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“Not a clue. I just know she’s pretty powerful when she’s whole.” She leaned against him like she used to at the picnics.
“Does Teddie know?”
“Without a doubt.” Kyda chuckled.
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“She’s busy with Laksi and the siblings.” She started to straighten, and he wrapped an arm around her.
“It can wait.”
Riithan was talking to Teddie, and she was scowling harder with every sentence. Her expression turned to one of fury. Her voice got louder. “No, I don’t want to see him. He raped me and left me to bleed to death! I am sorry I wasn’t more transparent, but we were having fucking dinner!”
The room went silent.
The teenager gasped, and the three-year-old started wailing and clung to her mother. The Sethir were horribly still.
Teddie looked around and massaged her forehead. “Right. Laksi, glad to see you are doing well. Great family. I am getting out of here. Call me if you need company out in the big world.”
She flicked her hand, and the window opened. Teddie took three steps, and her wings hummed to life. Dragonfly wings. She lifted off the floor and was out the window in a heartbeat.
Kyda blinked. “She just said...”
Ados was tense. “Yes. If this is accurate, he’s in a lot of trouble.”
“How bad?”
“Well, his family had better hope they have other sons. This one is heading to a males-only outpost. Chemical castration is standard, and they will be sterilized,” he muttered.
Ylara spoke with Riithan, his expression clouded over, and he spoke with his parents.
Kyda whispered, “What’s going on?”
Laksi sat down near them. “Teddie let her shield slip. It happens when she’s mad, and she was furious today. I had heard about it, but until she said something, it was just a vivid rumour seen through someone else’s perception. Shit.” She covered her head with her hands.
Ados asked, “How bad would her reaction to the baby’s other genetic donor be?”
Laksi sighed. “Depends on how the baby takes it. It is currently keeping her from fully shapeshifting.”
Ados blinked. “She can do a full shift?”
“Snakes, cats, enemy forces, you name it. Of course, her pregnancy has put a target on her, so she isn’t at home anymore. The locals don’t let foundlings breed.” Laksi sighed. “It is a conceit of my sisters that to be worthy to reproduce, you have to be a citizen. She’s frantically trying to prove her own concept, but she and her partner aren’t a match, so nothing will happen there.”
Ados cleared his throat. “Are you speaking of Prothuda?”
Laksi nodded. “Yeah.”
“It was marked as a no-go zone for the Sethir-Nin six months ago.”
Kyda blinked. “That tracks.”
Laksi nodded. “It seems that is how far along Teddie is. I know where she’s going, so when I go home, I am going to be the best auntie ever.”
Kyda smiled. “I will give you my contact info, and if she wants any help as soon as I am back in Aksalla, I will be at her disposal. I am pretty sure I can make whatever she needs.”
“If you are still with Nandy, you can make what you like, and I will bring it to Aksalla,” Ados murmured.
She suddenly understood that she couldn’t go home. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but her apartment would need a payment soon. Her rent was due.
