Her Cold-Blooded Master

by Lea Linnett

  Ellie turned to Cara, who was looking between them with an alarmingly suspicious expression. “D-did you want me to make you something, Cara?” she asked, her heart beating faster.

  Cara raised an eyebrow, but shook her head. “Thanks, but that’s all right. I’ve already filled a closet.”

  “Wow, really?” asked Anna.

  She grinned. “Uh, yeah. Did you not see all the bags I had last week?”

  The three of them laughed, making their way down the street towards a fabric store Ellie had noticed last time they were here.

  “Isn’t making clothes work?” Cara asked as they walked, cocking her head. “Why would you want to spend more of your free time working?”

  “I just like it,” Ellie said, shrugging. “I’d spend all my time sewing if I could, to be honest. Plus, it’s nice to do things for people. It feels special.”

  She looked down at the sidewalk, trying not to think of Helik’s request as special. This garment was work—she was being paid to do it. She just happened to be in the right place at the right time for the job.

  But still, her heart swelled with excitement at the thought that he’d asked her. He had tailors. He could afford anything. But he’d asked her. It was flattering, at the very least.

  Cara scoffed. “What, do you get a kick out of cleaning too, then? Since you’re doing it for someone. Kaan must love you.”

  Ellie went pale. “Hey…”

  “I’m joking!” The other girl smiled softly, looking at her sidelong. “But what is it like, working for Helik? I gotta know.”

  Ellie couldn’t say. She couldn’t mention how his moods switched at the drop of a hat, or how his gaze darkened when he saw her. She couldn’t say how he made her heart race, or talk about the stupid, reckless thoughts that entered her mind when he stood too close.

  So she shook her head, shrugging.

  “I already told you,” she finally said, “it’s just fine. I barely see him.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, he works a lot.”

  Cara’s shoulders sank, her expression flatlining. “Ugh, I was hoping to hear something juicier. Everyone else’s bosses are boring. Except for maybe Scott’s. But I don’t think I’ll get much out of him.”

  “Scott? He’s the big guy, isn’t he?”

  “Ooh, so you noticed,” Cara purred, making Ellie splutter.

  “I-I mean—”

  “Pfft, don’t act so freaked out. He’s hot. I’d climb him if he wasn’t so much of a dick. And if he didn’t seem so completely uninterested in all the women. Do you think he’s gay?”

  “He’s not a dick, he’s nice,” Anna piped up, ignoring Cara’s question.

  Cara made a disgusted sound. “Nice? He’s an asshole. Thinks we should just shut up and take whatever the levekk throw at us? Pathetic.”

  Anna’s gaze dropped to the sidewalk, her expression downcast again. “Maybe he’s right. It’s not good to anger them.”

  Cara’s gaze sharpened, and she brought them all to a stop, her hand on the other girl’s elbow. “Did something happen?” she asked, and Ellie felt her stomach drop when Anna’s eyes went glassy.

  “Anna?” she said, moving forward to take the girl’s other hand.

  “No, it’s fine, really,” Anna sniffed, blinking back the tears. “I just… made a mistake yesterday. And my boss wasn’t happy.”

  “What happened?” asked Cara.

  Anna shook her head. “I spilled some tile cleaner in a carpeted room. Now there’s this huge burnt patch that I couldn’t scrub out. It’s really nothing—Ms. Kallo just wasn’t happy about the cost of the carpet being replaced. I’m overreacting.”

  Ellie and Cara exchanged a look.

  “You shouldn’t let her talk down to you,” Cara said.

  “I made a mistake, though.”

  “So? Shit happens. Your boss is a bitch.”

  Anna’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes like saucers. Even Ellie leaned back a little, surprised by her friend’s vitriol.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Cara grumbled. “You deserve better.”

  Anna was silent, her indecision clear on her face, so Ellie tried to catch her eye. “I-I fucked up once,” she admitted. “Mr. Kaan was so angry with me, yelling and screaming. But he calmed down. Everything was fine. Maybe your boss will be the same?”

