Chapter 35
Ani
The shoreline hums with too many heartbeats. Ree feels it too.
She straightens, the softness gone from her posture, and her voice shifts back into command. “Disperse,” she says, firm but not sharp. “We’re too clustered and it’s putting her choice at risk.”
“Szhe’ka, you need to wash yourself thoroughly,” Ree commands. “Eli will explain.”
He moves toward the water. Eli hands Szhe’ka a metal canister and starts rambling about cleanser and contamination and full application. Szhe’ka hums his agreement and walks into the water.
Now it’s just me and Ree. “I need you to listen,” she says.
“I am listening.” My voice is tight.
She studies me for a second. Measuring. “You need to make a choice.”
My jaw sets. “About what?”
“Your body.”
I give a short, humorless laugh. “You’re going to have to narrow that down.”
“The changes aren’t going to stop on their own,” she says. “Not until you anchor them.”
Anchor them. I already hate that word. “How?” I ask.
She doesn’t look away. “We believe the transformation stabilizes after sexual contact.”
The world goes very still.
“I’m sorry,” I say flatly. “After what?”
“Possibly only a contact with a male,” she continues calmly. “We don’t know yet if it’s the act itself or specific genetic material. It may be hormonal exchange. We don’t have enough data.”
My arms fall from where I’ve crossed them.
“You’re telling me,” I say slowly, “that if I don’t have sex, this just keeps happening?”
“Yes.”
Something cold creeps under my skin.
“And by ‘this,’ you mean the extra traits. The random upgrades. The—” I make a frustrated motion at myself. “The constant—”
“Arousal,” she says.
Heat floods my face. “Yes. That.”
“No. It won’t stop until stabilization.”
I stare at her, feeling the low hum under my skin. The edge that never fades. The way everything feels charged and too close and too much.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am,” she responds, unblinking.
I start pacing because if I don’t move I might explode. “So my options are: keep mutating unpredictably and stay permanently wired like this… or have sex to ‘anchor’ it?”
“Yes.”
“With who?” I demand.
“That is your choice.”
“You said possibly only a male.”
“If the mechanism is biochemical, it may require specific genetic exchange,” she says evenly. “We don’t know yet.”
“So this could literally come down to semen.”
“It could.”
I let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Unbelievable.”
She doesn’t react.
“Some of us chose to accelerate the process,” she adds. “To incorporate additional traits intentionally rather than let the changes occur randomly.”
I stop pacing. “You mean you asked for more?”
“Yes.”
“On purpose.”
“Yes.”
I drag a hand down my face. “That is insane.”
“It gave them control,” she says quietly. “Can you not empathize with that? Something tells me it’s just as important to them as it is to you.”
Control.
I look down at my hands, half expecting something new to push through my skin while we’re standing here. What if I wake up with scales? Or fangs? Or dripping pink goo? Or something else I can’t hide?
“And if I do nothing?” I ask.
“That is also a choice,” she says. “But the changes may become less predictable the longer you wait. We just… don’t know.”
“He is fifteen feet tall, Ree. It has to be…” I hold my hands at shoulder width, shaking them for emphasis.
“I don’t know what they did to us, Ani, but I assure you, whatever he has and whatever size it is… it will fit.”
“What the fuck kind of…” I trail off, not sure what words would even sum it up.
The wind moves through my hair, a flash of red reminding me that there have been other changes that I’ve lived through. Just one of the many ways I’ve evolved without control. Down the shore, someone laughs like this is a normal day and we are normal fucking people.
“Well, dick jokes aside. What if you’re wrong and the changes don’t stop?” I ask.
“If it doesn’t stabilize, we reassess,” she says back, voice clinical.
That is not reassuring.
I look at her, really look at her. She isn’t judging me. She isn’t pushing. She just looks tired. Like she’s been carrying this information for too long. Carrying a lot of things for too long.
“You knew,” I say. “You knew this was coming.”
“Not exactly, but yes. I was meant to be your… uh, handler. That’s the role they gave me, but I assure you it is not one I sought.”
I close my eyes, the Bitch ready to lay over me in a calming mask, but I push her back down.
“I hate this place,” I mutter.
Her expression softens slightly. “I know,” she says.
“How are you so calm about…” I trail off, arm waving to let her know I’m talking about her scales, tail, and claws.
She looks down and lets out a sharp laugh. “Oh, I am not always this calm, but years of experience delivering bad news taught me the best way to do it.”
“What? Insurance adjuster?” I quip, already knowing that a woman with as much force of presence was definitely not in that job.
“ER nurse,” she says with a sigh, then moves her gaze to the water where Szhe’ka is scrubbing himself. “He is special and you know it. Please try to separate your resistance to what has been done to us from your feelings for him. Can you do that?”
“And what feelings would those be?” I ask, guarded.
“That’s for you two to figure out. I have a spot of sun in mind to take a nap in and a very large purring pillow,” she says in a light voice, turning away.
She takes a few steps, then turns back. “Eli is the only one of us who comes close to regret over the choice she made, and even for her it isn’t because she wouldn’t have anyone different than Wroahk.
She just wants more access to people to chatter at and we don’t spend enough time in the water,” she adds with a smile.
