as offering something dangerous and wanted her to have every chance to refuse it. "It's been in

"Like-a business term

e a

e metaphor she was too rattled to parse. He didn't. His face had gone very still, the still

me you think you

en for longer than this country has existed. We live among humans because we have

on a phone screen, the ordinary hum of an ordinary evening-and tried to reconcile it with what he'd j

was the only thing she could thin

you already have proof. You just di

oes tha

was scenting you. It's not something I can turn off, not around someone carrying my child. Your body

barrassment, half something she r

time all evening, some of the careful control slipped out of his shoulders. "The child you're carrying isn't only mine because of a lab error. It

derstand an

ily is being challenged. Not by strangers-by my own cousin, who has spent a decade telling anyone who'll listen that I'm unfit to hold this position because I have n

sed to be your

. I didn't ask for this. I didn't plan to scent a stranger in a fertility clinic and feel my entire world reorganize itself around her in under a minute. But it happened, and now there'

on, a habit forming faster than she could question it.

g. "Valuable things get fought over. I would rather you resent me for the rest of your life t

t him too late to protect anything-her time, her trust, the version of herself that used to believe people meant what they said. She thought abo

re insane, or lying, or some elaborate scam I haven't figured

at her the way a man looks at the edge of

tect you," he said. "Both of

That's a feeling wear

e never alone with something you can't explain. Let me stand between you and my cousin until the council rules and this is settled, one way or another. I know how it so

the night she'd braced for-an apology, a paperwork correction, a clean and clinical end to an ugly mistake-had come apart at every seam. What was left in its place didn't feel safe. It

anything," she sa

asking

'm not moving anywhere, I'm not trusting a

n relief, or might have been

said. "Tomorrow. Somewh