  “What did you do?” Anna’s eyes were wide, like she couldn’t imagine angering someone as important as Helik.

  Ellie faltered. She’d done a lot of things, but she couldn’t tell them she’d practically walked in on her boss naked. Twice. So she bent the truth.

  “Oh. I nearly destroyed his burnisher. There was soap everywhere, it was awful to clean.”

  “Should’ve cleaned it himself,” Cara growled, but the smile she slid them was sly. “They’re all assholes. Don’t pay them any mind.”

  Anna chuckled tearily, her mood lifting, and Ellie gave her hand a firm squeeze before dropping it.

  “Now let’s go get this fabric,” she said. “I want to get started on this dress already.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Anna mumbled, allowing them to pull her down the street.

  They spent the next few hours trawling through ream upon ream of fabric, and Ellie tried her best not to look guilty when Cara questioned why she would need lengths of thick, black material when she was supposed to be making dresses. Instead, she waved the other human’s concerns away with a shrug and a line about ‘personal projects’, her heart stuttering in her chest.

  ---

  Helik knocked back another whiskey and tried to focus on what Devis was saying.

  “Have you noticed any cognitive problems in yours?”

  Helik’s brow plate turned downward, his eyes narrowing. “Cognitive problems?”

  “Yeah,” said Devis, worrying the inside of her lip. “Like, is she slow?”

  He managed to fight down the angry snarl that threatened to bubble out of him but couldn’t help asking, “Why would any of the humans be slow?”

  Devis shrugged. “I’m not implying anything. Just asking.”

  Helik gave her a long look. His insides rang with indignant rage, but he couldn’t show it. A neutral reaction was safer, even with his best friend. “She’s not slow. She did have trouble operating the burnisher the first time, but I think that was more a literacy issue.” He focused on the drink in Devis’ hand, stamping out the oft-recurring image of Ellie drenched in soap and looking up at him helplessly before it could have any ill effects.

  Devis hummed. “I don’t know. I try talking to mine sometimes, but he’s off in his own world lately. If I hadn’t caught him cursing when he smashed his foot into my sofa two days ago, I’d think he’d turned mute or something.”

  “Well, he’s not there to talk, right?”

  Something flickered on the female’s face, and she glanced away. “Oh, of course. And he follows directions well enough, so I guess I can’t complain.” She turned her attention back to Helik, cocking her head. “So how’s yours, then?”

  His was driving him crazy. Whenever she was nearby, he found himself making reckless decisions. Like stopping to eat with her. And asking her to spend weeks making a soot for him.

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time, when his resolve was weak. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her while she sketched her designs, speaking so passionately about what she loved, and the idea of sharing that moment, of having anyone else present to see how he hung on her every word, had suddenly become unthinkable.

  But it was a mistake. He could already feel his control slipping, his eyes wandering. How could he trust himself in a garment fitting if he could barely keep his cock from hardening during dinner? He shifted in his seat at the memory, affected even now by the thought of her rosy lips pressing against him rather than a utensil.

  Even worse, he was starting to suspect she’d noticed. He hadn’t missed the way her watchful eyes darkened, threatening to swallow him up like the depths of
an ocean.

  How would he get through the making of this soot? He didn’t know, and he wondered if it was too late to rescind the deal and have his own tailors work from the design she’d created.

  But Devis was still waiting on his reply, so he forced himself to concentrate.

  “She’s fine,” he finally bit out, pushing his thoughts aside.

  Devis sat up in her chair, her gaze turning sharp. “Oh yeah? Still scared of her?”

  He grit his teeth. “I am not scared of her.”

  “You act like it.” She picked absently at one of her teeth as Helik scowled. “Roia told me. Said she had to practically force you to go home when your office was trashed.”

  “Humans are loud and disruptive.”

  “Uh-huh.” The levekk leaned forward in her seat, resting her chin in her hand. “I get disliking them—you’re certainly not the only one who does—but what if they aren’t as bad as you think?”

