Page 184 of Tracked and Taken

The reservoir is a sealed cavity at the back of her disc, six millimeters across, calibrated by Master Velran’s hands to release a controlled concentration of my bonded pheromone signature at her body warm. The release runs continuously, low, at the bonded register every Draelith male’s nose can read at three meters. The reservoir spikes, by Velran’s calibration, when her pulse climbs above one hundred. He triple-checked it at my request; the corner of his mouth twitched at the third check, and he did not, by his own bench protocol, comment. Anger. Stress. Operational pressure. Arousal. Anything that runs her body at the rate the bonded pheromone reservoir is calibrated to spike at.

The result is that any male of any species with a functional olfactory who comes within three meters of her, at any moment her pulse is above one hundred, is going to register her as bonded to Tael Vosk and currently being attended to by him whether I am in the room.

She does not know.

She is going to find out at the noodle stand on the sixth level concourse the next time her pulse spikes in public for any reason. Inspector Luzrak takes lunch at that stand on Tuesdays. The Kytherian olfactory runs at the bonded pheromone register the way a Draelith does. Inspector Luzrak is going to clock the spike at the count of two seconds. He is going to look at her. She is going to clock the look. Inspector Luzrak is going to go back to his noodles and finish the meal at the protocol of a Kytherian senior officer who has just been informed of a thing he was not looking to be informed about.

She is going to come home that evening, ready to kill me.

I am going to deserve it.

I am going to enjoy every second.

And when she is done killing me, I am going to tell her the rest of it: that Velran can neutralize the reservoir in one visit, on her word, no questions. The protocol that lets her refuse the disc lets her refuse any part of what is in it. It is her throat. It stays her call.

I am betting my span she keeps it.

The reservoir, by Velran’s bench guarantee, is calibrated to last the rest of my Draelith span.

She finishes the second report. Signs it. Closes the terminal. Sets the pen down at the exact angle her pen has, in the four years she has run security on Junction One, sat at the corner of her desk at the end of shift.

She stands.

She crosses the office.

She stops at the doorway. Two inches between us. Her dark eyes find mine.

“Vosk.”

“Sweetheart.”

“You took the long route.”

“I did.”

“From level six concourse.”

“Yes.”

“You have, on most evenings of the last three months, taken the lift from level five.”

“I had an errand.”

“At the level six concourse?”

“At the level six concourse, sweetheart.”

She does not ask what the errand was.

Her eyes are on mine. She is going to make me wait.

I am going to enjoy the wait.

“Walk me home, Vosk.”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

The corridor between her office and the lift is forty-eight meters at 1903 with the level three corridor at evening-shift quiet.