She processes this. Reaches the conclusion at the speed of a woman whose brain never stops engineering.
“So when I asked to touch your horns, what I was actually asking—”
“Was the most intimate thing one being can ask another in my culture. Yes.”
“Oh.” The flush on her cheeks deepens from rose to scarlet. “Oh.And I asked. Twice. Casually. Like—‘hey, nice horns, can I just—’” She covers her face with both hands. “Ohstars.”
“You didn’t know.”
“But youfelt—” Her hands drop from her face. She’s staring at my horns with an expression that has transformed entirely from casual curiosity to something charged and specific and deeply dangerous. “Every time I asked, what you experienced was—”
“Equivalent to you asking me to make love to you. Yes.” Blunt, because she’s on truth fruit and anything less than direct will bemisinterpreted. “The request activated every bonding pathway I have. Both times.”
“And you saidno.”
“Because you didn’t understand what you were asking.”
“What if I understand now?” The fruit is making her brave, but the steadiness underneath is hers. “What if I’m asking with full knowledge of what it means?”
“Then I’d tell you that horn-touch during intimacy initiates pair-bonding. Neurological. Permanent.” Each word precise, delivered the way I give information that determines survival. Because this does. “My nervous system would attune to yours. Echoes of your emotional state. Instinctive awareness of your location. A physical need for proximity that doesn’t diminish.” A pause. “It doesn’t reverse, Krilly. Ever.”
The silence that follows has gravity.
“You’re telling me,” she says slowly, “that your horns are basically a commitment device.”
“That is a reductive but not inaccurate characterisation.”
“And that touching them during sex would permanently bond your nervous system to mine.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been walking around with them on your head this entire time, right there, while I slept against your chest and fought beside you and sat in your lap and—”
“Yes.”
“That must have beenagonising.”
“It has been the most difficult exercise in restraint of my entire life, and I spent eight years in an arena.”
She makes a sound that’s half laughter and half something that makes my blood run hot. “Horgox Ka’reen. You have permanent bonding equipmenton your head, and the woman you want to use it with has been sleeping three feet from it for days.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you nevertoldme—”
“Because you needed to choose it clearly. Not because it was exciting, or because we were surviving, or because truth fruit stripped your filters. Because you understood the permanence and wanted it anyway.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“I want it anyway.”
The words land in my sternum.
“Ask me again tomorrow,” I manage. “When you’re sober.”
“I’ll say the same thing tomorrow.”
“Then tomorrow it will mean more.”