  “I never said they were ‘bad,’ Devis.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  He narrowed his eyes at the female, gripping his glass a little tighter. “This, coming from the one who just wondered aloud whether her human employee was stunted?”

  Devis rolled her eyes. “I said they might be okay, not intelligent enough to discover time travel.”

  “Look, I don’t have a problem with humans,” Helik barked, shaking his head. “They’re… fine. Ellie is fine.”

  More than fine.

  Devis’ brow furrowed in that way that told him she wasn’t convinced. “Fine?”

  “Yes. I’m… getting used to her,” he said, casting his eyes toward the bar.

  It was the truth. Where once the human had made him feel like an intruder in his own home, now he craved her presence.

  He knocked back the rest of his whiskey, growling as the liquid burned his throat, and Devis frowned. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He sighed. “Fine.”

  But the female’s eyes narrowed. “Nuh-uh. You need to go home and sit in your heat room or something. Get the blood flowing.”

  “My blood is fine,” he grumbled, shaking his head when Devis stood and reached for him.

  “It’s full of whiskey,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. She tapped his wristlet with a claw, the sound swallowed up by the hub around them. “Come on, call your transport.”

  “Devis…”

  “Just do it.”

  He grudgingly allowed the female to escort him from the hub, promising to sober up at home. And as he stumbled back into his apartment, he resisted the overwhelming urge to knock on Ellie’s door. He had to be strong. He had to claw back the remnants of his self-control.

  For her sake, at the very least.

  13

  Ellie snapped awake, the clinging hands of sleep abruptly releasing her as the front door slammed shut. She was sweating, her thighs squeezed together, and it took a moment for her to realize she’d been dreaming. She could still feel the gentle rake of claws across her skin, the slickness of a mouth at the juncture of her neck, an unrelenting heat between her legs.

  She screwed her eyelids shut and released them, sitting up on her tiny single bed. Blearily, she checked her wristlet; it was late, almost midnight. She’d only meant to take a nap before dinner, exhausted by her day of shopping with Cara and Anna, but sleep—or her dreams, maybe—had proven too inviting. Desire still curled in her belly, a pulsing warmth between her thighs.

  Her skin prickled at the sound of heavy footsteps passing through the apartment. It must be Helik returning from the hub, she thought. She held her breath as the footfalls circled around into the kitchen, the faucet running for a few moments. She felt like a rabbit trapped in a hunter’s snare, or a child caught stealing extra rations from the pantry in winter.

  Then, Helik’s looming presence approached her bedroom door, and she gripped her thigh with a sweaty palm. His feet broke up the perfect line of light peeking under the door, and the wood creaked as if he was leaning his head against it. Her breath hitched, and for a wild moment, she wished he would just open it and take her, crushing her into the bed sheets and stealing her moans with his mouth.

  But after a few interminable seconds, the shadow disappeared, and Ellie felt every retreating footfall like a blow.

  She was acutely aware of him, even as he retreated up the stairs. She knew the exact moment he left his bedroom, padding along the corridor and closing a door behind him. A few seconds later, she heard the familiar buzz of the heat room’s temperature system kicking in, vibrating gently through the ceiling of her room.

  Desire still coursed through her like a tidal wave, filling her thoughts to the brim. She slumped back onto the bed, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to escape into sleep. When that failed, she tried to focus on sewing. She ran over the list of fabrics she’d bought that day, constructing the pattern for Helik’s soot in her mind, but that brought with it the image of his sculpted shoulders, his narrow waist, and she let out a groan of frustration.

  A reckless idea invaded her thoughts, drawing her attention upstairs towards the heat room. If he was too scared to come to her, she could go to him. She didn’t have to wait demurely for him to step over the boundary. She wasn’t an idiot, and she wasn’t the innocent child Lena had always assumed she was. She knew what desire looked like from the moments she snatched with human boys in Manufacturing while her sister was working nights, and it was clear to her that she and Helik wanted the same thing.

