AARYN

"You saw Dad last night," Gar grunted. "He was just waiting for a chance to come down on me."

"That was partly my fault though. I… might have let slip about your mom knowing about the disformed tribe."

"You did WHAT?" Gar sat straight up. "Is that what he was so mad about last night?"

Aaryn nodded. "I didn't mean to. He knew about the tribe—about me as Alpha. I figured he knew because he'd either followed Elia or she'd told him. But it took him completely off guard. He had no idea she and Gahrye worked with us to organize. I haven't seen him that off balance… ever."

Gar whistled long and low. "He's going to have fucking kittens."

"Did you hear anything from them last night?"

"There was yelling at one point, but he's such an asshole when he's all up in his pride, I didn't want to listen to it, so I closed my ears. It didn't last long. But they also didn't make up."

"How do you know?"

Gar grimaced. "Because every time they have a real fight, they fuck like animals for hours afterwards. It's sick."

Aaryn huffed. "You and Elreth… you should both be so glad that your parents still love each other—still want each other. I think it would be awesome to get to that age and still be in love."

"They can love each other as much as they want, he just needs to stop roaring about it. I don't need to hear that. And it's worse since they're in the tree. At least the cave muffled the sound a little. Unless they were in the bathing pools. Now though…" He shuddered.

Aaryn chuckled. "Poor little Gar, getting a taste of his own medicine."

"What medicine? I don't roar to the whole City every time I get my rocks off."

"No, you just let all the females follow you around stinking of sex and desire. It's much better, you're right."

"Can you blame them," Gar asked, indicating his own body with a grin and he looked so like Reth in that moment, Aaryn's jaw almost dropped.

"Wow. Is that what you do when you're in the human world? You just take off your clothes and let them smell you?"

"You can't take off your pants over there, and even taking off your shirt depends on where you are, and what you're doing. Females can't take them off at all. And their clothes are so uncomfortable. It's a real bitch."

"Spoken like a true grown up," Aaryn muttered.

"Well, if everyone—including my sister is going to treat me like a child…"

"They don't get a chance to see you act like anything else, Gar. Why don't you tell them what you're doing? At least Elreth—it would probably give her some peace of mind!"

"No."

"But—"

"I said no—and if you tell any of them, I'm going to stop. I am doing this because I want to, not because my fucking sister orders me to."

Aaryn shook his head. "So you'd stop helping an entire tribe just because your sister told you to keep doing what you're doing?"

"No," he growled. "I'd stop doing it because she wouldn't just say 'you do you.' She'd end up hanging over my shoulder, bleating about how I do it, when I do it, whether I should do it differently, blah, blah, blah…"

They argued back and forth for a few minutes, but in the end, nothing had changed. Gar was as stubborn as his father and sister—though none of them could see it—and fighting with him would only make him more determined. So, Aaryn changed the subject.

But even as they moved onto more pleasant subjects, and Aaryn remembered why he appreciated Gar's straightforward way of looking at the world, he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that had driven him here.

He prayed Reth and Elia didn't continue to argue today.

*****

ELRETH

For the first time in a long time, her mother joined her at the breakfast table, without her father. As soon as Elreth saw her sit, she stared.

Her mother was in one of her normal dresses, but her hair was already falling out of her braid, and her eyes had deep shadows underneath.

And Elreth's father wasn't with her.

Luckily, neither of Elreth's Cohorts were available. El waited until they'd been served and everyone was busy eating before she spoke, without turning, her voice low below the murmur of the crowds at the tables, and eyes out over the market, not fixed on her mother.

"What happened last night?" she asked quietly.

Her mother stared at her plate, but didn't eat. "Last night was… probably the most difficult of my life, El," she said faintly.

Elreth went cold. "What? Why?"

"Your father found out I'd hidden something from him. Something that he had asked me about specifically, and I had lied to him. I'm sure you can imagine he wasn't very excited to find that out."

"How did he find out?"

"Aaryn knew something and I guess they talked about it, and Aaryn thought Reth would know… or something, I don't know. We didn't really get into that part of it. The point is… take it from me, Elreth, no matter how deeply in love you are, no matter how much you have been through, lying to your mate never achieves anything good."

Elreth internally shrugged. She couldn't see that there would ever be a need to lie to Aaryn, so why did it matter? But obviously her mother was hurting.

Really hurting.

She was just staring at her plate, not eating. Elreth put a hand to her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Her mother sighed and shook her head. "No, I'm really not. Your father's never been that angry at me before. Ever. It was… difficult to understand after all this time."

Elreth looked around to make sure there was no one close. "What the hell are you all talking about and hiding from each other? Aaryn laid a bombshell or two of his own last night and I just about swallowed my tongue. Is this about the disformed?"

Her mother snapped her head around to look at Elreth, wide-eyed. "He told you?"