Rathyn.
He’s in my head again. Closing my eyes, I attempt to see him, but there’s just blackness with little sparks of color.
Except…I can still feel him. I can feel his breath, and the beat of his heart—hearts? Do they have more than one? It’s a gentle, thrumming pulse, and it’s getting closer.
And louder.
And…
“Hello, little human.”
I nearly scream, jumping half out of my skin as I turn and see him. He’s wearing no shirt but a pair of sheer linen pants, his clawed feet bare on the mall tiles.
His hair is pulled back into a severe bun, and he’s wearing an extra-large septum ring with a jewel right in the center of it.
I don’t understand their piercings, but something about them seems significant.
His long, thin tongue darts out and wets his lips as he stares at me with his rainbow eyes.
For a moment, I’m entirely the prisoner of his gaze. I can’t speak. I can’t move. My dick thickens in my work pants, and his nostrils flare like he can smell the precum threatening to spill from my slit.
And then he blinks, and suddenly I’m freed. My breath fills my lungs with a gasp as I rush toward the counter and lean in.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You did not come.”
God, the way he says that. I know what he means, but there are so many layers to the way he speaks. I didn’t show up, no.But I also haven’t touched myself since starting these sessions with him.
“I told you I had work. You can’t just show up here,” I hiss.
He hums, the sound almost like a growling purr, and he glances from left to right. “Your job does not seem very important or necessary.”
“Uh, first of all, fuck you. I feed people. Second of all, it’s very necessary to pay my bills so I can eat and have a place to live.”
“I told you I would?—”
“No,” I say swiftly. God, I do not need some eavesdropping asshole at one of the other shops to hear this Vyastil telling me he wants to build me a goddamn shelter.
Even if the idea of it makes my heart twist in my chest.
I take a deep breath. “You can’t go around saying shit like that.”
He frowns. “Why not?”
I genuinely don’t think he’s being antagonistic. I don’t think he gets it at all. “Because it’s…it’s not athing, okay? You can’t just build someone a house and have them live in it. There are rules and regulations.”
“Humans are needlessly complicated.”
I scoff. “Right, because you’re so simple?”
“We are not simple,” he tells me, sounding almost insulted. His preternaturally long fingers spread along the counter, reaching toward me without touching. “But we do not complicate basic needs. Food. Shelter. Pleasure.”
The fact that pleasure is considered a basic need for them explains so much.
“Healthcare,” he adds. “Peace. Sleep. Nurturing…”
“I get it,” I grumble.
