Her Three Alphas
What I saw in it was not pain exactly, Soren's understanding of this situation was too complete for pain to be the primary register, but it was something, some particular weight passing through him, and I watched him move through it and come out the other side with that characteristic steadiness of his, slightly more deliberate than usual, slightly more consciously assembled.
"Good morning," he said, and his voice was even and warm and had only the faintest additional texture to indicate that the morning was a specific one rather than a generic one. I stopped in front of him and did not offer either explanation or apology because he had neither asked for nor needed either. I looked at him di