“I know he’s an alien and that everyone back home would be shocked and all of that…
but that doesn’t matter anymore. The only question that matters is if he is the one for you. ”
After pulling in a deep breath, I look back toward Szhe’ka. My gaze rakes from his mangled plume, thinking of his grace when I destroyed it, over to the stumps of his wings, echoes of my rage rising when I see the disfigurement. What if they had killed him?
Ree interrupts that thought. “We will keep you isolated out here until you decide. And if you don’t want him around, then that is fine, too. I will give him that bad news. I’m an expert at it, after all.”
I look back to her and the brittle smile on her face, reeling, but I already know what my choice will be.
If he will have me.
“No. I’m his,” I whisper, barely loud enough to be heard.
Her smile turns genuine… almost feline in its satisfaction, as she turns and saunters off, tail dancing behind her.
I stare at my feet for a long time, working through my thoughts before moving to start an awkward conversation. Szhe’ka is sitting outside the isolation hut when I find him.
He’s cleaner now. Damp feathers sticking in all directions. Skin still faintly marked where the cliff tore at him, but steady. Always steady.
He looks up when my shadow falls across him. “Ani.”
Just my name. Soft. Certain. My stomach flips, which is wildly inconvenient given the conversation I’m about to have and how determined I am to keep myself together.
“Can we talk?” I ask, using Azoeul’s language to keep my feelings in check.
He waits. He always waits. Like he believes I’ll say what I need to when I’m ready.
I don’t feel ready, but I start anyway.
“Ree told me something,” I say. “About the changes.”
His posture shifts almost imperceptibly, attention sharpening.
“They’re not going to stop,” I continue. “Not unless I… stabilize them.”
He doesn’t interrupt.
“She thinks it stops after sex.” I force myself to hold his gaze. “They don’t know if it’s the act or if it’s something biological. Genetic exchange.”
His eyes darken slightly in understanding. “And if you do not?” he asks, using the same toneless words.
“I keep changing.” I shrug, trying to make it casual. “And the constant… edge doesn’t go away either.”
“Edge?” he asks, confusion clear in his tone.
“Arousal,” I explain.
He goes very still at that. “I see,” he says quietly.
Silence stretches between us. The lake water murmurs behind the trees.
“I don’t want it to be random,” I say. “I don’t want to wake up with something I didn’t choose. And I don’t want to just pick someone because they’re convenient.”
He watches me like I’m something fragile and dangerous at the same time.
“I want it to be someone I—” I stop, swallow, correct myself. “Someone I trust. Someone I feel like I could… be with..”
His voice lowers. “And who is that?”
I step closer before I can lose my nerve. “You,” I say.
The word feels enormous once it’s out.
His breath shifts. Barely. But I notice, heart pounding as I wait for him to scoff at me, the Bitch wanting to rise and start swinging the moment the fear of rejection surfaces.
“I care about you,” I rush to say, keeping her in check, knowing she is the last mask that would be helpful right now.
I need him to understand this isn’t desperation, so I keep the words spilling out. “Not because of the transformation. Not because you’re available. I care about you.”
“Care?” he asks.
“Feelings,” I explain. “Closeness.”
The air feels thin. He studies my face like he’s memorizing it.
“Like a dusk-cry searching for its echo?” he asks.
I swallow hard, the imagery of it making goosebumps rise on my skin.
“Yes, like that,” I say after a long moment.
“I know your note, and I keep it safe in my throat,” he responds in the monotone of Azoeul’s language before switching to the rich timbre of his own. “Beautiful echo.”
Yes, he cares. It’s steady. Grounded. No hesitation.
But he doesn’t say love.
Neither do I.
We stand there in the space where that word could go.
“I am not choosing this lightly,” he adds, switching back to the more efficient language. “If we do this, it is not simply… biological intervention.”
“I know.”
“I will not treat it as an experiment,” he continues.
“I know,” I repeat.
An upper hand lifts, slow enough that I could step away if I wanted to. I don’t. His fingers brush my jaw, careful, like he’s confirming I’m real.
“You are certain?” he asks.
“About the change? No,” I admit. “But I’m sure about you.”
“I will never fly again,” he tells me and my brow lowers at the change of subject.
Then I remember how broken he has seemed each time we have talked about it and I feel stupid. It’s hard to think of anyone that big having wings. Wingless is how he’s always been with me.
“That’s terrible, of course, but it doesn’t matter to me, if that’s your concern,” I tell him. “Flying isn’t a requirement.”
“Maybe it should be,” he responds.
“It doesn’t matter to this choice, Szhe’ka.”
“If you are certain, then sing it,” he urges. “Sing what you want so I know for sure.”
My throat shifts painfully and my heart leaps at being so vulnerable, but I pull my breath low in my belly, no aria of my career more important than what I am about to sing. “I choose you,” I sing, melody and harmonics weaving my assurances.
His body relaxes. “As I choose you,” he sings back, the resonance carrying his steady regard. His commitment to remain.
Something shifts in his expression, something deep and restrained, before he switches to the shorter, harsh tones of the language everyone uses here. “I will stand with you in this choice,” he rumbles.
The words strike me hard, making my legs tremble. It’s not him staking a claim or finding a way to use me… he is going to stand with me.
I nod once, because if I try to say more, I might say too much.
We haven’t sung about love, but the silence between us feels close to it. I’m not sure if it’s terror or exhilaration racing through me.