Her mouth tightens. “For being human?”
“For being unknown.” I tilt my head slightly. “For being human also.”
Her honesty has been building since yesterday. I respect it. So I give the same back.
“They do not know if you break easily. They do not know if you will make trouble. They do not know if you understand work, weather, children, camp law, the movement of a horde, or what it means to be wife to a Kai where life is not hidden behind walls.”
Her chin lifts a fraction. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you learn.”
Again, simple truth.
She exhales through her nose, not quite frustration, not quite acceptance.
I continue. “You do not need them to like you first. You need them to see that you remain standing.”
That lands. I know it does.
She is quiet for a few breaths, then asks, “And the men?”
That answer is easier.
“They will do as I allow.”
Her eyes sharpen. “That sounds reassuring and not reassuring.”
“It is enough.”
A pause.
Then, because she deserves the full answer, I add, “The men will watch because you are new, because you are human, because I brought you from the capital and marked you the first night before the horde.” My voice lowers slightly. “But they will not mistake what you are. Not now.”
Keandra’s fingers tighten on the edge of her wrap. Her gaze drops, just for a moment, toward the shoulder hidden beneath the cloth. Then back up.
“Because of the bite.”
“Yes.”
“And the scent.”
“Yes.”
She swallows. “You keep saying scent like it answers everything.”
“For us, often it does.”
This time, when she looks at me, there is less confusion in her face and more thought. She is beginning to understand that I am not being difficult when I speak this way. I come from aworld where some truths are felt in the body before they are ever spoken.
Still, she needs spoken truth too. So I give her more.
“In a horde, scent tells many things. Fear. Illness. Blood. Weather changes on the skin. Rut. Pregnancy.” I watch her carefully at that last word and see the flicker it causes before she hides it. “Mate scent is strongest of all. Once I marked you, the horde knew what the law could not show them.”
She stays silent for a moment. Then, quietly, “That you wanted me.”
I could answer with many things. That I claimed her. That she became safe in a different way. That the horde now knows her place.
Instead, I say the truest one.
