Chapter 376: Guest Passes?

Lukas studied the attendant uniform while James explained that the expensive guests would barely notice him, which sounded convincing until the booking asked for his measurements twice.

I left them arguing over whether the towel was equipment or a threat and called Lyra from our room. The workshop below had finally gone quiet, leaving only the water pump outside and the sound of James promising that tomorrow would be easy through the wall.

Lyra asked about the train before she asked about me. I told her what happened, including the parasite and the medic’s dressing, because leaving out injuries had started to feel like borrowing against her trust.

She listened without turning every sentence into a warning. Then she said she had kept my place beside her and had caught herself checking it when she woke.

The room suddenly seemed much farther from home than it had five minutes earlier.

"I would have liked to be there for that, although I probably would have complained about you stealing the warm part."

"You always called it stealing when I got there first," she said. "I missed that too, which should probably worry me."

Old Mate appeared with his drink in one paw and an expression that suggested he had found an excuse to be generous without admitting it.

[System: You’ve been staring at that call like a staffy outside the butcher’s, you homesick tow strap. I’m giving you one night with your missus, not a freight service, so leave the spider and the stolen spa plans where they bloody are.]

A new ability panel opened beside him. The Missus Express: Home for the Night sat above a smaller line that mattered almost as much as the name: extra bond ability, no replacement and no IP charge.

You had better not tell me the return ticket cost a kidney.

[System: You’ve made enough questionable purchases without me charging for affection, mate. Read the conditions before you try bringing the couch back.]

I explained to Lyra that Old Mate had offered me a way to visit. She couldn’t hear him, so I read the practical parts aloud while she stayed on the call.

I could choose one permanently bonded partner at our established home, and she had to accept. I needed a stationary return point and ten quiet minutes outside active danger. The visit could last up to eight hours, with an earlier return allowed.

I would travel alone with ordinary personal essentials, then return to the same place. No passengers, pets, prisoners, vehicles or convenient freight shipment could come with me. If somebody occupied the exact return spot, I would arrive in the nearest clear space at that same site.

The seven-day cooldown began when I returned. It wasn’t another version of Backdoor Bludger, and it couldn’t turn a moving crawler into a doorway home.

Lyra asked about Cherry and Bridget, so I checked the sharing note. They received the same usable ability in their own bodies, with separate cooldowns, but the destination still required an established home and a bonded recipient there.

They couldn’t use it to chase my expedition down the road. I couldn’t use it to skip the next town, and no one received a private window into Old Mate’s lounge.

[System: Exactly, mate. This was a relationship benefit, not a bloody bus route with kissing.]

"I wanted to choose you for tonight, if you wanted me there."

Her answer arrived before I finished worrying that the question sounded foolish.

I told Lukas where I was going and when I would return. James heard the explanation from the doorway, asked whether the ability accepted guest passes, then accepted my refusal with the wounded dignity of a man denied free transport on principle.

Lukas helped clear a safe space beside the bench and agreed to keep it clear. We checked the lock, confirmed the morning departure and set an alarm on his phone. I left the evidence and travel bags in the room, taking only my dressing supplies and the ordinary things I needed for the visit.

My four equipped skills remained unchanged. Thirty-seven thousand EXP and five hundred seventy-five IP stayed exactly where they had been, which made this the nicest surprise Old Mate had ever given me without attaching a criminal objective.

Lyra accepted the bond notification from our private room at home. It offered a simple choice, not a new conversation channel, and after the ten quiet minutes ended I arrived beside the space she had cleared for me.

For a moment, neither of us said anything. Then she touched my face and asked whether I had remembered how to come home without bringing an enemy through the door.

"I was trying to impress you with personal growth, sweetheart, although I couldn’t promise the enemy wasn’t disappointed."

She laughed against me, and the sound did more for the distance than all the relay towers along the Salt Road.

We ate the food she had kept warm, sitting close while she told me about the small things I had missed. Cherry had rearranged part of the bar display. Bridget had stayed for dinner and helped settle an argument without making anybody feel like an outsider in their own home.

Lyra checked my wing gently, following the medic’s instructions rather than pretending affection could seal the tear. I told her she didn’t need to spend the whole visit looking after me, and she answered that I didn’t get to decide which parts of loving me she enjoyed.

I stayed close when she set the supplies aside. The teasing softened into the kind of quiet that belonged to us, and when she closed the door I stopped trying to turn every feeling into a joke.

The moment my tendrils of slick red slime wrap around her waist, I already know tonight is not going to be a slow one. Lyra barely has time to squeak before I sweep her clean off her feet. My slime curls under her knees and back, lifting her like she weighs nothing. Honestly, to me she doesn’t. I carry her across the room, thick red trails glistening behind us, straight to the big floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the top side of Ami. The city lights stretch out forever past the glass, towers blinking red and gold, flying cars cutting lines through the dark. Perfect backdrop. Not that I planned it that way, I just like the view.

"Matt," she breathes, fingers already curling into my slick scales like she’s bracing for something. Smart girl.

I don’t answer right away. Instead I lean in and drag my tongue slow up the side of her neck, tasting the warmth of her skin, the little spike of her pulse jumping under my touch. She shivers against me, and I can feel it ripple straight through the slimy coils holding her.

"Have you been a good girl for me," I hiss low, right against her ear, voice dropping into that rumble I know she can’t resist. "Or a bad girl."