Chapter 48
I woke up early to the sound of my phone vibrating. Two messages from Ambrose. The first let me know Kaori had woken up, and the second asked me to stop by his office before visiting her.
I was so happy and anxious I barely finished reading the messages before I started getting dressed.
The news was so good I decided to dress up more than usual, already thinking about the extra attention I’d receive for Kaori’s recovery.
Sometimes, when a doctor accomplished something unprecedented, reporters from other nations came to cover the story.
I believed this case would be reported across the entire continent.
So I applied a heavy layer of makeup to cover my freckles, put on plenty of mascara, and fixed my hair, pinning it up in a sophisticated bun style commonly worn by Interians.
I chose white high-waisted pants with gold buttons and paired them with a pink shirt covered in ruffles across the chest. The goal was to look as much like an Interian as possible and less like… myself.
At the hospital, I walked through the familiar corridors without paying much attention to my surroundings.
The truth was, I was anxious to meet Kaori.
Not because she was my best medical case or because she was a gorgon—and the gods know how much I wanted to meet one of them—but because she was the only person Zion called a friend.
I felt stupidly silly, but I wanted to make a good impression.
What I saw was a hospital-grade horror show.
The room was a mess—a bouquet of flowers on the floor, shards everywhere.
The bed was a tangle of dirty sheets marked with Kiara’s paw prints, and right in front of me, she was growling furiously at Zion, who held Kaori in his arms, transformed into a gorgon.
I felt my smile waver and wilt like a deflated balloon.
I stood frozen in the doorway, my smile crumbling as if it had shattered and I couldn’t tell if it was dead or alive.
“What is going on here?” I asked, staring at Kaori’s hand splayed on his chest. Her serpents, now cropped short from the cut, were hissing.
The three of us exchanged confused, alarmed looks.
Zion was looking at Kiara as if he were going to eat her for breakfast. Then, snapping out of his trance, he carried Kaori to the bed and set her down carefully.
She seemed to be staring at the chimera in fright.
Kiara had approached and dropped something on my shoe.
Still perplexed, I bent down and picked up the shiny chain she’d brought.
It was my sinil necklace. Confused, I raised my eyes to the three of them. The woman on the bed looked shocked.
“Kiara?” I called, and she looked at me, satisfied with her trick. I stepped aside to clear the exit and pointed to the hallway.
“Stay out there and wait until Zion leaves before you go.”
She got up cheerfully and trotted into the hallway, but growled one last time at Kaori before leaving. I closed the door, trying to absorb the situation.
“Why is she like this?” I asked Zion.
Neither of them said a word, which only made my discomfort grow. He looked me up and down, seeming distracted for a moment, then finally walked toward me.
“It’s a long story.” As he passed me, he didn’t meet my eyes. “When we get home, we’ll talk about it.”
I opened my mouth to demand an answer about why Kiara was at the hospital, but outside, people started screaming and something metallic clattered to the floor.
“I’m going to take Kiara home and let you two talk,” he said, casting a meaningful look at Kaori, who was still staring at us in shock.
“See you at the funeral?” she asked.
“Yes, see you at the funeral. Take care, Kaori.”
Zion passed by me. His scent—night and sandalwood—enveloped me, stirring up my mate instincts even more. Before leaving, we exchanged a confused look. He seemed nervous, and I was just trying to process all the chaos.
As soon as he left, I stared at the door for a few more seconds, then finally turned to face the destroyed room.
I walked over the shards, hands in the pockets of my lab coat.
My heels made small cracking sounds as I stepped on the shattered glass covering the beige porcelain floor.
I studied the woman in front of me, and she studied me with equal care.
Her eyes were still like those in the photo—large and black, as beautiful and sharp as polished obsidian.
Her serpents remained agitated even though they couldn’t move much due to their cropped length.
They were turquoise blue, so beautiful they didn’t even seem real.
Bluish scales covered her temples, outlining her forehead, descending to her nape, and replacing what should have been her scalp.
When she noticed me staring at the scales, Kaori closed her eyes and concentrated.
Soon the metamorphosis ceased. The serpents retreated behind her head and the scales vibrated, giving way to smooth, soft skin.
