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His head turned toward me, and I could see the glow in the sliver of his irises was brighter than before. I wondered if it was because the moon was so close, but I didn’t want to ask. “Maps. Cameron’s been working on them for me. I wanted a better scope of the tunnels, and a couple of the abandoned cities nearby.”
I eased myself down with a soft grunt, ignoring the twinge in my thigh. He made room for me, then leaned in and nosed up and down the side of my neck. “Good morning, by the way.”
He chuckled quietly against my skin. “Should you be out of bed?”
“Actually, I feel okay,” I told him, dragging my fingers into his hair and pulling him up for a kiss. “I think Danyal was right about the healing. It’s not as fast or as powerful as yours, but it’s different.”
He hummed softly. I knew any changes in my body only made him more scared, so I let the subject drop.
“How’s the map reading coming?” I couldn’t make sense of it by sight, but I knew it wasn’t meant for that.
“Frustrating,” he said, which was what he said about all of his new adaptive techniques. He liked that he could use his cane to keep from falling on his face, or the voice-over on his phone, and all the gadgets for the kitchen so he could cook or pour a cup of coffee without scalding his hands. But they were all still very frustrating. “Cameron says my problem is that I’m trying to create a visual map in my head, and the part of my brain that processes visual memory is starting to atrophy.”
I winced a little. “Shit. Is that fast?”
“He says it’s normal,” Kor replied with a quiet sigh. “He says without constant information, it starts to breakdown pretty quickly. And I think he’s right. I keep trying to remember what things look like, but it all seems so wrong.” He went quiet a moment. “I don’t know if it’s just me or what—and I hate that I can’t just open my eyes and check for myself, you know?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nestled in a little closer. “Can I help?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, but he didn’t sound angry. “I need to approach this differently. I need to translate what I can feel into the way I measure space now—it’s just not quite clicking.”
“You’ll get there,” I told him.
He laid his hand to my face and turned my head to kiss me again. “I know.” And then he kissed me again, and again until I started getting warm all over. Just when I thought it was going to get interesting, he pulled away. “You should eat.”
“You’re the worst,” I groaned, and he laughed before pushing himself up.
“I made soup and sandwiches. It’ll only take me a second to get it hot again.”
I watched him walk away, appreciating the view before I turned my attention back to the maps. Closing my eyes, I pulled one forward and began to run my hands over it, but I saw what he meant. Trying to visualize it didn’t make sense. They were nonsensical shapes. And I assumed that parts of the maps with little collections of dots were braille, but I also knew Kor wasn’t that far in his lessons yet.
There was so much for him to take up, and I knew he was pushing himself, but I didn’t think he’d be able to keep up at the speed he was going. My experience was limited, but I still knew that people who suffered permanent injury were able to take months, if not years, learning to adapt to their bodies’ changes. But Kor didn’t have that luxury.
He had been rescued, told there was no hope for his sight, then shoved into the position of Head Alpha all within a handful of days. And on top of that, he was bonded to a human Omega who may or may not survive his first full moon, and I couldn’t even imagine the toll that was taking on him.
My heart ached for how limited we both were, and how entirely fucked by circumstance.
I was taking joy in these small moments though, and I felt a sort of rush at the domesticity of it as he carefully made his way back to the table with a tray in his hands. He found the edge of the table with his foot, then set everything down.
“You’re squishing your maps,” I warned him, but he didn’t seem to care as he settled back down.
“These are just practice ones.” He shifted the loose ones away from the area in front of me, then set a bowl and plate down. The soup was a sort of vegetable tomato thing, and the sandwich smelled heavily of bacon which made my mouth water. “The one I was working on earlier was our apartment. Cameron thought I would have better luck if I started working with a space I already knew.”
I was startled by that. I hadn’t studied it hard, but I most definitely hadn’t made the connection to this place, and I knew this space inside and out. “What’s the map of the abandoned city for?” I asked, then took a massive bite and groaned at the taste.
Kor grinned at me, leaning back against the sofa with his arms crossed. “Like I said before, we can’t stay here. I mean, not permanently. The tunnels would be vulnerable to attack since there are only a couple of roads in and out, and I’m not convinced we haven’t already been compromised.”
My brows lifted. “You think there are humans here?”
At that, he laughed. “No, my heart. We’d know if the spies were humans. But I think there are Wolves on their payroll who could have easily gotten in. I mean, look at the fucking son of a bitch who shot you.”
I winced and bit my lip hard for a second. “Did he ever say why?”
“Orion’s having him interrogated today, and he’ll let me know when it’s over. He invited me to do it,” Kor said with some hesitance, “but I turned him down. I probably would have ripped his intestines out. Literally.”
“Kor,” I breathed out, and his eyes narrowed.
“He shot you. He could have killed you,” he growled.
