we actually have a lot to talk about.” Then she looks at her friends. “I’ll handle this, girls.”
“You sure?” the one who is not Veila says.
“I’m sure, Yates. Go keep watch in case the guards try to come check on me.”
“Yates?” I say.
The girl is already turning towards the door when this word comes out of my mouth. But she stops and looks over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“That’s your… name?”
She makes a face. “So?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” But it’s not nothing. Because Jimmy—
“What do you want, Crux?”
I look back at Corla. Veila and Yates take that moment to disappear through the door, leaving us alone. “I’m not sure where to start, but… I need you to touch me.”
“What?”
“I need you to—”
“I heard what you said. But… they told me you didn’t know. And that’s why I came into the dining room tonight. I was going to ask you to touch me so I could see if what they say is true.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Obviously, because now you want me to touch you instead of the other way around.”
“No. I mean, yeah. But…” I put my hands up next to my face, feeling frustrated. None of this actually makes sense. And the whole idea of me just going along with the spin node’s… what? What is the spin node doing? Is that thing conscious? Is it directing me with purpose? Did it send me here to start the loop over again? Or change it? Or is this encounter with Corla, and all the others that came before it, just random?
What is going on? And why didn’t someone hand me a rule book before they sent me in to play the game?
Corla waits me out, clearly unsure how to proceed.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “That’s how it happened last time.”
“Last time?”
“Look, it’s a really long story. But I think if you just touch me, you’ll understand.”
“Because we’re soulmates. It’s true then?”
I nod.
She nods. “I see.”
“If you touch me—”
“If I touch you the whole station will rock. The lights will flicker. And they’ll know you’re here.”
“Oh. Right.” I swallow. “I forgot about that.”
She scrunches her face up at me. “What?”
“Nothing.” I sigh. “So what are we gonna do about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… what’s your plan? You know, the codes and shit?”
“What codes?”
“What?”
“What?”
“Stop repeating me.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Crux. What plans? What codes?”
“The fucking escape plan.”
She laughs. Kinda loud. So loud I look at the door, half expecting her security detail to come barging in. “Escape to… where?”
“You know. It was your plan,” I say. “You had friends on the other side of the spin node.”
“Spin node?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Your plan. Your escape plan. The one you told me about after the breeding. You convinced me that these people were evil. That we had to leave. That I had to shoot you through a spin node and then take my brothers and flee to ALCOR Station.”
Her eyes go wide. And then she laughs again. “Wow. They told me you were weird, but… just. Wow. That”—she laughs one more time—“that is some cray right there. Why would we leave? We’re getting married tomorrow.” She leans over on her hands and starts crawling across the bed, her eyes kind of… seductive. “I’m going to have your babies, Crux. You’re going to fuck me hard tomorrow in front of everyone and then I’ll be yours. Forever.”
I back up. Hit the wall just as she clambers off the bed and starts walking towards me.
No. Stalking towards me. One foot placed directly in front of the other. Shoulders down, smirk on her face, hips swinging.
Why I thought this version of her might be normal, I don’t know. I should really know better by now, right?
I put up both hands. “You know what? Forget it. I’m gonna leave now. And you should probably just forget I was even here.”
“Forget you were here?” she coos. “Mmm-mmm. No way, handsome. Now that I’ve seen you, I might just want to risk that light show.” She stops. Puts a hand over her mouth. “Oh. Suns.”
And I know what she sees.
Even if I couldn’t see the light of my eyes reflecting back at me from her silver ones, I would know they were glowing. Because they are hot. And both of my cocks are suddenly hard.
“Nope,” I say, sliding along the wall towards the closet. “Nope. I’ve done this enough times now to know that this”—my finger makes a little swirl in the air—“this whole… seductive thing? Yeah. Not gonna do it for