Page 67 of Stay with Me

I shook my head. “She wants to start a new life and wouldn’t want to drag this out with a case.”

“But the law can protect—”

“What’s ‘third of all’?” I asked instead.

“Third of all, have you spoken to her on whether or not she wants to stay? If she does, you can make a petition to the Council for residency and the community will protect her.”

“I... No, I haven’t.” The lump in my throat only grew bigger.

“Are you afraid she’ll say no?” Ana’s voice was gentle—well, gentle for Ana.

I recalled my thoughts earlier this morning when I’d held Twyla’s sleeping form in my arms. The way my heart beat beside her, and the dread I felt when I considered her not wanting to stay. Ana’s words ran around my head, looping one after the other. The hole in me reappeared, the dread and emptiness, swirling until it almost made me sick.

“A little,” I confessed. “I didn’t tell you this before—because, honestly, I still don’t know what to think about all of it—but Twyla’s my... Blood Mate.”

I heard a sharp gasp followed by a coughing fit. Ana teetered dangerously on the scaffolding and I reached up to place a palm under her thigh to steady her.

“What!” She hacked another cough. “How the hell—Why didn’t you start with that?”

She was incredulous. “I don’t think I’ve heard that term since school, when I first studied biology. I was beginning to doubt if it was a real thing.”

“It’s real,” I confirmed. “And it’s beautiful. I don’t know how it happened, truly, because she’s not a Fanger. I didn’t know Blood Mates could be inter-species. But when I first tasted her blood, I knew. There’s an insistent pull in my body that I never had with...that I never had.”

“You’ve been blessed,” Ana said, her lips twisting into a smile. “Someone up there is really looking out for you. Man, I’m jealous.”

Ana looked up at the sky as though she was petitioning said gods who’d blessed me with my Mate.

“So, what’s it like?” she asked a minute later.

“I can feel her inside me,” I said without much thought. The words didn’t truly register until Ana burst out laughing, wobbling on the edge of the scaffold.

“I wasn’t asking about the sex, but since you’re so willing to volunteer the information...” she said around a chuckle.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, although my careless words did make me smile. “When I’m near her, I can feel her emotions, her heartbeat. I can tell what she’s thinking and feeling even if she doesn’t say a single word. It’s like someone’s programmed her inside me. We’re two separate people, I know that, yet it feels like she’s a part of me.”

“Isn’t a bond like that impossible to sever? Why don’t you ask her to stay with you?”

“We’re not mated...not fully. We have a half bond. It only works when we’re near each other.”

“It seems pretty strong for just a half bond,” Ana commented.

“Yes, a full bond would be too good...too much to ask. But I can’t ask her to stay.”

“Why not?”

I swallowed, my throat clicking audibly. An awkward beat passed and Ana cleared her throat.

“Right... I forgot. That was stupid of me, Cee. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. If it’s one thing I’ve learned from Ri...from her...it’s that people need room to make their own decisions. You can’t force their hand. It’ll be ugly for everyone.”

Ana slid the screwdriver into her pocket and climbed down a few steps. When we were face-to-face, she said, “I get where you’re coming from. But you know what I’ve learned after all these years in the corps, Cee? People can surprise you when you least expect it.”

We took a break around midmorning, stretching out on the patch of grass under the panels. From this angle, the panels loomed over us with frightening reflectiveness, and I was doubly glad that Ana’d had the tinted eye masks stashed away in her bopper.

At the back of mind, I wondered what Twyla was doing back at the house. With the power out, she couldn’t cook or do laundry, and I imagined her curled up on her spot on the sofa with her auto-sew and a ball of fabric in her hands. I could already see that contented little smile on her face as she ran the small machine over the edge of another tear in my shirt.

“Do you want to call her?”

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