Page 135 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“You can.” Kessa nods. I look at her, suppressing the urge to smile. “You are enjoying this.”

“A little.”

Merra takes my uninjured arm and pulls me toward the workroom. Old instinct rises before I can stop it. A hand directing me. A room I did not choose. A table waiting under white cloth. My muscles lock.

Merra feels it and releases me immediately. She does not apologize. I respect that.

“Walk in yourself, then,” she says. “But walk in.”

The street noise moves around us. Kessa waits. She does not tell me to go. She does not tell me I am safe. She leaves the choice where it belongs, as she has asked of me.

I enter the workroom and Merra follows. Kessa starts after us and sways. Renn catches her.

“I’m fine,” she says, pulling away from him.

“No.” Three people answer at once.

Her glare could cut armor. Merra points through the doorway.

“Get your arm cleaned. Eat something. Then you can sit outside and terrify anyone who tries to move you.”

“I was coming in.”

“No, you’re not,” Merra says, one hand on her hip.

“You just said I could terrify people.”

“Outside.”

Kessa looks at me. I could ask her to stay. I want to. Instead I ask the thing she has taught me.

“Will you be here?”

She is still angry, but not in the same way.

“Yes.”

One word. No oath. No command. Enough.

Merra shuts the door between us.

The treatment table waits behind me. I stare at it too long.

Merra starts cutting away the ruined bindings on my wing.

“If you make me argue you onto that table, I will win and neither of us will enjoy how.”

“I believe you.”

“Good.”

I sit. The old anchor burns when she touches the skin above it. My shoulder jerks. Nothing else follows. Merra notices.

“Do you feel a command?”

“No.”

“Pain?”