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AARYN

There was no shifting to beast form for the disformed. When Garthe came at him, it was pure combat. And Aaryn was ready.

Reth had been training him and Elreth since he was twelve and she'd brought him home from that group of wolves, bruised and embarrassed. His own father had been dead since he was four, and his mother wasn't a fighter. He'd strengthened as best he could as a cub. But he was more aggressive than skilled.

Until he trained.

Then he'd learned the value of discipline. And strategy.

While lions hunted in prides and made use of their numbers, wolves hunted in packs that could communicate even at distance. He'd yearned as a young cub to join the training of the youth who could shift, to learn the strategies and teamwork they grew up knowing like breathing.

But as well as being unable to shift, he couldn't tap into the wolf pack-mind. It had never been accessible to him. And the other wolves didn't trust someone at their back whose thoughts they couldn't hear.

The wolf pack-mind was the one secret he'd never told Elreth, though he'd been tempted. There were days when they'd been in training—especially when Reth taught them to fight together against bigger, or a more numerous enemy, that he wished he could communicate with Elreth that way. They already seemed connected on some unseen level, able to anticipate what each other would do. But it was a secret that had never been breached. And the wolves in Anima were so few now… he'd always decided against it.

But now he faced a lion opponent, which took an entirely different strategy and focus. The leonine were powerful and fearless, and even when they didn't seek to kill, they didn't flinch from harm—to themselves, or their opponents.

Reth had warned him. "If you're ever fighting a lion, remember we will ignore harm to ourselves if it will open an opportunity for us to do greater harm to our opponent. Never, ever, take the easy shot on a Leonine. They are waiting to trap you."

The thoughts flashed through Aaryn's head in the split-second it took for Garthe to swing—high and wide, going for Aaryn's temple, and leaving his own ribs exposed.

Instinctively, Aaryn would have taken the open shot in an attempt to bruise, or even crack a rib and limit Garthe's mobility. But with Reth's words ringing in his head, he side-stepped instead and delivered a kick to Garthe's kidney.

The lion grunted and whirled, his aborted feint becoming a protective dance out of reach.

Aaryn stayed on the balls of his feet, hands in front of his chest and face, waiting for an opening to strike. But Garthe had trained too—though not at Reth's torturous dawn sessions.

"The last thing the disformed need is to be fighting among ourselves, Garthe," he said as his Second—and friend—snarled and circled, searching for an opening to strike.

"The thing we need even less is to be led by a male whose loyalty lies somewhere else first."

Aaryn growled. "You really believe me disloyal? Me!?" he snarled for the sake of the others who would watch and not interfere until one of them emerged victorious. Then he flowed forward, pushing Garthe back, deeper into the cave to avoid his barrage of strikes and thrusts, careful to only threaten contact and not force the broader, shorter Leonine into grappling, where his lower center of gravity would give him an advantage. No, Aaryn wanted to move him, not engage him. There was a bend in the cave structure that he could use if he could push his second far enough back.

"You are my second, Garthe. Is this really the way we need to resolve this? Do you force me to harm you to prove my dominance?"

"I will no longer accept your diluted form of leadership," his friend growled, throwing a knife-hand that almost took Aaryn in the temple, but he ducked and swept his leg in one move, almost bringing Garthe off his feet. As the lion leaped backwards to avoid the sweep, he became aware of the wall behind him that would limit his movement. He took a half-second glance to assess his position in relation to it, and Aaryn took the opening he'd been looking for, feinting a strike to the same side of Garth as the wall he was trying to avoid. But instead of finishing the strike as Garthe widened his stance to shift in the other direction, Aaryn whipped forward, locking his ankle behind Garthe's now braced leg and, grabbing the lion at the neck, swung his other arm like a bar across his chest, pulling his second down and over his own leg, then plowing him into the stone floor of the cave.

Garthe hit the damp stone with a thud that echoed throughout the cave and shoved the air from his lungs. Aaryn gave no quarter, but was on him, one hand planted in his heaving chest, the other primed to hammer-fist his temple, snarled through his teeth, "Do you submit?"

Garthe, both hands fisted in Aaryn's shirt, his chest pumping, seeking air he couldn't yet pull in, tried to growl, but without air he was unable to make the threat.

"Do not make me harm you, Garthe," Aaryn snarled. "Do. You. Submit?"

With a look as dark as any Aaryn had received from the bigots in the Tree City, Garthe bared his teeth, but let his head slump back to the floor and turn, breaking eye contact.

"Does anyone else wish to challenge my intentions for the disformed, for this pack of ours? Does anyone else believe me… imbalanced?"

The men all looked at each other, then shook their heads and saluted him. "No, Sir," they murmured.

Aaryn nodded. "I came to tell you that though our relationship might be somewhat strained, the Queen works actively on behalf of the disformed, and will allow me influence in her decisions, even now." He shot a look over his shoulder at Garthe who was pushing up to sit, one hand on the back of his neck. "Put it around the pack: Change is on the wind. It will take time, but the disformed will find their place."

Then he turned to face Garthe, who still wasn't meeting his eyes—which was only as it should be when he'd been dominated so thoroughly. "Next time, speak to me. This wasn't necessary. But as we stand… I remove you from Second. When I stand against a true enemy, I cannot have someone at my back that wishes to remove me. I will announce my new Second tomorrow. Consider yourself, Garthe. You are valued here, and needed. But if you will not work with us—with all of us—we will isolate you."

Then, with a look at each of the males present, he stormed out of the cave, his heart pounding. He prayed when they heard it, they put it down to his run to the cave, then physical fight. Not to his fear that his former-Second had good reason to accuse him.