AARYN

Elreth stepped off the rock, her strides short and stiff, and came to stand in front of him again and Aaryn stopped pacing, clenching his hands to fists at his side. Elreth's nostrils flared as she stared up at him.

"I'm your True Mate," she said in a hushed, shaking voice. "I am not perfect, but I love you. And I want to succeed with you, not against you."

"El—" he sighed.

But she shook her head and kept going. "You get to make the choice, Aaryn. I won't force you to give up the Alpha. I won't force you to become my Advisor. But I want you to ask yourself who's YOUR biggest support? Who's the most invested in seeing you succeed? Who will stand next to you no matter what? Because one thing is for sure—if they'll reject you because you make one choice they don't like, it's not them."

Aaryn huffed. "That's not fair, Elreth."

"Isn't it? Because they aren't the ones here fighting to have you. They aren't the ones breaking apart at the idea of losing you. Have you even asked them what they'd think of having another Alpha?"

"Of course not, because I earned my place and I am loyal to them—that's why they wanted me in the first place!" he barked.

"You won them. They didn't ask for you. That's how dominance works, Aaryn."

He nodded sharply. "You're right. But now they follow me because they want me there. I proved myself to them. I proved how much I cared and what I was willing to do to help them. They trust me. If I leave them now, they'll think it was all an act, just a way to get myself ahead—that once I got that taste of power I just waved my hand and said, 'see you.' I'm not putting them through that, El!"

"You'd put me through it," she snapped.

"No! I'm not! You're the one telling me that I can't do both. You're the one telling me that we have to listen to other people, other tribes—who aren't even a part of this!—and that's why I have to choose. But you don't get it! Asking me to give up the disformed is like asking me to give up a limb. I am a disformed! Everything I am, everything I do in this life is because I'm disformed! That's who I am!"

Elreth's brow pressed up and her eyes narrowed. "That's bullshit, Aaryn. Being disformed is what you are. It's the cards you were dealt. It's what you live. But it isn't who you are." She put a hand to his chest and spoke to it, her voice shaking, her jaw tense with the emotion she felt. "You are the male you became. You are the choices you make. You are the values you hold. You are the sum total of your mistakes, and your successes. You are your character and your intentions. And you are good. You are a good male. The best. That's why I love you. That's why I need you. All of Anima needs more males like you who put themselves aside for the good of others. I know that because I followed one of them my whole life and now I'm Mated to one.

"I have more good males in my life than anyone else I know. And I praise the Creator for it. But being good doesn't make you perfect—my Dad taught me that. And being well-intended doesn't mean you can't get it wrong. You're wrong on this, Aaryn. You're wrong. And you're going to hurt me—and hurt all of Anima—if you don't see that before it's too late."

"But—"

"Being disformed is not who you are!" she said, her voice trembling with the force of her emotions. "It is what you are."

"Maybe. But I can't just separate from it, either. If you say I'm good, I'm good in part because I'm disformed. I wouldn't be the same male if I hadn't been! So why would you ask me to cut that part of myself off?"

"I'm not!" she cried. "I'm asking you to use it for the good of everyone, not just one tribe!"

"Benefitting the disformed is for the good of everyone!"

"I agree! Can't you see!? I'm offering you the chance to have more power to help them—to help everyone. To use what you know to lead and guide me and everyone else so we can all be better at this! You'll be in the prime position, Aaryn—you will keep helping the disformed and they will see it. But you'll also help the other tribes. All of them! You'll influence everyone so that they can more clearly see the value of the disformed… Creator's Beard, isn't that alone a reason to take it? If you're the Advisor to the Queen, and you're a disformed, literally every Anima will be able to see how valuable you are! How much you have to offer! It will give them new eyes to look at the rest of your people!"

"That doesn't do any good if my people have left or retreated because they've come to believe no one will stand by them. I don't think you realize how shaky this whole thing is, El, How hard I've worked to keep them here, to keep them true to the throne."

"Maybe I don't," she conceded. "But how can I if you keep hiding things from me? If you don't tell me. If I have to learn like this, when you're mad and running away?"

"Don't do this right now, El."

"I'm not doing anything except trying to get you to see that we are in this together. And if we don't fight for that, the rest won't work either."

Aaryn shook his head, snorting and started to turn away in frustration, but she grabbed his arm and made him face her. "I know how good you are, Aaryn. I do. But you are not perfect. Neither am I. Don't let a mistake break down everything we want, everything we're aiming for. Don't let the people who have become fearful ruin it for everyone else.

"You're disformed, I get it. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But that's not all you are. You're also a wolf, and I'm a lion. And you're good. And so am I. Being good has nothing to do with being disformed. There are good disformed, and bad disformed, just like there are good wolves and bad wolves, good lions and bad lions. You're a good one, Aaryn. I know that. And I'll never stop loving you, no matter what choice you make. But you are not perfect. And right now, you are wrong if you abandon me to this because of them."

Aaryn blinked like she'd flicked water in his face. "El…"

She waited, but he didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. His head spun. He knew she was right about a lot of that. But she didn't see the disformed from their perspective. She didn't realize how easy it would be for all of them to just give up.

He didn't know what to say. He wasn't abandoning her!

But how to make her understand?

Elreth sighed and they stared at each other.

He watched as she put a hand to his chest with a little huff, then turned and walked back into the cave.