Jade Fern Grove chafa

Had he known her thoughts on men—the implications of them having women flee—he perhaps would have seen a side unseen to him before, for before, she had forced him to flee her. In recollection… Wren had also forced him to flee her—insisting he leave Silvertongue there, in the desolate sands.

To what...? Go back and gnaw her leg off like a damn rat? He would have stayed to fight the swarming wolves from her—Silvertongue had known this. It was why she had forced him from her. He should have thrown her over his back, taken her to a proper medic. She would have hated him for it, surely. But her health might not have become so dire. He could have lived with it.

It wasn't as if either scenario would see him get the girl.

The surprise she casts at him draws him away from her, already knowing what her answer would be. Resolute—did she not realize that a broken home would come when one partner stayed to spare the feelings of another?

A paw lifted to scrub at his face, and there, he leaned back against the support of the stoneface wall, his own features cemented as such. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes in the course of our time together,” he finally murmured to her, though his eyes once more trailed up the wall. “This is another one.”

But she had made her mind—just as she demanded him before to leave her to die—begged him to let her go and die—she told him to leave her be once more. Fool me once…

“To clarify, Silvertongue… You first said you came to find me because you didn’t want me to feel alone.” The words—a guise, he truly believed—had been spoken. “I’m not alone. I have my daughters. I have my brother. I have Arric and Arlette. I have a pack who are my family.”

Never, would he allow another to mistake him as alone. “So you can rest easy, knowing that.” Because that was the veil in which she sought him, had it not?