“I’m haunted.” It was a lie in the literal sense.
“Are you sick?”
“Yes.”
“Are you dying?” she asked and tilted her head to meet his gaze.
Zeph forced a smile to his lips. “Not this rest cycle. Sleep now, it’s late. Tomorrow will be a long day and we’ll need your fire.”
She continued to gaze up at him, searchingly, her blue almond-shaped eyes hooded, and her face pink with exhaustion. So different and yet so similar to when she climaxed all over his lap and all over the floor beneath him. She hadn’t run away.
‘She sought us.’
She’s ours.
He slept.
13
Janet woke with a start, curling into the pillow-soft mattress beneath her. She reached out her arm for Zeph and his heat but found the place next to her empty. Her eyes snapped opened and she sat up. Huge glass walls enclosed every side of her except for the door to the lab, which was open. Behind the glass walls appeared to be a jungle of trees and plants she’d never seen before.
It took her a minute to remember how she ended up in a room connected to the laboratory.
“Zeph?” she called out softly as her eyes adjusted and she took in the rest of her surroundings. Memories from the night before surfaced in her mind; the bargain, the kissing, the sex. The fact that she’d come to care about him, and Zeph’s attack of…whatever that had been?
“Oh shit—Lily!” Janet scrambled out of the bed and frantically searched for her clothes. She found them folded up on a chair beside the door, with the receiver sitting neatly on top of them.
She lifted it to her mouth. “Lily. Is Lily okay? I’m coming!” Within the next minute, she was dressed and outside the strange room, skidding across the lab floor in her socks.
Bin-one’s voice came through the receiver. “Good morning, Mistress Janet. Mistress Lily is in the lounge with Master Zeph. They’re waiting for you.”
The lounge.It took her a moment before she recalled where that was then headed straight for it.
Damn it!Janet cursed herself for leaving Lily alone all rest cycle. It didn’t matter how well Lily was taking everything that had happened—far better than herself, it seemed—she shouldn’t have let her sister wake up alone. Janet decided right then and there that the first time Lily cried for home, she’d stop at nothing to make it happen. She’d stop at nothing anyway.
Damn it.
She heard laughter coming from down the hallway and came to an abrupt stop. Unlike the techy lights throughout the ship, warm light poured through the doorway. It was airy and bright, and Lily’s high-pitched voice came from somewhere beyond. Janet dashed the back of her hand over her eyes and listened.
“Can we get closer? Please?” Lily asked.
Zeph laughed. “Already done with the moons? One of them is so poisonous, no living being can get near it. I hear there’s a giant monster that lives on it that can sometimes be seen from space.”
“Really? I wanna see the monster.”
“More than the Metropolis?”
“Yes! I wanna see it!”
“All right, little flower, let’s see if we can spy us a monster.”
The light changed within the doorway and Janet took a quiet step nearer. Her panic began to ebb and she closed her eyes as she took a breath, thankful. Zeph sounded like his normal self—even charming—which was more than most people could say about having to take care of a child first thing in the morning.
I should take over…
Lily’s voice filled the air.
Janet slowly smiled.
