Page 4 of Avery

Avery looks like she wants to say something else, but the food synthesizer dings, telling us the food's ready. Whatever she wanted to say dies in her throat, and I don't have the courage to ask her about it. I grab the food and slide it across the island with a fork and knife.

"Eat up." I tap my claws against the island, waiting for her to pick up the utensils before excusing myself. "I need a second in the room to clean up. I'll come get you when I finish."

"You're leaving me alone?" Avery's eyes widen, and my heart beats rapidly in my chest at her reaction.

"No, no, I can stay," I say, ignoring the throb of protest my cocks are giving me. I planned on using my few moments alone to stroke them until I could think clearly again. They're making me a terrible friend. I can't stop thinking about how Avery's body will jiggle as I plow into her, encouraging her greedy pussy, wanting to feel—

I rub at my temples, forcing the thoughts back into the dark recess of my mind. Friends don't think about other friend's genitals. At least, I don't think they do. I've definitely never thought of any of my other friend's genitals.

"Sorry," Avery says, her words trembling as she lifts the fork to her mouth and takes a small bite.

My tail swishes behind us, barely grazing the metal floor as it moves softly back and forth. I'm sitting right next to Avery, but I won't reach for her, and she won't reach for me. We never reach for one another. We sit close to one another, and that's enough because we're friends.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I say. Her apology is enough to have my cocks shrinking up in shame at the idea of making her feel poorly about herself just so I could touch myself. "I didn't think about how you might be scared to be alone after what happened earlier."

"You wouldn't leave me alone if it wasn't safe." Avery turns her head, her pale hair falling over her shoulder and the short bits into her eyes. I want to reach up and move it away to see the pretty green flecks in her eyes again.

"I wouldn't," I tell her, tapping my fingers against the island to keep from reaching out to her. "I have the ship locked up, and the others know they need to message me on the comm if they want inside."

"Of course." Avery shakes her head. "You're always thinking about me, aren't you?"

You have no idea.

I grunt in reply, not trusting my words. Avery laughs and shakes her head again, this time returning to her food. I look at her out of the corner of my eyes. Most of the time, I don't admire her openly unless she's asleep and leaves the dome clear. She's too focused on her food or lost in her own thoughts, so I allow myself this small moment to admire her.

The wounds she got from the collar that was put on her by the smugglers are healing up nicely, but it's obvious they're going to scar. They're circular cuts that mark the places where the collar was embedded into her skin so that she couldn't remove it. There's a half-inch scar every inch or so all along her neck, the wounds obvious to anyone who's been out in space for any length of time.

I've seen a handful of others with the same scars, but they've all been males who were put to work on prison planets. I've never seen a female with them, and the fact that they're on this female has my stomach boiling every time I see them. I tell myself that I need to get over how they make me feel because there's nothing Avery can do about them. They'll always be there, always a reminder of what she went through.

"Could you stop staring at them?" Avery's voice cuts through all the thoughts in my head and has me acutely aware of howmuch I'm openly staring at the scars. I turned my face to the side, my eyes dropped to the spots all along her neck, and I didn't even notice how obvious I was being. "I know they're there. I know they'll always be there."

"Sorry, I was just thinking," I say, trying to cover up my blunder.

I start to smooth down my feathers, which are now partially raised because of how embarrassed I am about being called out. I'm usually so good about keeping my eyes to myself when Avery can see me.

If I'm to admire her openly, I either wait until she's asleep or camouflage myself. Not that I've ever done that when she's asking for privacy. I don't sneak into the bathroom during her showers, don't enter the bedroom when she's asked to be alone. No, I just might sneak into girl's nights sometimes or maybe hide in the kitchen when she's talking with Sloane. Nothing sinister.

"Thinking about my scars." Avery's hands go to her throat, fingering the puckered skin where it's still healing. "I think about them a lot, too."

"I know," I whisper the words. I hate that I've made her self-conscious about this when we were doing so well.

"I wonder sometimes if I hadn't tried to remove it myself, if the scars wouldn't be so bad," she says quietly.

The words have my eyes going wide. The confession is the first time she's talked to me about this. She's talked to me about plenty of what happened to her on the smuggling ship. How she was altered while she was conscious, how the crew would take away her ability to move when she cried too much or if she screamed for too long. She's never told me she tried to remove her collar, though, something that could've killed her if she worked too hard at it without the proper tools.

I turn to face her, my hands clasped in my lap. "I've seen collar scars on plenty of others. Nothing you did would've changed whether or not you were given scars. They're meant to make you feel shame." I clench my jaw tight when Avery's eyes take on a misty look. "You should never feel any shame for what they forced on you. Never. And if anyone makes you feel that way, you tell me." I pause and narrow my eyes on her face. "Or Essa or Alik or Jovi or Holoth or K'Vella or even Sloane, I'm pretty sure she'd want to know if someone made you feel less than."

Avery's bottom lip quivers as she pushes away the mostly eaten food. I grab the remainder and eat it, not wanting to waste food. Really, I should've made myself something, too, but it seemed more important to get Avery food first. I rinse the plate off and set it in the dishwasher.

"Are you ready for bed?" I ask.

Her eyes have taken on that far away look that she gets when she's thinking about what happened to her. There's nothing for me to do other than be here for her when she comes back to reality. She slips from her chair, following my lead back to the room without saying a word.

My room is messy, but how could it not be when I've spent most of the last week living in it and worrying about Avery? The dome nest in the middle of the room takes up most of the space. The glass that makes up the dome is still clear all the way through, so Avery can see her nest just as she left it.

It's filled with all of the blankets and pillows from when I used to sleep in there, but now there are more of my feathers in it. I never was one to mark a nest in that way, but then Avery started staying in it, and I had to make sure she knew who's nest she was staying in. I tell myself it's so my friend knows she's safe and is reminded of me when she wakes from her nightmares.

"If you need anything, you let me know," I tell Avery as she crawls through the small entrance into the dome.

---