Their convoy was slow-moving, but it still took less than five minutes to reach the entrance. As soon as the cross-island tunnel swallowed the convoy, the temperature dropped significantly.
"You can take off the outer layer now," he said.
The women set to it in the swaying truck, peeling out of the work clothes they had layered over the stolen uniforms, unfolding sleeves that had been rolled to the elbow and trouser legs that had been cuffed at the knee, shaking out the creases as best they could in the cramped bed. The transformation was crude, but it was good enough.
Shrouding would do the rest.
The problem was that shrouding couldn't hide Sullha from Yaaf's eyes or stop her scent from filling his nostrils. He was struggling to keep his impassive expression so she wouldn't get scared or overwhelmed. She needed to believe that he was okay with being just her friend, and that he didn't expect anything more between them.
Unlike the other women, she wasn't changing out of her coveralls, and he wondered what she was waiting for.
She looked at him over Tomek's head. "I can't get changed with him sitting on me."
"I can hold him for you," Yaaf offered.
She hesitated, but he didn't wait for her to decide and lifted Tomek from her lap, moving him onto his own. The boy came, stiff and unwilling. He sat on Yaaf's knee as if he was sitting on top of a volcano that was about to erupt at any moment.
"There is no reason for you to be scared of me," Yaaf said quietly. "I don't bite."
His words were meant to ease the boy, but they did the opposite.
Tomek turned to look up at him with wide eyes full of terror and lifted one small finger to point at Yaaf's mouth.
"Yes, you do," Tomek whispered. "You have fangs."
The boy was right, Yaaf realized as he ran his tongue over his teeth. His fangs had descended without him noticing. It wasn't in response to danger, because nothing so far had been threatening, so it could be only in response to the other trigger.
His attraction to Sullha must have been the catalyst, and his body responded as any immortal male's would, but his mind hadn't been tracking it.
The collective registered the finding with interest.
The venom glands had engaged, and the fangs had descended, the body readying itself for something that the mind had not consciously initiated, and it was notable that this response had fired while the other, more obvious one had not. The collective wasn't distressed by the mismatched response, only curious, and wondered what it meant for the future of Yaaf and Sullha's relationship.
"One day you will have fangs too," he told the boy. "When you turn immortal. They are very cool."
"I don't want to have fangs," Tomek said, but it didn't sound convincing.
"They come with a lot of other benefits. You will get stronger, faster, you'll see farther and hear better."
"That is cool," Tomek agreed. "Do you like being a soldier?"
That wasn't an easy question to answer. "I like being able to protect the people I care about, like you and your mother. But I want to be more than just a soldier. I want to be all the things I could be."
From the corner of his eye, Yaaf could see Sullha watching him with a frown.
Tomek's posture relaxed, and he started swinging his legs back and forth. "I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Mama says that all boys have to become soldiers when they are thirteen, and that I need to be prepared."
Yaaf felt like drawing the boy to his chest, wrapping his arms around him, and telling him he wasn't going to become a soldier if he didn't want to, but it was too early to make such promises. As long as they were still on the island, Tomek's freedom to choose his destiny was not guaranteed.
"Perhaps you won't have to become a soldier." Sullha reached for her son. "The future is not set in stone."
The boy settled on her lap, much more comfortable sitting on his mother than on Yaaf, but he no longer looked at him with as much suspicion and apprehension as before.
Yaaf leaned back against the canvas side and closed his eyes.
The Eight hadn't slept at all last night, but that was okay. They could handle a few days without sleep.
He opened them when the truck stopped in front of the lab and went to lift the tarp in the back.