  She sat up again, horrified to find that she was actually considering this.

  She couldn’t go up there. No matter how alluring the idea of Helik naked and basking might be, he was her boss. A levekk. If she’d read him wrong…

  Ellie shuddered.

  But this was Helik. He hadn’t thrown her out yet, even after all the lines she’d crossed. She’d already pushed so far against the walls between them, and she was still here.

  Her heart picked up its pace, a throb of desire making her bite her lip. It was reckless. Stupid. Terrifying.

  But Ellie shot up from the bed, her mind already made up. She snatched up a hair tie from her desk, pulling her loose waves up to reveal the long line of her neck. On a whim, she slipped her panties down, leaving them on the floor. She was now naked beneath her thin, white dress, and the knowledge made her breath catch with excitement.

  It was as if she was being dragged upstairs by an invisible thread. A voice in the back of her head screamed out reason upon reason why this was a bad idea, but it fell on deaf ears, her world taken up by the warmth radiating from that heat room and the orange glow slipping under the door.

  She paused, her face inches from the wooden surface, her fist poised to knock. This was her last chance. If she took this step, her life was about to either get way more exciting, or…

  She didn’t want to think about ‘or.’

  The sound of knuckles on wood shocked the breath from her lungs before she realized she’d done it.

  There was no reply, no sound apart from the faint buzz of the globe within the heat room, but then she heard the click of claws on tile.

  The door opened to reveal Helik, his scales shining in the orange light and a thin cloth tucked around his hips. Ellie stared up at him with wide eyes, her mouth agape and her bravado extinguished in the face of the dark look he gave her. But it wasn’t anger roiling in his softening pupils.

  They stood in silence, Helik’s claws wrapped around the doorframe, and there was a tension to the way he hovered, as if unsure whether to let her in. For the first time, Ellie felt a lick of fear, doubt creeping through her.

  But then the levekk subsided, allowing her to enter. “Come in,” he said, and his voice was low, choked.

  She stepped through, feeling as if she left a part of herself behind as she crossed the threshold.

  The room was bathed in a deep orange glow, the tiles that she’d burnished again the day before twinkling in the light. In the center of the room was the large, glob
e-shaped heat lamp, descending from the ceiling like a personal sun. It blinded her for a moment when she dared to look at the center of it, and she glanced away.

  Helik had retreated to the metal bench by the wall, beyond the spots in her vision. His hands rested on the bench either side of him, the grip of his fingers around the edge betraying his nerves.

  The cloth still covered him, but Ellie couldn’t help the way her eyes wandered, brushing over his carved physique. Every breath made his scales glisten in the light, like the spangled materials she’d seen in her fashion book.

  “H-hi,” she managed, cursing her throat for choosing that moment to close itself up.

  Helik was silent and unblinking, his lips parted.

  Now that she was here, Ellie wondered how exactly she was supposed to pull this off. The levekk was staring at her, his expression unreadable apart from the heat in his eyes. But standing where she was by the door, Ellie felt more nervous than seductive.

  Her stomach rolled with butterflies, and that kicked her into action.

  She toyed with the strap on her dress, stepping forward a pace.

  “I wanted to speak with you,” she began, choosing her words carefully. The levekk watched her as she moved to stand closer to the globe, his expression caught somewhere between hunger and fear.

  The globe emanated a fierce heat, and Ellie felt sweat beading on her skin. At least Helik wouldn’t be able to tell if she blushed.

  “I…” She bit her lip. “I’ve seen the way you watch me.”

  Helik tensed, the corner of his mouth turning down.

  “I know you’re curious,” she barreled on. “And, well, I’m curious too.”

  She was definitely blushing now—or was it the globe? Her whole body felt overly warm, as if she were a rabbit being held over a flame. She had no idea how to do this—usually a grin or the touch of a hand was enough to invite attention, but with Helik…

  With shaking fingers, she slipped the strap of her dress over one shoulder, and the other quickly followed. Finally, there was nothing holding her clothing up except her own clutching arms.