AARYN

By the time he'd helped Elreth move all of her things from the Great Tree home she'd been in for the past three years, across the meadow and back into the cave where she grew up, and her parents moved all their personal things from the bedchamber into her tree, Aaryn was wound tighter than the string of a nocked bow.

He'd stayed silent all afternoon, waiting for her to bring it up. To tell him what she'd been thinking when she'd said that. But it had never come up again.

Elreth asked what mate would take her?

What mate wouldn't take her?

But he didn't know how to start the conversation. A tiny voice in the back of his head kept screaming that he didn't want to encourage her, because he wanted to keep her from pursuing the other males. But he shook it off. It wasn't that he wouldn't reassure her. He just… needed to find the right time.

When she'd finally hung the last of her clothes in the closet, and thrown her own furs over the sleeping platform, it was almost time for the dinner meal.

There was a moment that she just stood in the middle of the floor of the bedchamber, looking around and shaking her head. "If you'd told me when I got up this morning…" she said quietly.

Aaryn put a hand to the back of her neck and squeezed. "It's a good thing, El," he said softly.

They stood like that for a moment in the companionable silence of old friends who knew each other well enough not to need to speak. But then Elreth sighed and stepped out of his grip.

"Let's go get some dinner," she said, though it sounded like the last thing she wanted to do.

"El," he started as she passed him, but she shook her head and plowed for the door.

"I need food," she said, not meeting his eyes.

He followed her out silently, but as they passed through the kitchen, dining, and Great Room spaces, he couldn't help looking at the cave, this place he'd been so comfortable in for so long, with new eyes.

It was hers now. Her space to live and… do whatever she pleased.

Was he going to come here before too long to see Elreth… and her mate? Watch her be mated. Claimed? Would she have cubs with someone else?

When a vision of Elreth in the hands of another male—there in the bedchamber, just as Reth and Elia had been, so comfortable and happy together—bloomed in his mind he had to roll his neck and stifle a growl.

'Why do you stink of anger?' Elreth signed as they stepped out of the cave and into the evening sunlight of the meadow on their way to the Tree City. She was very distracted if she was signing when they were alone. He supposed he couldn't blame her. It had been a big day.

'Nothing important,' he signed back. 'Big day.'

She didn't speak—or sign—again. But she walked close enough that their arms brushed as they followed the trail.

He prayed she didn't notice the hair rising on his arms.

*****

They went to the market, the open-air dining area in the middle of the Tree City. As the Dominant. Elreth was expected to sit at the Royal Table on the stage at the front. She usually sat there alongside her parents. But as they entered from the side that afternoon, she stopped suddenly and Aaryn ran into her shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

She was blinking at the table up at the front.

Normally her parents would sit there, in the center, with their advisors and seconds if they were at the meal, plus Elreth herself—and occasionally a companion of Elreth's.

Today there was no one at the table, because they were waiting for Elreth, and she hadn't named her Cohorts yet.

"I can't sit up there by myself," she whispered, and looked at him, her eyes pleading.

"Oh no. El, you know what happened last time I went up there—"

"But this is different. I'm Queen now! And Mom's Chief advisor was disformed—"

"And look where that got him!"

"Aaryn, please. I can't just be up there by myself!"

"You don't have to be. Gwyn will go with you. And Rak. Look, Dargyn's waiting over there. You know he has a crush on you. He'll do anything you want."

To his surprise, Elreth didn't deny, as she usually would, that their mutual friend had shown interest in her. Dargyn was a good male, if a little weak for Elreth in Aaryn's opinion. Usually when he teased her about the way Dar's scent spiked whenever she showed up, she rolled her eyes and said he was just easily excited. But this time… she turned and looked at each of the Anima he'd pointed out, beckoning them to come to her—which all of them did immediately. Of course.

He wanted to growl. Then he wanted to slap himself. Why was he pissed off about that? He was the one who'd suggested she bring the others.

Every time he'd let her convince him to join her at the head table someone had had something to say about it. They'd always ended up in some kind of conflict. And last time, Reth had been forced to send a Bird to the camps who'd followed him home, snapping slurs, and threats.

Aaryn had put the guy down, but Reth made an example of him.

Now he didn't just get the hissed slurs from those who were prejudiced, now he got angry glares from an entire tribe—most of whom had stayed out of the debate over the disformed until then.

The last thing he wanted to do was create a conflict for Elreth on her first day before she'd even appointed an Advisor.

So, he stayed beside and slightly behind her as the others weaved through the tables and benches to where they stood. Gwyn got there first and gave her a hug, but then slipped aside to stand next to Aaryn as the males Rak, and Dargyn reached her.