He didn’t understand why it mattered to Jedao. If Jedao wanted to be a benevolent (if apparently temporary) master, fine, but why tell Kujen all this? It didn’t make any real difference to Kujen. He didn’t want to go to a heptarchate orphanage.
“I want to go home,” Kujen said quietly.
“I bet. I’m sorry. Do you have family back on Erchanno?”
Yennefer didn’t want to take the eggs through a portal so soon after laying; ichneumonae were so sensitive to chaos, and they knew so little about what might impinge their development. Lambert, still under the influence of her pain-blocking spell, didn’t protest as vociferously as he might have, but he was clearly not comfortable. He walked behind her with a grim, drawn expression. Several times she turned to check on him before finally asking outright if he was in pain. He shook his head.
The second time she asked, he grinned sneeringly at her. “Usually when I can’t feel my vital organs after an adrenaline crash it means it was nerve damage.”
“You should—”
He held up a hand, the one not hovering over his abdomen. “It just feels weird. You can hover when we get back to the cabin.”
⛓️: the file name says gangbang for an aesthetically preferable number of Gs but it’s gangrape + assorted other black cradle / anchor noncon elements. sorry jedao. (i’m not sorry)
The modding isn’t your best work. If you’d had another month—but you and Jedao are the only ones who’ll know you skimped on the shape and extent of his scars. He’ll probably think you did it to nag him.
A line of neat stitches under the sternum, seven knots tied off one by one with a twist of your wrist. In future, when the chrysalis gun is ready for deployment in situations without a readily available surgeon, a conscious volunteer—or “volunteer”—might be able to take the fragments orally for the same effect. Since you are a surgeon, you find it easier to take the direct route to the body cavity.
The kid ate at a measured, deliberate pace, but he still scraped his bowl clean before Jedao was halfway done. He didn’t ask for seconds—he’d been uncannily agreeable this entire time, to the point Jedao had almost considered calling Liyeng back up and asking if he was sure this child was Kujen. He did keep sneaking hungry looks at Jedao’s food.
Maybe it took a lot of energy to accidentally convert from revenant to flesh-and-blood teenager. In any case, continuing to eat while a kid pretended not to be staring his lunch down like a ravenous hyena was making him feel like a dick. “Do you want seconds?” Jedao asked.
“I don’t need any more,” Kujen demurred.
Weird. Also, not an answer. Jedao flagged down a waiter and ordered another bowl for Kujen.
Yennefer had not lived in close quarters with another person for—years. Decades. Not since she was a youth in the dormitories of Aretuza.
She did have Geralt with her periodically, sometimes for only a few days, sometimes for several hedonistic weeks, but usually she hosted him in her well-outfitted townhouse in Vengerberg rather than in a swamp hovel. And with Geralt it was easy to get away when they scratched at each other too viciously. He would go on to his next contract, and after taking the space to lick his wounds from the latest spat they could reunite friendlier.
Were there men Baru could get for her? She couldn’t think of a single name. But yes, a man, of course, she would need a man. She could—It could be—
Baru was standing right there, her hand with the missing fingers around the door frame, totally focused on her. Her expression was desperate, a little agonized. “Uh, Nullsin, maybe—?”
“No,” Aminata said, horrified.
“...I’ll ask the crew.” She didn’t break eye contact or turn away, but she withdrew slightly from the open door.
“Don’t leave,” Aminata’s traitor mouth said before her mind caught up.
Someone loops a long piece of cloth around their fingers, yanks it gleefully tight between their hands. Jedao doesn’t catch the significance of it right away. When he does, he jerks futilely against the Andan holding him in place. “No—wait—”
A fox buries a fist in his hair, yanks his head up and back. Jedao gives up on begging, jaw tight as they knot the blindfold in place. They let go of him with a shove and he falls forward onto his knees, breathing fast and panicky.