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ELRETH

Elreth\'s head and heart both spun as they walked the trail together back to the cave. She knew her parents weren\'t far behind them, and likely Gar as well, unless he had something he thought he needed to do that night with the disformed.

She stopped mid-step and turned back, looking down the trail to see if he was within sight, but there was nothing.

"What is it?" Aaryn asked, turning with her, his hand naturally coming to rest at her back, as if he were ready to push her to safety.

That little gesture warmed her. She wished it washed away the anger that still wanted to burn her up from the inside.

"I was just wondering if Gar was going to be unwise and go running to the disformed tonight and try to… I don\'t know… school them? Hide things? I don\'t know," she said. "I just got uneasy all the sudden."

Aaryn sighed then looked down at her, his brow furrowed, but his eyes soft. "El, you really underestimate Gar."

"Apparently," she snorted.

But Aaryn shook his head. "No, El, for real. I mean, he\'s got issues. But… honestly, I think you\'re going to see a lot of that fall away now that the truth is out. He\'s kind of had to keep up appearances. And he definitely has a chip on his shoulder about your dad. I think it\'s going to take an act of God to put that relationship right," he said darkly.

Elreth shook her head. "I wish Gar would tell me what happened between them that made him so angry at Dad. And I wish I had your confidence that he was ready for this. I mean, I get that he\'s been doing a good work with the disformed—that was obvious when we met with them at the cave. But Gar, savior of the Anima? Not quite."

She started to turn back towards the cave, but Aaryn caught her elbow. "No, El, you need to rethink this," he said firmly.

She raised her eyebrows. "Rethink what, exactly?" she said, a little harsher than she\'d intended. "That you all have been running around handling things behind my back and dad\'s, despite knowing if anyone was going to protect our people it would be us?"

"No, you need to realize that just like you\'re different and you show different sides of yourself to me, that doesn\'t mean you can\'t be an effective Queen and don\'t know when to pull in your silly side, or stop be mischievous. Gar is the same. He\'s got… his lines are drawn in different places than yours. He tries to break tension with humor that is sometimes misplaced. But if I was walking into war, there\'s no one other than Reth that I\'d prefer to have at my back. He isn\'t just capable, he\'s strong. And he\'s fucking fearless."

"Reckless, you mean."

"No, El. He\'s courageous. Fearless isn\'t even right, because I\'ve seen him pale and shaky. But he\'s ready to put himself in danger to stop others having to go there."

"Oh? Well, I\'ve seen him sabotage himself and our family—and undermine the authority of the throne. So, maybe we\'re even?" she snipped.

"El—"

"Don\'t lecture me about my brother."

"Someone has to," Aaryn countered. "You\'re so ready to see the bad in him that you\'re ignoring the good. And you two are going to have to work together on this. Seriously, El, even though your mom knows more about the history, Gar is critical to what the disformed are doing now. There\'s no one who understands it better—including the risks—than him. And he never gives up."

"What are you talking about? I heard him threaten to walk away if you told our dad what he was doing! I was there, remember?"

"Yep, but you\'ll notice he\'s still here. Gar makes a lot of noise about getting away or not caring, but have you noticed that he always shows up when it counts?"

Elreth blinked, flipping through her mind, trying to identify the times when… when Gar hadn\'t…

Damn.

"He was late to the meeting," she mumbled finally, knowing she sounded like a child.

Aaryn raised a single eyebrow. "Why is it you can forgive everyone else, but not your brother?"

"Because he\'s my brother!" Elreth cried, then caught herself. She wasn\'t going to give in to this anger, to all these emotions. She couldn\'t afford to. "He\'s… Gar is my little brother. And I love him, and he knows that. But he\'s hurt me so many times—and my parents—and he just… he just keeps going. It\'s like that stuff doesn\'t even touch him."

"Oh, it touches him," Aaryn said, folding his arms. "But he thinks he has to make everyone else think it doesn\'t. Have you ever sat back and thought about why he\'d feel that way?"

"Yes! And I told you, he baffles me! I can\'t figure out why he feels anything that he feels!"

"Have you thought about the fact that he\'s been strong enough to be an Alpha for at least a year now, but instead he\'s running around out in the forest with a group of misfits and rejects, trying to make them stronger, instead of taking his own power in the hierarchy? That, like, maybe having the strength to do something, but not doing it, has to do with who he loves and what he was trying to avoid?"

Elreth frowned. "What are you talking about it?"

Aaryn gaped at her. "Do I have to spell it out for you, El?"

"Apparently! I have no clue what you\'re getting at!"

Aaryn raked a hand through his hair and looked up the trail towards where Gar would be. "Don\'t you get it, El? At least half of his problem is that he could have beat you… and he didn\'t want to."

Elreth jerked her head back as if he\'d slapped her. Her mate was saying this? Her mate was—

"Don\'t look at me like that. I didn\'t mean that he SHOULD have dominated you. I meant that he was smart enough to know that you were the better leader. He was staying out of your way. But that\'s gotta rub. Knowing you could be King and having people try to make you be King, and resisting it? I mean, wouldn\'t that bother you?"

He couldn\'t be right, could he? She wasn\'t Queen by default. She\'d won it! She\'d dominated her father for the Creator\'s sake! "You\'re crazy," Elreth breathed.

"No, El. You know I\'ve wanted you dominant for years—and so have your parents. And Gar did too. I\'m just saying… his motives are better than you think. He\'s not lazy. He\'s not incapable. And he\'s strong enough to rule the Anima. But instead he\'s just been forced into Alpha of the most controversial group of Anima that has ever existed. And he has to take orders from his sister. Like, cut the guy a break."

Elreth actually shivered with the force of the emotions that welled up—all the ways she wanted to resist what Aaryn was saying. All the ways she wanted to argue. All the way she\'d been wronged by her brother and seen him wrong her parents.

But something deep in her gut had settled when Aaryn said it. It answered the question she\'d been asking for years… the confusing mix of things she saw in her brother…

It made sense when she looked at it the way her mate was saying.

Damn.

Seriously?

*****

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