Page 3 of Avery

I don't miss how it's ironic that the only male I want to touch me is the only one who I'm pretty sure never will unless I ask him. Something I'm not going to do because this friendship is worth so much more than whatever fantasy I concocted in the throes of my heat.

I force down whatever I imagined during the peak of my heat, and I pretend that everything is normal and nothing has changed. Especially not the fact that I might never want to be touched by a warm-blooded male again, and I'm pretty sure Phial's cold-blooded.

two

Phial

Avery sits at one of the stationary barstools near the kitchen island. She hadn't spoken to me since she told me she was ready to head back to the ship. That's okay. I'm used to her silence. We've spent enough time together in it that it doesn't bother either of us anymore. At least, I'm pretty sure it doesn't bother Avery.

I move over to the food synthesizer, planning on making something for Avery. I really wish we had added human food to the synthesizer when we learned we were going to have a human crew for our last mission. The only reason we didn't was because we didn't want to waste the credits for food that might only get eaten for a few weeks at most. We didn't realize Sloane would stay on as permanent crew or that Avery would be with us for the long haul, either.

"I should've grabbed you food from the great hall," I murmur under my breath.

Really, I should've been doing so many other things besides waiting at the entrance of the sanctuary, invisible to all the sisters. I just needed to make sure Avery was safe and that the sisters weren't letting anyone inside that might cause her harm. She's already been through so much. She doesn't need anything else to happen to her.

Jia, the same female I saw Avery with tonight, stopped me one morning during Avery's heat and told me I was always welcome to wait in the small waiting area they have for males who scent match a female who needs to go through her heats in the sanctuary. I almost took her up on it until I realized how sacred such a place would be. Somewhere for the mates of these females to wait. I'm Avery's friend, nothing more, and I can't be blurring those lines, not when, more than anything, she just needs a friend. Even though I'd very much like to blur those lines.

"I don't think I want food from there," Avery says, laying her head on her forearms.

Her eyes are still rimmed in red, and her voice is shaky. She doesn't hide her emotions from me. There was no point in it when she first got here, and I think she got used to me being here, not reacting poorly when she needed to cry or scream or throw things.

She turns to face me, her red rims making the green in her blue eyes stand out. It has my scales shimmering, wanting to change to that color, my new favorite color.

"Why's that?" I ask, pulling my eyes away from hers. My tail swishes across the metal flooring, the only sound for long moments.

I'm not wearing a shirt because, unlike the pants I left for myself at the ship's entrance, I didn't leave myself a shirt. It's not like I'm anything to look at. My body is nimble and lean. I'm a small male compared to the others on this ship, compared to every other male on this planet. I'm pretty sure without myfeathers, I'd be shorter than even Sloane, but thankfully, no one here has ever made me feel less male. I mean, a blaster is the great equalizer in all things, and I'm never far from one.

"Phial, I'm pretty sure everyone in that building was fucking," Avery says the word easily. It shouldn't have an impact on me, but I'm still a male. A male who's been without any kind of relief for a long time. My cocks start to stir in my pocket, and I hiss softly at them, telling them if they get hard right now, I will never touch them again. Avery is my friend, and friends don't get boners over other friends.

"Phial?" Avery's voice saying my name so sweetly is not what I need if I don't want to get harder.

Her feet make a soft sound as she slides from her barstool. The padding gets closer and closer, and then she's beside me—not close enough that our bodies are touching, but close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off her skin.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Fine," I say through gritted teeth. It's then that I realize my hiss has been a soft, steady stream, probably since my cocks started giving me issues. I take a deep breath, forcing the hiss to silence.

"Are you sure, because I mentioned all the…" Avery gives me a funny look and says, "Relations happening in the great hall, and you got weird."

"Relations?" I lift the feathers above my eyes in a mock of her words.

She gives me a soft smile, and everything is back to how it needs to be. Sure, my cocks are half-mast right now, but they're staying tucked into my pocket, and I'm pretty sure they're going to stay inside. If they come out, it better not be until I'm sitting down and can hide how they strain against my pants.

"You got all funny when I said fucking, so I wanted to make sure I didn't upset your sensibilities." Avery laughs beforeturning and going back to her seat at the island. "Have you been in there? Is it all fucking?"

"I haven't." I rub the back of my head, smoothing down the feathers at my neck, hoping they don't look too out of place. "I'm pretty sure Alik hates the place, but Jovi and Essa have been enjoying themselves."

"But you haven't gone?" Avery asks. A look I can't quite place crosses over her features, making my chest pinch slightly. There's a right answer to this question, and I'm not too sure what it is or why.

"Nothing for me there," I say with a shrug, hoping it's good enough.

Truth be told, there's plenty for me in the great hall. The females here might not think my size is anything special, and they most definitely wouldn't choose me as a mate or the father of their children because, as far as they're concerned, I'm not able to protect them. Whatever, I don't care about that part, and really, none of them do either.

I've been propositioned plenty of times since landing on this planet because Essa and Jovi thought it would be funny to tell the females that while I lack a knot, I can still fill them perfectly fine and maybe to excess.

I thought about sleeping with one of them, thinking that maybe all of these feelings for the pale, plush female I'm friends with were because of my lack of bedding anyone. Plenty of the females on Rythar look like Avery. Small, so soft, and beautiful. Unbelievably beautiful.

When I thought of being with anyone, though, there was always one particular female in those fantasies. I didn't feel right to imagine a different female than the one I was actually with, so I never did make the jump into figuring out if I could fuck away these feelings with someone else.

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