Page 103 of Ruby
Just… present.
I shift, testing the wings again. They ache, but they’re mine.
“Now, now, now…let’s see what we are working with,” Kira breaks in, ever ready to get straight to the point. “She’s got a heel claw, so some manticorid.”
A quick glance down to my legs confirms her observation. There’s a curved, wickedly sharp black claw coming out of the back of my feet.
Great.
“Pretty sure that’s drakonid hide at the tips of her wings right before the claws start there too,” Ree points out.
I lift a wing again, this time extending them enough that I can see the tips don’t end in feathers, but transition to a thick blue membrane with two thick claws on the very tips, one above the other.
The snap of Kira’s wings extending startles me, making me jump, and then groan as the movement sends another wave of agony through my wings.
“I don’t have those. What the fuck!” Kira hisses.
“Your disgusting wings aren’t fully grown yet,” Drasuk rumbles, still scanning the horizon.
“What. The. Fuck?” Kira yells, voice rising with each word. “Are you telling me I’m going to have claws on the tips of my fucking wings and you want to fucking bite them off? What the fuck is wrong with you? I—”
Ree cuts her off. “Not the time, Kira. Stow the foreplay until later.”
I cough out a laugh when Kira and Drasuk turn to each other, glowering, but with an underlying heat in their intensity. What an odd pairing.
Ree continues. “I only see drakonid and manticorid so far. I think Kira got too close at some point.”
Kira sputters, but keeps her mouth shut, arms crossed before a smile twitches at the sides of her mouth. As if she isn’t sorry in the least bit.
“I think she has Azoeul’s speed,” Szhe’ka adds.
I raise an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not feeling up to testing that just yet.”
“Tell me about when and how fast you have gone through your changes before this, Ani,” Ree urges.
I take in a deep breath, not really wanting to relive those times, but do it anyway, sharing quickly about my eyes, skin, and venom.
“So quick, painful changes after exposure to blood and venom,” Ree concludes.
“I took a blood bath,” Olivia breaks in, catching me off guard. “Right before zha and I… you know.”
“Zha?” I ask, confused.
“That’s Kroaicho’s pronoun. Zhasie don’t have gender,” Ree explains. “That can’t be it because Kira did something similar and her changes are pretty slow.”
“So what makes you two different?” Kira asks.
“It has to be something to do with the mind,” Thivoll answers. “Nanite function is tied to intelligence.”
“I remember you saying we must all be intelligent,” Ree says. “That the longer our cryo chamber stays powered, the more intelligent we are.”
I snort. “I am not smart.”
Thivoll rumbles low in his throat. “No, you must be very smart or they wouldn’t have chosen you, but intelligence doesn’t explain it fully. I thought it might be because Olivia’s mind is especially fast, but there must be more at work here. What’s different about their minds?”
“Are you autistic?” Olivia asks, looking in my direction, but above my head.
I glance behind me to see if she’s talking to someone else, but it must be me. “No.”