I had never witnessed anything like this, and despite being confused by everything I saw, I felt euphoric watching the transformation.
During my years in college, we never got permission from the matriarch to study a gorgon’s metamorphosis.
“Hello, Kaori.” I tried for my best charismatic doctor voice, but the words came out dry and scratched my throat.
“Hello, Kyller,” she said, equally fake.
I looked around at the pile of fallen flowers, then bent down to gather them all, careful not to ruin any. Her family must have left them earlier—they were too beautiful to waste.
“I'm sorry about Kiara. She usually behaves well in public—I don't know what got into her today, but it was stupid of Zion to bring her here.” I held out the flowers, and she took them without hesitation. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I understand—I think if I were her, I'd do the same. The chimera seems to really like you,” Kaori said, settling back on the bed and taking a deep breath.
“She does. I'm the one who feeds her.” I remembered how I'd convinced Kiara to trust me during my first years in Interion. I pulled the nude-colored armchair closer to the bed and sat down to get a better look at the gorgon.
“Of course she does. Zion's said a lot of good things about you.”
I noticed that as she spoke, her eyebrows arched and the corners of her lips tugged slightly—an expression I could read several ways, one of them being mockery and deception.
At the same time, I chided myself for seeing things that weren't there.
I didn't know this woman. Maybe this was just her expressive way of talking.
“I'm glad to hear that,” I replied, composing myself and clearing my mind. “He speaks very highly of you too. He was really worried when you got hurt.”
Kaori arched an eyebrow, this time with a hint of surprise, but that air of arrogance still lingered.
I wasn't handling this very well. For years, I'd stared at her photo, wondering what her personality would be like, but now that I was face to face with the girl in the picture, I didn't know how to read her.
So I cut straight to what mattered, standing up and pointing to her forehead.
“May I examine you?” Kaori blinked, a bit surprised, but quickly composed herself.
“Of course!”
I touched her forehead, scanning the entire neural area and making sure there were no abnormalities. Then I examined her pupils with the small flashlight I carried in my pocket—they dilated normally—while Kaori's eyes followed my every movement.
“Are you feeling anything unusual with your head? Does it still hurt?”
“I don't feel anything. Just hungry.”
As I massaged her temples, scanning all the reconstructed tissues, Kaori's eyes briefly drifted to a vulnerable point on my neck. There was a disconcerting intensity in her gaze that made my heart race.
“Have you eaten since you woke up?”
“Not yet.”
I swallowed hard, telling myself it was just senseless paranoia—gorgons weren't monsters.
“I'll have someone sent up.”
She nodded, still focused on a pulsing vein in my neck. Feeling a bit awkward under her intense gaze, I returned to my armchair and noted all the results on the clipboard. While I wrote, Kaori cleared her throat.
“They told me about the state I arrived in and the lack of professionals to help you. I know it was a difficult surgery, and I want to thank you for saving my life.”
She started to get up, but I stopped her, holding her hand so she wouldn't move.
“No! You don't need to get up to thank me. I just did what I was trained and paid to do.”
Kaori lowered her gaze to our joined hands. She seemed surprised. I immediately pulled my hand away—the touch had felt invasive, and gorgons, like Vinturians, didn't much like being touched. In her case, she was both.
“You're different,” she murmured, looking at me as if she could see hidden words beneath my skin.
I frowned in confusion.
“Different how?” I touched my hair. Was she referring to my genetics?
“No, your essence is different. You and Zion are the same.” She seemed to grow sad. “I think that's why you're partners.”
“I don't think I understand,” I replied, even more confused, studying her oddly wounded expression. The confusion and vague words reminded me of the sonar, but Kaori wasn't as strange as him.
“I'm sorry. I'm an ultrasonic.” I kept looking at her, not understanding.
“I guess you don't know what that is—it's a nearly extinct gift in the gorgon bloodline. It works like an energy radar, so I can sense what kind of power people have within a 200-meter radius. With a touch, I can identify more intimate things about someone, and each person has a different frequency. What surprised me was that you and Zion vibrate at the same frequency.”
“I didn't know anyone like that existed,” I exclaimed, amazed. “Maybe our frequency is the same because we're partners.”