The wielders are coming, and they're ready for violence.
With a cub in her arms, Arietta James, a dedicated vet technician in training, flees for her life and the life of the little shifter she's ready to die to protect. Her escape lands her right i...
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Gavriel's fingers tightened over the arm of his chair, his knuckles white. Inside him, his leopard snarled, pushing against the confines his human side had built around it. Only his own self-control kept him in his chair.
The visceral reaction took him by surprise. His leopard wanted to protect the woman standing alone on the other side of the council room.
"And what did you do once you realized "something wasn't right"?" Fay asked in her usual steely, no-nonsense tone.
This was the opportunity the Heads were looking for—an uninterrupted amount of time to interrogate Arietta.
It was exactly what Gavriel had been putting off as long as he could.
Next to him, Ronan sat straighter in his chair. Like him, Ronan also appeared to be having difficulty staying still. To her credit, Arietta kept a firm stance and even lifted her chin before she responded. "I alerted Violet and Ronan."
Ries glanced at Violet, who wrung her hands in her lap. Violet nodded. Confirmation of truth.
"Then what?" Eoran asked. His lip was still upturned in a partial sneer, as it had been since Arietta followed Gavriel into the room. Eoran thought Arietta no better than mud stuck between the pads of his paws.
The slow, building pool of heat in his stomach continued to churn.
"I followed them to the cave to make sure the children were safe."
"What made you think you could do any more than they could?" Eoran asked.
Gavriel's gaze slashed back to the Head representative for the wolves. He made himself release the arm of the chair and instead resorted to tapping a finger again and again against the wood.
Arietta kept staring straight at Eoran. Strong woman. "Regardless of what I could or could not do, the children were in danger. It was my responsibility to help."
At the other end of the curved table, Sienna tilted her head. "It is admirable that someone of your limited capabilities could keep up."
Next to Eoran, Henri sat back in his chair—a lazy leopard stance. "Ronan has thus far implied that you helped even the odds." Henri gestured a hand over Arietta's body. "I mean no offense when I say I have a hard time believing that someone of your... species could face off against a wielder and a human with a weapon and come out relatively unscathed."
Not completely unscathed, Gavriel thought. The skin on her hands had been almost completely scratched up. So much so, Talia had to wrap them in protective gauze to prevent possible infection.
Henri was right, though. From the outside, Arietta had appeared to face the wielders and leave without hardly any damage.
To Gavriel, that only proved her strength. Something that, oddly enough, had his leopard preening. Meanwhile, his human side was left humbled. In such a short period of time, he found himself respecting this woman. This one who, despite no outward apparent power, was willing to fight whatever it took to keep younglings safe.
