?” I ask.
Kyon is busy making a selection from the menu in front of him. When he finishes, he waves his hand in a dismissive gesture and the hologram evaporates into the air. His eyes skim over me slowly, lingering on my breasts in a way that makes me pull the sheet closer. “You don’t have to wear anything. We’re alone here.”
I don’t know what’s more frightening: the fact that we’re alone here or the fact