LERRIN

Later, Suhle slept in his arms—curled almost into a ball, her back to him, but her arms resting on his where he held her at the waist, their finger entwined. He wrapped himself around her smaller frame, his knees under her thighs, his chest at her back, his nose in her hair. He needed to sleep, but he couldn't.

She seemed so small, suddenly, so breakable. And yet, he knew better than most the strength that lay within her. But something within him fought all of this—fought the need for it. And a niggling, frightening voice kept whispering, what else had he missed? What else was real that he had not seen?

Whenever he thought about the cat his anger was overwhelming. But when he'd shown the memory to Suhle, she'd found hope in it.

He needed more time. He needed to look at all of this closer, to look back through the preceding weeks and analyze them. Pick them apart. Ask himself where the threats truly lay, and where else he had missed something important. But there was no time. The cat had killed. Face to face. An innocent party. Possibly two.

Lerrin knew the marks of both war, and murder. And he knew the progression of the Anima male heart and mind.

Once a male had started down the path to ruthlessness it only became easier, not harder.

The killing of prisoners would become the killing of citizens as soon as the citizens fought back. And the killing of one's own people became tyranny. Cruelty.

No matter where or when Reth had had the discipline for peace, he had begun down the road now.

Lerrin would never have killed a prisoner of war… He would have kept the prisoners. Tortured them, yes. Broken them, perhaps. But never stolen their lives in cold blood. Reth should have kept the prisoners alive, but in chains. Lerrin would have.

But then that voice, whispering against the skin at the nape of his neck…

Perhaps Lerrin would not have, but what of his people?

The memories of the things he'd seen for himself in recent weeks—and the things he'd been told by Asta, by Suhle…

He knew not every Lupine male would take a female against her will—he prayed the real number willing to do so were very few. He was certain that not every male would harass or threaten others. Not every Lupine would leap to violence.

But some would.

Their tribe had not always been this way, of that he had no doubt. His own father had changed in the past year. Wolves could be ruthless, yes. But they valued intelligence and strategy over pure intimidation. Or at least, they had. Lerrin had been raised to use ruthlessness only as a tool against the enemy. Only to achieve a greater good. Never solely to take power.

And yet…

In the months since the human Queen had arrived, Lerrin had watched his father do and say things which he had raised Lerrin to despise.

It hit him then, that that was where the blindness had begun: In the first weeks after the Rite. When Lucine was shunned and broken, and his father railed against the injustice of it all. When small groups began to propose plans. When Lucan would laugh them off, then whisper with the perpetrators when he though Lerrin wasn't looking.

When Lerrin had chosen to turn away, to walk away, to tell himself that his father was only venting frustration and anger, not… not being a traitor.

Lerrin blinked, scanning back through the months, all the little ways and means he'd watched his father dissolve into the erratic, frightening wolf he'd become before his death.

All the days Lucan had given every sign of lying, and Lerrin had chosen to justify it to himself.

Then he remembered Lucine, his precious, ambitious sister. The tears and pleading as she told them the story of her union with the King—the false King. The traitor King. All the ways she'd said he'd trapped her. All the ways she'd been overwhelmed by his strength and power.

And he remembered, the first time she told the story, the niggle in his chest, that little ache that reminded him that his sister never did anything she didn't want to do. She never took a step she hadn't measured—whether rightly or wrongly, it didn't matter. She was not a thoughtless female. She was cunning and intelligent and strong.

And when she'd spoken about being pressured to the King's whim, he'd known in his gut that it was not so. But it had suited him not to question her—and his father and the other Alphas had celebrated it. It was fuel to their fire.

It had been Lerrin's insistence that they use the old Petition that had turned his father away from outright revolution.

He'd forgotten that.

Creator's Light, he'd forgotten.

His father had been ready to attack the Tree City from within—even though the encampment already existed. Why wait for war, his father had asked, why not burn them in their beds?

Lerrin began to shake.

Why did those words sound so familiar… because they were the ideas, the feelings, being proposed by his males. His security council.

It had been Lerrin's suggestion that they take the King down by his own standard that had turned his father's head. And it had been working—until Reth demanded that Lucine be scented for truth.

Truth.

His sister had lied.

How had he forgotten that? How had he let himself forget that?

He'd scented it on her himself. And yet… and yet, he'd found reason to turn the people to listen to her anyway. And the King had banished them. Turned them out.

Not killed them.

Not burned them in their beds.

He'd told them to go in peace and find their own way.

He'd left them to live.

Lerrin gulped and held Suhle tighter as she slept. She rolled her head, pressing back against him, but her breathing stayed deep and slow as he kissed her shoulder and trembled.

He had been so blind.

Lerrin could barely breathe. Was it possible he… was he the traitor here? Was he the enemy?

Was he the villain?

His skin felt too tight and he began to shake.

*****

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