“You brought a girl!” “She’s not a girl,” Nik snapped. I whirled on him. “Of course I’m a girl! What did you think I was?” “Not like that,” he corrected, his ears turning ever so slightly red. “Not like she means, I meant. That is…” He gave up after that, throwing a hand out toward the machine woman instead. “Opal, this is Rena. Rena, Opal.”
