Page 64 of Song of the Abyss

“Oh,” Anya breathed, her voice a little too loud. “You don’t say?”

Obviously, she wasn’t talking to him or Mira. Bracing himself on the lip of the moon pool with his bad arm, he reached for her droid and gently pulled it off her head.

The words on the glass were a hundred rainbow marks, all dancing up and down with a single word. Byte’s name. It danced around the lens, bumping off all the rainbows and sending them scattering in her excitement.

“She knows the droid?” he asked, before realizing that he was holding Bitsy, so Anya couldn’t understand him.

Handing Bitsy back, he flashed a few of the signs she’d taught him. He still knew very little of her language, but he knew enough to gesture between the two droids and then signed half of the word “friend”. He completed the word by miming what his other hand should have done afterward.

The pleased smile on Anya’s face was worth every ounce of brain power it took to remember that word.

Affixing Bitsy back onto her head, she adjusted the lens before saying, “Yes, I think Bitsy knows him. Is your droid’s name Byte?”

Mira looked between the two of them, clearly confused. “Yes, that’s his name.”

“They must have known each other from a long time ago.” Anya smiled, then patted her hand onto Bitsy where her body rested on top of her head. “She’s sweet on him, it seems, so we should let them have a chat when they can.”

Byte rolled to a stop in the middle of the room, and his little binocular eyes rose to blink at the droid on top of her head. “All of her models were decommissioned years ago,” the droid advised.

“Not all of them.” Anya grinned. “Besides, Bitsy’s had a few upgrades in the time since.”

Daios leaned, peering through the lens from behind Anya’s head to see bright pink hearts radiating around Byte’s little body.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about this. The droids were already abominations in his eyes. Metal creations with souls were somehow even harder to swallow.

“Well,” Mira muttered. “That’s unexpected. Regardless, my name is Mira and I’m happy to welcome you to our home. We haven’t named it yet, but maybe you’ll be helpful in that. Let’s get you out of the water first, shall we?”

She took a step closer to Anya, but he didn’t like that either. With a low growl rumbling in his chest, he planted his hand underneath Anya’s thighs and lifted her out of the water himself. She was so light, he didn’t need someone else helping her.

The little squeak that came out of her when he did so was decidedly satisfying, anyway. It was worth every ounce of pressure it put on his shoulder.

With an arched brow, he watched her sit at the edge of the moon pool and glare at him. “I could do it myself.”

“I know.”

She tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowing. “You’re acting strange.”

Mira snorted from behind her. “You’re not kidding. I’ve never seen the big lug talk this much.”

“He talks.” Anya’s tone was almost... defensive. She glared at the woman behind her before getting to her feet. Water rushed out of her wetsuit, splashing on the floor and rolling into the water around his rib gills.

He wasn’t so prideful that he didn’t suck that water into himself, coating his gills with her scent for later. For when he would no longer be permitted to see her.

“He talks?” Mira repeated, before another snort followed her words. “The man doesn’t talk. He barely even breathes in my direction.”

“That’s because I don’t like you,” he growled before turning his attention to Anya. “Are you well?”

She was still looking at him with that shocked expression. Like she didn’t know why he was asking, or that she hadn’t expected him to come up with her. And it made him feel... awful. She shouldn’t expect him to drop her off in a place she’d never been before, with people she hadn’t ever met, and then just leave.

Of course, that is what he had planned to do. But he didn’t want to do that anymore.

Maybe it was because he’d thought he had seen her curl into him a little. Like she hadn’t wanted to release him from her grip, either. But right now, she seemed fine. She stood on her own two feet, looking down at him with surprise, but not with fear. She wasn’t begging him to take her back into the water.

Maybe he had read this situation wrong.

Her little brows furrowed at his question. “I’m fine,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s not so different from Alpha, just a lot smaller.”

“Is it?” Mira walked forward and held out her hand. “Sorry, again, I’m Mira.”

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