Broken Wings by Melanie Nilles Page B

Corsa shrugged and reached
for a covered bowl set aside from the hot plate, or whatever the
thing was. ["Sorry, it's cold. Unfortunately, most of what we're
able to obtain is."]
    Alien food. Maybe she didn't want to
eat. Her stomach argued against skipping food, though, traitor that
it was to avoiding strange foods that might not agree with her. She
might have been meant to live on that world, but she'd grown up
eating food suitable to humans.
    Raea accepted the bowl and
flipped up the hinged lid. Strange but familiar. It kind of
reminded her of sliced water chestnuts in some type of orange
sauce. ["What is it?"] She poked at it—soft and spongy. So not water
chestnuts.
    ["The best we can get here.
All our rations are dehydrated and only need water added. It's
sliced loprol with seim sauce."]
    What with what sauce? On second
thought, Raea didn't want to know. She had to eat something and she
wasn't exactly going to get a hamburger and fries here. She took
the ladle-like utensil Corsa handed her and stirred the mushy
stuff.
    ["Not the best cold, but we thought
you'd be awake sooner."]
    Great. By the sound of it, this stuff
wasn't very good cold. Just her luck. She was too hungry to wait
for it to reheat, though. Raea lifted one of the pale slices to her
mouth, detesting Corsa watching her. She wouldn't react, even if it
tasted dreadful.
    The slimy piece slipped into her
mouth.
    Aside from the squishy chewiness of
the solid pieces, the sauce was sweet, reminding her of lemons,
honey, and…berries, maybe. She took another bite. Sure enough.
["Not bad."] Kind of like calamari—without the fishy flavor—in a
sweet sauce. She could get used to this.
    ["Not too different from Earth
food?"]
    Raea choked down a mouthful. ["No,
actually. I—"]
    Something clattered on the pipes
behind her, but it was Cris's face popping up next to her that made
her jump. He smiled and squeezed through a couple of large pipes.
["I thought I'd find you here."] He glanced between pipes back the
way he had come, before sitting on the lowest next to her. ["So,
when you're done, you want to join me on my next
shift?"]
    ["Absolutely not."] Corsa crossed her
arms, the shadows of her high cheekbones seeming to darken with her
mood. ["We can't risk her running into the Shirukan. Leksel would
rip out your feathers."]
    Cris shrugged, but peeked back over
his shoulder. ["I'm not afraid of him."]
    As if! Raea swallowed another bite to
hide the grin tugging at her mouth. ["Then who are you afraid
of?"]
    ["No one. No one. Just looking out for
you."]
    What a liar. Raea met Corsa's doubtful
gaze, which hinted of a smirk.
    Corsa looked aside.
["Leksel."]
    ["What?"] Cris scrambled to slip
between pipes, his left wing joint catching.
    Raea covered her mouth to keep from
laughing food all over. It served him right for lying.
    Cris hesitated and looked back. The
fear gave way to narrowed eyes as he crawled back to join them.
["Not funny, Corsa,"] he grumbled.
    ["Too easy. Besides, aren't you
supposed to be going on patrol?"]
    He shrugged, his eyes on Raea, a
question in the lift of his brows.
    The answer was still no. Raea held her
tongue and took another bite as an excuse to say nothing. If he was
Elis, that would be different, but she wasn't interested in Cris.
He was funny and cute, but disrespectful and too desperate. Elis
had never been like that, until the matter of bonding came
up.
    While she couldn't imagine her life
without Elis, she barely knew him. Their relationship was so new
and yet wonderful, except that she couldn't have it all. She had to
choose.
    Fate had chosen for her. She had been
taken from her home.
    What if she never returned? Would she
see Elis again? Would he find a way there to come for her? If she
survived, would she ever return to him? The thought of never seeing
him again lumped in her throat and stung her eyes.
    She cleared her throat of the clogging
emotions. Cris's eyes fixed on her with concern.
    Raea looked away. ["It's nothing. I
just