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He wanted to ask but what was he supposed to say and not say to her? So much ignorance and zero bliss.

A full minute of silence began to feel like a sidewalk in a crowded city, making him twitchy. “How many of those things have you given birth to?”

“Over two hundred,” she murmured, keeping her gaze on the window.

His eyes caught on those dirty, tiny toes again. Flashes of her ripping the head from that beast reminded him she only looked helpless. Two hundred of those monsters she’d suffered through to gain mercy and time. For the precious few people worth helping in the world.

He again pushed against that fortress around her and found it as dense as ever. “I imagine your work must get…”

“I don’t need that kind of help, Kollaborator,” she said to the window. “I’m not one of your human jobs and it would serve both of us if you quit using your powers for the wrong things since we’ll be needing every drop we have for what’s coming.”

His power was suddenly an octopus with a million rebellious arms, whipping and flopping about inside him from her reprimand. “They’re new to me,” he said, fighting to pull it in.

“As you've said,” she reminded.

He sucked in a slow breath with his own reminders. She had to be the most stressed-out mother in the universe and deserved a little vent space without worrying about grown men getting bent out of shape over it. His powers made him hyper-sensitive to all things but that didn’t mean he had to act on any of it. “I’ll do better.”

He eyed his mirrors, getting her silence followed by a light “hmm.”

Still being locked out of her mind, he wasn't sure what it meant. Possibly doubtful. Or curious.

“I can’t afford to let you in Kollaborator. It’s not personal.”

Embarrassment licked along his neck at her soft confession. She was reading him like a book. And that was the closest she could get to an apology over it. “Given your position, I understand completely. I’m actually having a hard time not using all my new gifts. Sometimes it feels like it has a mind of its own.”

“More like more than one mind,” she informed the window again.

More? “What do you mean?”

“You share powers with three Kings. Which is why I cannot afford to let you in.”

He tasted those words, rolling them about his tongue for a few seconds. They were true but not entirely.

“I could read your thoughts but that would be a waste of power,” she said. “Bad enough I have to use it to keep you out. As long as you’re tied to that darkness, I cannot allow it. If you were not tied to that darkness, perhaps I would. Bad enough I will have to use my power to get a one-way syphon from you when I need it.”

She glanced at him and he regarded her all of three seconds before focusing on the road again. What was that curious look she wore on him? “What?” he decided to ask when she returned to staring out the window.

“I should prepare you that the exchanges we will make may be pricey to you personally.” She turned an otherworldly serenity on him. “It will hurt,” she said. “In all the ways you can ever imagine pain.”

“Why?” he blurted, instantly regretting the ball-sac question.

She faced away from him, and he caught the reflection of a soft smile on her lips. “Have you ever met one of those humans that clips coupons, or cuts every corner? Picks up every penny they find?”

“You’re saying you’re frugal?”

She turned a full smile at him. “To an angelic degree.”

Her soft delicate words sent a shimmer of power along his skin. More than words, it was a warning. A very sweet one. “If it helps you to protect the Queen, I will suffer whatever is necessary.”

“Your little human will need all the protection we can give her. Normally, what grows within her would try to rip its way out of her.”

He regarded her shorn head, his gifts seeming to constantly need to assess everything about her. Particularly her current human form. Did she get to pick those out? Like humans selected clothing? Was it permanent or did she get to change at whim?

He returned to puzzle over her words. “Normally,” he repeated, curious.

“Well, dear aider of the humanities, there is not a single usual thing in this situation,” she explained with an ease that testified of the tenure on her job. “The power of three Kings as well as their Kollaborator protects her as much as it endangers her. They and you and that which has now grown to the size of a basketball in her womb has the ability to both destroy and save.”

Alarm spider-webbed through him, drawing his gaze to each mirror on the vehicle as he searched perimeters beyond human eyesight. Aside from the impenetrable wall she kept just next to her person, all was quiet still.