The war room was large with rows of seats on either side and a raised throne area opposite the doors. The space in the middle was bare, intended for presentations, and this was where the soldiers deposited Lolo and Fortus on their knees.

"What is this?" Evinco purred. She noted the uninvited guests' states of undress and narrowed her eyes at them. "What brings you to this restricted area of the palace?"

Lolo looked up at Evinco and blurted, "your highness, please don't tell my father!"

There was an awkward moment of silence.

"It's Huo Lohse Lang of the Wolf Tribe, isn't it? Please don't tell your father what exactly?" Evinco asked.

"About Fortus and me," Lolo dropped her gaze in a shallow bow.

"What about you two?"

Lolo looked up and bit her lip.

"About finding you together in a quiet, dark corner of the palace, half-dressed?" The corners of her mouth curled, and some of the men around the room laughed.

"My father would never accept Fortus."

"And why is that? He is the Lion General's son, after all."

"But he's not a tribe leader's son," Lolo explained.

Evinco sat back in her seat. "Explain."

Lolo took a deep breath. "I am the only female of my generation born into a tribe leader's family."

Fortus had never thought about this, but realized it was true.

Lolo continued. "My father wants to use my marriage to form an alliance with another tribe. I don't think he cares which one, but he expects me to marry into a tribe leader's family. I've never had a problem with that expectation, but then...." Lolo turned to look at Fortus, and, to his bewilderment, she started crying.

Evinco smiled. "I see. There are a great many rumors circulating around you two. I think we would all be interested to hear the truth." The otherwise silent observers lining the walls of the war room started muttering.

Lolo nodded through her tears. "You want the truth, I'll tell you. But first, please, promise me that you won't tell my father."

"Why shouldn't I tell him that his daughter has been messing around with a young man from our tribe?" Evinco countered.

"Because we're not just 'messing around'. We love each other. We want to get married."

"Is this true, Fortus?" Evinco turned to Lolo's silent partner and he nodded solemnly. "Continue."

“I developed feelings for Fortus last summer. We went through a lot together and became friends, it wasn’t until I saw him again this summer that I realized there was more to my feelings than just friendship. We came up with this absurd ruse as an excuse to date each other. Fortus publicly asked me to pose as his girlfriend to scare off some girls in town, and we got all the other exchange trainees in on it, including my brothers who know I’m not allowed to date outside of a tribe leader’s family.”

Evinco turned to look at some of her men standing to the side, and the men nodded. Lolo realized that they were confirming the details of her story. "How extensive is their intelligence network?" She would have to be careful.

“It didn’t take long for things to get out of control,” Lolo took a moment to let herself cry. “Only a couple weeks into the exchange, Fortus ended up at my door in the middle of the night, and I let him in.”

“You slept together.” Evinco seemed thrilled by this detail, and Lolo had a sudden burst of inspiration. She very casually placed her hand over her lower abdomen and let it sit there before continuing her story.

“The next day we freaked out. We tried to break things off and return to just being friends. For a while, that seemed to work. I even shared family dinner with Fortus and the Lion General a few times. But last week, at the social, Fortus rescued me from an uncomfortable situation by claiming me as his girlfriend. I realized then that I didn’t want to fight my feelings anymore. We left the dance together to talk with each other and with his father. We had hoped that the Lion General might help persuade my father to accept Fortus, but my father is stubborn. We’ve been unsuccessful.”

“So what do you plan to do? Clearly, you aren’t giving each other up.”

“We’ve been discussing eloping. This is Fortus’s last year in the exchange. It might be our last chance.”

“How delightful,” Evinco smirked. The hand resting on Lolo’s abdomen shifted slightly, and Evinco narrowed her eyes. “Huo Lohse Lang, come here.”

The soldiers holding her down released her, and Lolo stood up slowly so as not to spook them.

“Come here, child,” Evinco stood up and held her arms out to her.

Cautiously, Lolo approached Evinco. The great lioness took Lolo’s hands and drew her close to whisper in her ear.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.” Evinco's hand rested against Lolo’s belly, and Lolo started crying anew. “Have you told him yet?”

Lolo shook her head and allowed herself to feel the fear of her current situation to fuel her tears until she was trembling uncontrollably. “I-I o-only just f-found out.”

“Are you afraid he’ll abandon you?”

“Wouldn’t y-you be?”

“Poor child,” Evinco mocked. “Let’s tell him together then, shall we?”

“Please, no! I’m not r-ready to t-tell him,” Lolo begged.

Evinco’s smile was unnerving. “Either you tell him, or I will.”

Lolo struggled to regain some composure. “I’ll do it.”

Evinco spun Lolo around and aggressively nudged her back toward Fortus. Lolo allowed herself to stumble onto her hands and knees in front of him, and Fortus struggled against the soldiers holding him in an effort to try and catch her fall. “Fortus, this isn’t the way I wanted you to find out about this,” Lolo sobbed, keeping her head down. “I’m p-pregnant.”

“Lolo, no!” Fortus struggled harder against the soldiers. “No, there has to be another way.”

Lolo stiffened, looking up to give Fortus a very stern warning. “What do you mean, ‘another way’? I’m pregnant. I can’t just decide to not be pregnant anymore.”

“Lolo-”

“Or do you mean… no, Fortus. No. I can’t believe you would even suggest that.”

“Lolo, stop-”

“No! I won’t kill my own child! I’d rather do this by myself.”

Fortus finally broke free from the soldiers.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted, recoiling from Fortus, absolutely hysterical.

