Somehow exactly what I hadn’t known I wanted to hear.
My heart softened, my usual rage dissipated. And I hated it because I didn’t want to be swayed. Believing the wrong person again could cost me everything.
“I don’t know how to believe you,” I whispered. “Or why I want to.”
My voice cracked. “You called me brave, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid that you’re only telling me what I want to hear so you can breed me like the last 999 Dories.”
“I would like nothing more than to attend to your need.” Again, he reached out to touch me.
And again, my order for him not to effing do that brought his hand up short.
Instead of touching me, he reached back into the pocket of his god tech pants. “This disc proves that I no longer desire for you to carry my seed.”
I blinked. “What? How does knocking me out prove anything?”
“Dorie, no. This disc will not sedate you.” He shook his head. “I have synthesized a new formulation of what you call heat control. If applied, it will signal to your body that conception has already occurred—even if you are already in the grips of a new heat. Your heat will subside. And when that happens, we are free to love each other through this lifetime, without the danger of birth.”
“I don’t understand.” I glanced down at the disc, then back at him. “You’re a geneticist. The last of your race has been stranded here, and mating with us is your species’s only hope of continuation.”
I shook my head. “You’re giving up on your experiment? Your main dream in life—really, lifes, as in plural?”
“Understand this.” He stilled, his green gaze burning into mine. “Youare my dream, Dorie. Getting to keepyoufor one last lifetime is the only thing that makes living worth all these cycles of pain.”
I stared at him. Just stared at him for moments on end. Then I growled, “Hold out your hand. Let me see that disc you’re claiming will end this nightmare heat and make it so I never have to have sex with you ever again. That’s an order.”
A pained wince crossed his face, even as he held the disc out to me in his open palm as commanded. “Dorie, it is not my intention to?—”
“Listen, Fenny Prime, I do not care about your intentions,” I informed him. “Only about mine.”
That declared, I snatched the disc out of his hand.
I did not inspect it. I did not ask how it worked. I did not ask a single diagnostic question like any decent holoscribe would.
I just pressed it directly into my own forearm.
Then yipped a little when spikes bit down like teeth into my skin.
“Dorie!”
The heat evaporated. Not slowly, not in stages. It just… stopped. Like a choking hand releasing from around my throat.
My entire body unclenched, and I collapsed against the pillows, breathing hard like I’d just done four laps around the bog.
Then… I finally looked up at him with sharp, clear eyes.
He stared back at me, his own eyes flared wide.
I let out a chuff of laughter. First at his expression, then when I looked down at myself.
“I’m a mess,” I announced. “On so many levels. Metaphorically, mentally, chronologically, and…”
I indicated the mess Aengus and Diarmuid had made of my sex, letting the “physically” speak for itself.
His gaze darkened with heat when he saw the state of me. But then he caught himself.
He turned his head away. “I will retrieve Omicron to carry you to your bath. If you wish, you may remain here, and I will sleep in the gallery?—”
Okay, well, I guess my interrupting cow skill was totally back online because I had to stop him right there to ask, “How much of a walking-red-flag emoji would it make me if I commanded you to claim me, even though I’m no longer in heat?”
