“Don’t I? I gave myself to you. I didn’t think you would betray my love like this.”
“Whoa, hang on. We’ve only known each other a little while.”
“And we have bonded. And you can’t pretend you don’t know what that means. Not now. Not after all we’ve been through.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Rykker. It’s just, Arkness?—”
Rykker’s whole body shook at his rival’s name. “Fuck Arkness! And fuck you!” he shouted, throwing the flowers in her face and storming away, leaving the confused woman reeling.
Olivia shut the door, standing there silently a long moment before picking up the scattered flowers. Wildflowers, by the look of them, hand-picked just for her. She put them on her counter. The counter where Arkness’s painting also sat. Olivia walked to her bed and flopped down hard, her mind reeling.
“What the hell have I gotten myself into?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Olivia had rested surprisingly well, but not without her troubled mind’s machinations first trying to keep her from any semblance of sleep. She finally had to ask the AI to give her a little something to help her get some rest. The system obliged, not only sending her to a restful slumber with a custom-tailored mix of relaxing energy pulses specifically tuned to her body’s healing factors, but also giving her a gentle purge yet again, as well as a soothing restorative mist mixed in.
She had woken refreshed, though her mind kicked into gear replaying the prior day’s events as soon as she rose. Free of either of the men’s pheromones influencing her brain it was painful to replay what had gone down, but it was necessary. Her time with each of them had been extraordinary, and if there had been only one of them, she’d have gladly settled into a life of flattering attention and amazing, mind-altering sex. But there were two. Two she felt an equally strong pull towards, and this was a problem.
The smashed flowers on the counter sparked an angry cringe.
“He was being an asshole,” she muttered, thinking on Rykker’s overblown reaction. “Sure, he had reason to be upset, but that was over the line.”
“Shall I dispose of them?”
She hesitated. “Nah. You can leave them for now. But thanks.”
“It seems you’ve had a troubling time of it with your suitors.”
“You can say that again. It’s just their damn pheromones. How am I supposed to figure this out when I keep winding up hornier than a pubescent boy around them?”
“Would you like a set of nasal filters?”
“A set of what, now?”
“Filters. They are tiny, fitting inside your nose. So long as you do not breathe through your mouth, they will be quite effective at removing all contaminants from the air, including any naturally occurring substances the men may be emitting.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“I did not know it was a problem until just now. My apologies.”
“Ugh. It’s not your fault. And yes,please, I could really use a set of those filter thingies.”
A mere second later a tiny disc floated to her. On it were two small ovals of a thin material unlike any she’d ever seen before.
“They adjust automatically. Simply insert one into each nostril. It will resize and activate, filtering the air. The power should last much of the day if not longer, depending, of course, on how strenuously it must filter.”
“Good enough for me,” she said, grabbing them and shoving them into her nose without a second thought. After what she’d seen of these people’s tech, she had zero reason to doubt what the AI was telling her.
She felt nothing. No pressure, no resistance to her breathing. Nothing at all. If she hadn’t just stuck the devices into her nose, she’d have had no idea they were even there.
Olivia jumped as her door chimed. She was seeing Arkness today, and she would be very curious to see how well these filters really worked. She keyed the door open.
There, on his knees, was Rykker. He was wearing the same clothes as the night before and looked as though he hadn’t slept a wink. His head tilted up, bloodshot eyes meeting her cool gaze.
“What do you want?”
“I’m sorry, Olivia. I was out of order last night.”
