AARYN

"Did you know about this?" he asked Robbe in a quiet corner half an hour later as they waited for those he'd called to arrive.

Robbe frowned, his eerily bright eyes—even lighter than Aaryn's—flashing beneath his white hair. "I knew there was talk of it. I knew a couple had even run off looking for them. But I didn't know they were going into the human world and bringing them back."

"It? A new city?"

"That's what they're calling it, I think. But I suspect it's just disenfranchised Anima all gathered in the same place. I mean, don't get me wrong, they must have tribes, or packs, or something. But these kids are fooling themselves if they think they're heading out there to find another Tree City."

"Why didn't you mention this to me?" Aaryn growled.

Robbe shook his head. "I thought you knew. These rumors aren't old."

"No, but our people leaving to go find it, is."

Aaryn wanted to snort the air out of his nose when his friend just shrugged. The only reason he hadn't appointed Robbe as his new Second was because the male was far too laid back. He took Reth's obliviousness and raised it an air of "who cares?" It was a pity. Robbe was intelligent, good at mediating, and it was rare that he lost his head. He would have made the perfect Second on those characteristics alone.

"I'll be honest with you, Aaryn, I always figured you and Gar had secret little conferences and figured this stuff out between you. He's been pretty open about it."

"Uh, no, he hasn't!" Aaryn growled. "Because I didn't know."

Robbe flapped a hand. "I mean, all the disformed know about the training and the vow, and… look, you can't blame them, can you?"

"What are you talking about? We are right on the edge of getting our own tribe—if this doesn't piss her off so much that she delays it. Do you have any clue what they've done, Robbe? Any clue how much this might set us back?"

"But he's her brother! I mean, he probably told her!"

"No, he didn't!" Aaryn didn't realize he'd raised his voice until the noise of all the chatter in the cave suddenly went quiet. He sighed and turned to address everyone who'd gathered on the floor and couches. "I need to know who was aware that humans had been brought into Anima," he said, his voice low and hard.

Eight or nine of the disformed raised their hands—all males, and all in positions of moderate leadership. Some had trained with Gar, two had not—but they were two of the birds Aaryn had appointed as trackers. They led the groups that went to the traverse to make sure they wouldn't run into any other Anima.

"And why didn't you bring this to me?" he said very quietly, through his teeth.

One of the wolf males piped up, "I assumed you knew."

Aaryn snorted the air from his nostrils and let them all scent the anger in him. "I would never, never have approved this! And I struggle to believe that all of you who knew were just blithely assuming I already knew and there was no need to check in. Had you been lied to? Told that I knew? Who made this happen?"

"I heard about it from Gar," one of the birds said, his eyes dark. "And I was grateful there was another option. I mean, it's not like the females are perching in my tree."

A few other voices added their affirmations to that idea.

Aaryn shook his head. "So, Gar tells you something and you assume I know it, but you never mention it, never question me—not even casually raise it in conversation? Are you lying to me, or did Gar lie to you?"

He stood over them, bristling, and one by one they became more submissive as they realized how seriously he was taking this.

Aaryn opened his mouth again to demand an answer, when a deep voice called from the entrance of the cave, "No, you aren't being lied to, and I only spoke to the males that seemed on the cusp of leaving, to give them hope." Gar, wide and looming, sauntered into the cave in a pair of leathers and no shirt, his massive upper body sheened in sweat.

Aaryn blinked, flipping back in his mind to those who'd raised their hands that they knew. All of them very central in the disformed, though many were young.

They'd all considered leaving? Seriously enough that even Gar noticed it?

Gar did a double-take when he scented Hannah at the edge of the cave, then he snapped his head to Aaryn. "Wait… what—"

"My mate and I were interrupted early this morning on the last morning of our trip," Aaryn said through his teeth. "I've since learned that not only do we have an entire faction of trained disformed who are actively seeking mates in the human world, but apparently they're willing to lie and use the skills we gave them to bring those females back and go running off into the low desert looking for some rumored City?"

Gar snorted. "Who believed that?"

Marryk piped up from behind the couch where he stood, keeping Hannah slightly behind the others. "You told me that there was an entire faction out there! That they weren't under the rule of the throne. They just lived their lives and—"

"I didn't tell you to try and find it!" Gar said, incredulous.

Aaryn rounded on him. "You of all people know the draw of the unknown, Gar. How easy it is to get swept up in what might be—and reject what already is!"

"Hey, don't put this on me. I stuck to the vows and I made sure they did, too. If they're breaking vows, it's on their own backs. I didn't tell them to."

"You told us that nothing can break the mate bond. That the rules don't apply if we find our mates in the human world!" Marryk snapped.

A handful of others—all in training—nodded or added their agreement.

Aaryn's mouth fell open. "Is this why you've all been training? You think that your mates are in the human world and you'll go get them and… what? Create some kind of new life out in the desert?"

"I don't think this is the time to pick apart who said what, or what they took from it," Elreth said quietly from behind him. Aaryn turned and everyone else looked past him, to her. "Right now the pressing business is that we have humans in Anima. Humans with knowledge how to cross—and apparently, the assistance of the disformed to do so. So you all tell me, how did this begin? When did you begin bringing enemies into my camp, under my nose?" she snarled. "When did it become a part of the disformed way to breach the safety of my kingdom?"

Her eyes flashed with the gold of her lion and her scent took over the room.

Everyone in the room submitted, except Aaryn.

And Gar.

Aaryn's stomach sank as Elreth's brother folded his arms and growled, "No one was trying to breach the safety of your precious Kingdom. But some people are quite happy to leave it. And maybe you should think about that."