I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 507: One Use Only part two

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"Yes," she said. "One channel. One... favorite. One anchor. After that, I still have teeth and claws. I still have small licks. I can still help many. But the big river will only ever flow truly for one."

He looked at his healed hand again, the skin smooth and unblemished. The idea of that much power, that much choice, condensed into something as simple as a touch, made his stomach twist.

"You cannot... change it later," he asked. "If you chose wrong."

"Not without breaking myself in ways neither of us would enjoy," she said. "So do not choose wrong."

Simple, then. No pressure at all.

His thoughts must have leaked, because she added, gentler, "I do not have to use it soon. It sits. It waits. It is not like your Apex. It does not itch."

"Of course it itches," he said. "Everything powerful itches. You just do not know the word yet."

He felt the echo of her silent laugh in his chest.

Luna finished palpating Miryam’s forearms and moved down to her legs, fingers pressing along muscles that seemed to have been grown by someone who understood entirely too well what efficient movement looked like.

"Range of motion," Luna muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "No stiffness. No tremors. Reflexes normal. Pupil response is... unnerving but functional."

She waved a hand suddenly at Miryam’s face. Miryam did not blink. Then, very deliberately, she blinked twice, clearly just to annoy her.

"Congratulations," Luna sighed. "You are perfectly healthy and mildly obnoxious. It is like having Kai in duplicate."

"If you are trying to hurt my feelings, you will have to aim better," Kai said.

He shifted on the stone block and immediately regretted it as pain spiked through his side.

Miryam’s head snapped toward him, eyes narrowing.

"Sit still," she ordered.

"I am sitting," he said. "I twitched. There is a difference."

"Do not twitch," she said. "Your insides are not glued properly yet."

Luna nodded approvingly.

"See," she said to Kai. "She has excellent bedside manner. You should let her assist me more often."

"You are not using her as an intern healer, she is my god daughter and my responsibility," he said.

Miryam ignored the word daughter, but the responsibility word warmth through the Road betrayed her pleasure.

"She already is," Miryam observed. "I fixed your hand. I can fix other things. I will lick her if necessary."

Luna blinked.

"I beg your pardon," she said.

Kai coughed quickly before Miryam could follow that thought to its natural, horrifying conclusion.

"You will not be licking Luna," he said firmly. "Or anyone else. Not without serious discussion first."

Miryam tipped her head.

"You bleed first," she said. "You are a priority. Others can wait."

The possessive certainty in her tone made something deep in his insect half hum with uncomfortable satisfaction. His human half, the one that remembered being alone and hungry and stateless under a human name that had long since burned away, felt a different ache.

He had not set out to collect people who claimed him.

He had acquired them anyway.

"Speaking of bleeding," Luna said, clearly deciding that if the conversation was going to keep circling back to bodily fluids she might as well steer. "You do not get to take that new trick out for a walk tonight, Miryam. Not on him. Not on anyone. You just hatched. Your core is still settling. If you start pouring significant amounts of anything out of it right now, I will knock both of you out and put you in separate rooms."

Miryam’s eyes flashed.

"He is hurt," she said via the Road, not deigning to respond aloud. "I could fix him. Completely. One lick. Maybe two. I could seal his ribs, erase all of today’s foolishness. He would be whole for tomorrow."

Kai felt the temptation in her like a physical tug. Miryam had always been greedy where he was concerned, greedy in a way that had once been about food and warmth and safety, and had now grown into something larger and more complicated. The idea of having the power to erase his pain and not using it went against every protective instinct coiled inside her new ribs.

He gently pushed back along their bond.

"And then," he said quietly, "we would have spent your time. On me. When I am already – mostly – alive. When there are seven hundred others who might need you more. When Vorak has not even had a chance to be as stupid as I was today. When there is a whole hive of risks ahead."

"You are the hive," she said stubbornly.

"Part of it," he corrected. "Important. But not all. If we burn that river on my bruises and bad decisions, we will not have it later for whatever knife the world throws at us when we are not looking. And it will throw one. It always does."

She was quiet for a long moment.

From the outside, she sat very still on the stone, letting Luna check the flex of her ankles, her gaze fixed on him with an unreadable expression that made Luna glance between them suspiciously, as if suspecting a conversation she had not been invited to.

Along the Soul Road, the silence was anything but empty. It was crowded with images: Kai falling on the ramp; Kai’s back arching under caster fire; Kai’s blood on the stone; Kai’s aura flickering low. Miryam’s dislike of those images crackled like static.

At last, reluctantly, she exhaled.

"Fine," she said. "We do not use the big one. Not yet. But I will still lick you. Smaller. Bits at a time. The heart says small uses do not trigger the binding. They make things easier. They soothe. They taste like... practice."

"The heart is a place of gossip," Kai said.

"It is helpful," she said.

"It is helping you gang up on me," he replied.

"That is also helpful," she said.

He rubbed his face. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Luna finished her last check with a satisfied grunt and stepped back, folding her arms.