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ELRETH

El sat in her chair in the security building, arms folded, one leg swinging from the other impatiently.

A messenger had called her urgently. Gar had been found, and so had the human. Elreth\'s initial relief about both was now overwhelmed with tension.

What had he learned? Why had he left? Was he hurt? Were the humans already invading? Her skin crawled as an image appeared in her head of hordes of humans creeping through the WildWood towards them as they sat there, unaware,

She shook her head and cleared her throat. Aaryn turned to look at her, concerned. But he was tense too. Both of them were on edge. And the elders, too. They\'d already been concerned, but sitting there waiting with Elreth wound tighter than a spring, her stress had become theirs. Now they all sat there in a pool of their own anxiety.

Elreth was sick of waiting. Where was her brother?

Then finally, the door creaked, and Elreth was on her feet with most of the gathered elders, and Aaryn, stepping forward to put himself between her and the woman the guards ushered in—a strange sight, her brother walking with a woman on his arm, while guards circled them.

Elreth frowned.

"What\'s going on, Gar? Why did you defy my orders last night?" she snapped.

"I didn\'t," he said, carefully ushering the woman to a seat on the other side of the circle. "I fulfilled it for you. Elreth, this is Rika. She\'s the human we\'ve been looking for."

Rika stared at her, but didn\'t greet her.

Elreth snorted, but didn\'t take her eyes off the woman.

Rika had dark hair—brown, but scattered with red and blonde highlights from the sun. She was small, like Elreth\'s mother, but strong with it. Her arms showing defined muscle even under her shirt sleeves, and she watched the rest of them like a hawk that found itself suddenly surrounded by wolves.

Well, she supposed the metaphor was quite accurate.

"How did she come to be here… on your arm?" Elreth snapped, then tore her eyes away to meet Gar\'s—and was surprised to find steely determination there, rather than defiance.

He spoke quickly and quietly, describing how he\'d snuck into the human encampment. "They have some magic. If you didn\'t cross the boundary of their sorcery, you\'d never know they were there. There\'s some kind of… bubble of air. I don\'t understand it. But you can\'t see or smell anything inside it unless you are also inside it. It is clearly why we haven\'t been able to find them earlier."

Elreth chewed on that. Some kind of sorcery that hid sight and smell? "How many were hidden within? Do we have an army here already that we don\'t know about?"

"No," the woman said softly, firmly. "There were only five of us. And it\'s not magic. It\'s technology. Simple airflow and light-bending. It only camouflages the camp until you step across the perimeter."

"Good to know, but I would prefer that you do not speak until I ask you to," Elreth said through her teeth. "We will explore your story later. Go on, Gar."

Her brother bristled, which she didn\'t understand. Did he expect her to celebrate a human that was willing to tell them possible lies?

A machine that could hide sight and sound was a terrifying prospect. Did he expect her to celebrate it?

But then Gar relayed how he\'d been discovered by the team of humans and attacked. That he\'d brought her and her technology out, leaving her colleagues either dead or wounded and unable to follow them.

"Tarkyn\'s sent scouts to follow our trail back and make sure we weren\'t followed."

Elreth turned to Tarkyn, one eyebrow high. "You were a part of this?"

"No!" the Captain snapped. "We scented them when we were heading out to find her. Instead we found both of them. Because apparently when Gar left, he knew how to find her quite quickly."

Elreth\'s lips pursed. "Really Gar? You\'ve been hiding this from us all this time?"

"No!" Gar growled. "I had to find her. I just had a hunch about how to do it when I heard the direction they were found in."

"Really? You just happened to know how to get there—faster than our best trackers?"

"Yes."

Elreth shook her head. "The question isn\'t only how you did that, but why. You argued—forcibly—last night to stop anyone from approaching them. Yet here you are, one on your arm and the others apparently aware that you know of them, and now injured or dead. The very thing you claimed would happen if anyone went after her."

"And I was right!"

"So why did you have to do it? Why go yourself? Why not let Tarkyn do it?"

"Because, if anyone was going to get hurt, it needed to be me. And if anyone… if anyone was going to hurt them, they needed to not hurt her."

Elreth blinked as a quality entered her brother\'s voice that she\'d never heard.

Awe.

"I knew the signs," Gar went on, eyeing the elders, attempting to convince them, apparently. He must know she was considering punishing him. "I knew when it was necessary to get aggressive, when there was no other choice. The others would have been too twitchy, or unconfident."

Elreth narrowed her eyes. "You want me to believe the disformed—the very people you\'ve been telling me are primed for this work and have spent so much time in the human world—wouldn\'t gauge as well as you what was necessary?"

"They wouldn\'t have… the right priorities," he said gruffly.

Elreth tilted her head. "Gar, what the hell is going on?"

"Tell her, Gar. She won\'t understand until you do. And besides, I want to see her face," Tarkyn muttered.

If Elreth hadn\'t been in front of the elders she would have clocked Gar and Tarkyn\'s heads together.

"Somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Gar sighed, glancing at the human before addressing Elreth directly. The room was silent so she could hear the deep breath he took.

"Rika is my mate," he said simply. "I wasn\'t going to take the risk that someone would hurt her in the process of bringing her out."

Elreth gaped at her brother.. "What have you done?" she hissed. "What the ever-loving hell have you done, Gar?"