Winter & Wing

Chapter Two

After we've been talking for a while on the edge of the bed, our door swings open and Beatrice reappears. The smug look on her face makes me look away.

"Happy reunion?" she says.

Neither of us responds.

"After we administer your medications, we'll escort you down to the dining hall where you will be having your meals from now on. Instead of having them in your chambers among cellmates as you've had in the past, you will now be able to share meals with other hybrid pairs such as yourselves."

We both snap our gazes over to her at that.

She laughs. "Oh, not Faru pairs. No. You two are the last of them. But other hybrids, such as Taigans and Ursans."

Oh.

"We hope that meeting others in a similar situation to yourselves will help... inspire you. Or give you comfort. Whatever you need."

I glance at Lonan, and he's glowering now. He's probably thinking exactly what I am. Yeah, whatever we need to appease you monsters.

Two nurses file in when Beatrice beckons them. One scurries over to me with a small tray and three syringes filled with different-colored liquids.

"Wait, what are those?" Lonan says, leaning over me to look at my injections. His nurse is already pricking him, but he doesn't seem to care. "They look different from mine."

"Of course they'll be different," Beatrice snaps. "You are male. She is female."

"What's in them?" he demands.

Beatrice lets out an exasperated sigh. "If you must know, she is getting medication to make her more fertile. It's the dead of winter. We have to do everything in our power to trick her body into believing it is spring."

I shiver and lean against Lonan.

Spring is mating season for nearly every hybrid on earth. While it's possible for babies to be conceived from other seasons, spring is the ideal time for hybrids to begin families. However, I do know I was a summer surprise to my parents.

When the injections are complete, the nurses depart, and Beatrice waves us over. "Come."

As we follow her down the hall, I cling to Lonan's hand. He gives me a reassuring squeeze and glances down at me with a smile.

A smile that sends a wave of grief through my chest.

He looked at me just like that the day our village was destroyed, our families and neighbors murdered, and we were carted away together as prisoners. He wrapped his arm around me, his wing draped down my back, and he smiled. A morose, pain-stricken smile that is supposed to say, Everything will be all right.

But it really just says, Nothing's all right, but I'm here with you.

At least part of it is comforting.

At the end of the corridor is a door to a spiral staircase. We follow Beatrice down. I can't help but be fascinated by the way these simple steps curl under each other, transporting us from one level of the prison to the next.

"Haven't used stairs in a while?" Lonan murmurs to me once we're at the bottom, making me flinch. I realize I've been staring back at them after we've already walked halfway down this level's corridor.

"Oh, um. No, it's not--" I feel my face heat up from embarrassment. "I've never seen stairs look like that."

Lonan looks from me, back over his shoulder at the staircase, then to me again. Then he gives my hand another squeeze as a genuine, happy smile curls up his lips, and my mind goes blank for a second.