I processed that information carefully. My body was changing slowly. Subtly. Preparing for permanent life here whether I consciously chose it yet or not.
"Does it bother you?" he asked.
"No." I surprised myself with how much I meant it. "It feels right somehow. Like I'm becoming what I'm supposed to be."
Through the bond I felt his satisfaction pulse clearly. His pride. His certainty that I'd choose to stay when the portal opened.
Day twenty-five arrived and my hearing sharpened noticeably overnight.
I woke to sounds I'd never noticed before, sounds that had always been there but outside my range. The steam vents whistled that low, constant note of safety had layers now—multiple frequencies creating harmonics I could distinguish. The cliff creatures making calls too high for normal human hearing. Drav's breathing had a pattern I could track even from another chamber entirely.
"You hear it now," he said at breakfast, not asking, just stating fact. He'd been waiting for this change.
"Everything's louder. Clearer. More detailed."
"Your range expanded in both directions. You can hear higher frequencies now. Lower ones too." He tilted his head slightly. "Listen carefully. The southern boundary. What do you hear?"
I focused my attention in that direction, filtering through layers of sound. Heard wind moving across stone. Heard rocksettling minutely from temperature changes. Something else underneath. Movement. Small. Fast.
"Cliff rats," I said. "Maybe four of them. Fifty feet below the entrance."
"Exactly right." Satisfaction colored his voice. "You're adapting faster than most humans do. Your body's accepting the changes easily."
I wondered if that was because of the bond, because my chemistry had been restructured to match his. Because I'd chosen this life completely instead of fighting against it mentally.
Or maybe I was just adaptable naturally. Always had been. I'd survived the dome sectors. Survived the Consortium's manipulations. Survived the hunt itself. What were a few biological changes compared to everything else I'd endured?
Day twenty-six arrived and I saw the copper tones for the first time.
Bathing in the thermal pool, I noticed my skin looked different in the light. Faint copper threads visible along my spine. More concentrated where Drav had given me the bond bite. Spreading slowly down my back and across my shoulders in patterns that looked almost intentional.
Not dramatic. Not obvious unless you looked closely and knew what to see. But definitely there.
I traced the patterns carefully, following how they curved. They followed my spine's natural line. Branched at my shoulder blades where wings would eventually grow if the transformation continued.
"It's beautiful," Drav said from the pool's edge, watching. "The copper means your body's accepting the electromagnetic energy from the cliff itself. Means you're becoming part of this place."
"Will it keep spreading?"
"Until the transformation completes. Then it stabilizes permanently." He moved into the water beside me. "But it won't cover you completely. Just accent points. Spine. Shoulders. Maybe ribs eventually. Enough to mark you as bonded. As changed. As mine."
His hands traced the copper patterns, following each line carefully. The sensation speared straight through me, bypassing the water's warmth entirely.
"Breed me," I said, voice already breathless.
"In the pool?"
"Yes. Now."
We bred in the warm water, him behind me, hands on my hips, thrusting deep while the copper patterns pulsed under his fingers. I came thinking about transformation. About wings. About becoming something more than human, something that belonged here completely.
About choosing this permanently when the time came.
Day twenty-seven arrived with morning light.
I was organizing the nest when I heard it—something that didn't belong in the natural soundscape. Not wings. Not cliff creatures. Something mechanical. Artificial. Wrong.
Drav heard it too. We both moved to the entrance immediately.