Fortus stopped short. He was positively reeling. Once again, this girl was sacrificing herself to protect him... them. The performance she was giving was believable enough that even he was struggling to see through it, and his one job was to not screw it up. “Lolo, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?! Fortus, I’m warning you. Consider the consequences of whatever it is you are about to say carefully. You can accept this child, and we will be a family along with everything that comes with that, or you can walk away from this, and I’ll never bother you again. There is no in between.”

Fortus was stunned. He knew she was probably trying to communicate something, but he was so overwhelmed, he couldn't think straight. “You’re... you’re giving me an ultimatum?”

Lolo looked him squarely in the eyes. “One with very real consequences.”

Fortus shook his head to clear it and reached out carefully to touch her face. “Lolo, I told you that I love you, that I want to marry you. I meant it. I assumed that we would have a family together someday. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.”

Instead of appearing relieved by Fortus’s declaration, Lolo seemed to tense even more. “You’re sure about this, Fortus? This is what you want?”

Something about her reaction made Fortus realize that he'd maybe missed something important, but he'd already committed. “Lolo, I’m not in the habit of abandoning the people I love.”

She exhaled a deep breath and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I love you,” Fortus pulled her close.

“I love you too,” she said, then added under her breath so only he could hear, “you wonderful, silver-tongued idiot.”

“Well,” Evinco interrupted the tender moment. “I’ve seen enough. You two certainly have plenty to talk about, and we have a meeting to get back to. Don’t let me catch you in a restricted area of the palace again. Gentlemen, return their things to them and send them out.”

“Please, your highness, my father?” Lolo groveled.

“He won’t hear about this from me,” Evinco said dismissively.

“Thank you!”

Fortus and Lolo took their things and left the war room holding hands. With the doors shut behind them, they dressed themselves again and put their sword belts back on. Lolo grabbed Fortus’s hand, and they took off up the stairs. Before entering the main palace, Lolo pulled Fortus over to the side of the stairs to hold a whispered conversation.

“You know that we are being watched now, right?”

Fortus just looked at her.

“Evinco let two potential spies go on the premise that we are stupidly in love and had no idea what we’d stumbled into.”

“Right?”

“You know she will be sending people to confirm the nature of our relationship.”

“Ok,” Fortus leaned down to kiss her, thinking that’s what she meant.

“Fortus, listen to me.” She grabbed his face to make it harder for a third person to read. “We are stupid, crazy in love, planning to elope, and I just told you that our one night of indiscretion got me pregnant and any further indiscretion can’t get me any more pregnant. What is the first thing that you want to do?”

The color in Fortus’s face drained and he shut his eyes tight as he groaned. “Oh, Lolo. No.”

“Oh, yes. Look, you knucklehead, I tried to give you every possible out back there, but you and your honorable, romantic self just couldn’t see beyond the act.” Lolo sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” She pulled Fortus into a long hug. “Tonight, after midnight. Double layer your pants and bring an extra pair of underwear.”

“You have a plan?” Fortus was hopeful.

“You’re not going to like it,” Lolo smiled at him, but Fortus took the most comfort from the mischief in her eyes. “Be prepared to put on a good show.”

He nodded.

“Fortus, you need to tell your father absolutely everything. I planted a pretty juicy rumor back there, and only the bad guys know about my supposed ‘pregnancy’. Rumors like that have a tendency to spread. He can track the rumors to their sources to identify the players in this coup.”

Fortus chuckled. “You planned all that?”

Lolo shrugged.

His expression became one of concern. “You know, Lolo, rumors like that could ruin you. The Wolf Tribe princess having a baby out of wed-lock...?”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re so honorable then. Fortus, I’ve staked my reputation on the coup failing. Don’t let me down? Or you really will have to marry me,” she smirked.

He laughed. “Hey, there are worse things.”

“In the meantime, our lives literally depend on our ability to look super cozy together, so lots of touching and kissing whenever we are ‘alone’.”

He smiled and kissed her. It was hard to complain about that particular requirement.

“Don’t forget the baby.”

He snorted and knelt down to kiss her belly.

“See you tonight.”

***

“You’re back!” Torvus was infinitely relieved. “Where’s Huo Lohse?”

“She went to her room. Father, I have a lot of information for you. The coup is being led by Evinco Felis, and if you give me a few minutes, I can make a list of nearly everyone else in the meeting with her.”

Torvus nodded and Fortus got to work visualizing the war room and where each face had stood to help him remember the number of faces and the names of those he recognized.

“Do you know anything about their plan?”

“No, but I do have a lot more to tell you.”

Torvus sat down to listen to his son, and as Fortus told him about being captured and Huo Lohse’s cover story, Torvus seemed at once impressed and horribly uncomfortable.

“So, let me get this straight. She used real events from the summer to weave together this crazy love story, and now she’s pregnant with your child, and you are planning to elope because I failed to convince her father to accept you as a son-in-law?”

“Congratulations, father, you’re about to become a grandpa,” Fortus teased wryly. “And now we have to sell the story. Lolo and I have plans to spend the night together.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait! You’re spending the night together?”

“Well, it’s either that, or we risk exposing the lie and being killed. But Lolo has a plan.”

“How are you going to convince a bunch of spies that you are sleeping together without actually…. You know what, I don’t want to hear it. You said Huo Lohse has a plan, that’s good enough for me. I trust her. Just, be safe and keep your head on, son. I know she’s beautiful, and you are already close. Just… you know....”

“Yes, sir,” Fortus felt his face flush.

“I have to hand it to Huo Lohse though. She was clever to plant those rumors. I’ll follow the trail.”