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Elreth woke later, rolling over and reaching out to find Aaryn-but instead got a handful of cold fur.

She lifted her head, blinking and bleary-eyed. The lanterns were on, but Aaryn had turned several down so the room wasn’t too bright.

She might have felt nervous wondering where he was, but as soon as she paid attention she realized what must have woken her-it was the low rumbles of her mate and brother’s voices, talking in the Great Room, but barely above a whisper. They were trying not to wake her.

She wanted to feel thankful and pleased, but the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Was Aaryn telling Gar?!

She leaped out of bed and dressed, barely buttoning her shirt, before creeping out of the room and down the tunnel to the main cave and peering carefully around the corner to find them both standing in the living area, near the fireplace, though the hearth was cold.

“...everyone thought it was a great idea to take a break. We’ve given the prisoners as much room as possible, keeping the guards out of the tree except for nightly and morning checks.”

“How’s Tarkyn?”

.....

“I told him to take Harth away. I know where they are. We can reach them within a few hours if we need to.”

Aaryn nodded solemnly.

He hadn’t put a shirt on, just stood next to Gar in his leathers, his rippled chest and abdomen bare. Elreth swallowed back another burst of desire and almost laughed at herself.

Apparently getting pregnant just made her want to work on getting more pregnant?

“How’s El?” Gar asked, his voice deeper and his eyes earnest. Elreth’s chest pinched. Gar had been her rock when Aaryn was gone after the war-which wasn’t fair on him at all. He’d been grieving the same losses, and navigating a new matebond. Yet he’d always found her when things got too dark.

His concern for her hadn’t waned, though it was more annoying now.

She was about to open her mouth and let them know she was there, but Aaryn answered him. “She needs to rest. This has all been... a lot.”

“Only one more day,” she said quickly. They both jerked, surprised that she’d snuck up on them as she rounded the wall in the dining area to join them in the living room. “I’m not asking for a lot of time, Gar. Just today. We can get back to it tomorrow. I know we need to find a safe way to get Zev out of there and... I just haven’t figured it out yet.”

Aaryn frowned. “Don’t start going down that path again. You need to rest. We’ll all meet tomorrow and brainstorm, and then-”

“So, you’re going to let him loose?” Gar said, brows high.

Elreth shrugged. “I don’t know. I know... I know this is all worse than it has to be. And I don’t know how to fix it. But I do understand... I know that if I was in his shoes, I would have reacted too, and... It’s just hard, Gar.”

Her brother nodded solemnly. “I mean, I could just let him go-”

“NO!” Elreth snapped, then caught herself. “I mean... we need to manage this... somehow.”

Gar and Aaryn looked at each other, and she didn’t like what passed between them. She set her jaw and put her fists on her hips.

This is a crisis. I’m already taking a vacation-which is just... wrong. But I know I wasn’t seeing clearly. I get it,” she said, looking back and forth between them. “I have regrets and I’ll express those to Zev and Sasha and... see if there’s a way to bridge the gap. But the threat from these people hasn’t disappeared. I’m just... willing to look at options other than outright war.”

“El, they’ve been here for months without making trouble-”

“They didn’t even know where we were. And now Zev is here-it’s his and Sasha’s seconds who’ve been running things. Who knows what happens when they return to power after this?”

Neither of them said what they all knew-that she had been the one to push things to this place. That they’d both counseled her to take it more easily on Zev since he’d woken from the tranquilizer.

She was grateful, because it smarted, knowing that she was the cause of this heightened level of threat. But that didn’t change the fact that it existed.

“I’ll ask them both to talk to me tomorrow. Do we have enough guards back? I could take them out-to the security building or... somewhere with more space.”

“We’ll make it happen,” Gar said quickly. “I’ll tell them. I think that might help, knowing that it’s-”

“Not yet please,” Elreth said, her heart hammering in her chest. “Let’s bring Tarkyn back tomorrow-let him have tonight-and get our guards in place. If something happens or we’re delayed, I don’t want to give them a reason to think I was lying.”

Aaryn and Gar looked at each other, then both submitted with quick nods, though she could tell her brother was frustrated.

Oh well, let him be.

“Where’s Rika?” she asked suddenly, realizing she hadn’t seen her sister of the flames for two days.

“She’s fine. She’s in and out. She has a friend struggling right now. I told her to go ahead and deal with that and we’ll just pull her in when we need her-but I think keeping her away from the Chimera is a good idea. Even Harth got twitchy when she was close.”

Elreth frowned. “That’s wise, I suppose. But I would like to have her around tomorrow to measure anything they tell us about the humans-make sure it rings true. Behryn too, or Reece. Whichever one you think is going to do better at keeping their mouth shut, but giving me a heads up if there’s a problem.”

Gar nodded. “I’ll talk to both of them and let them decide. Maybe we should bring both in-Behryn can double as an extra guard and he might catch things Reece misses.”

Elreth nodded. “Good idea. Tell them I asked for them both.”

Aaryn offered a couple names for guards that were cool headed under pressure, but Elreth was already turning the whole situation over her in her head.

“How does Zev seem to be doing since Tarkyn talked to him? It sounds like that was pretty intense.”

“Better, a little,” Gar said hesitantly. “He’s still on edge. But I think Tarkyn managed to be heard. Zev didn’t hurt him, which is a good step forward.” Gar hesitated then, which was very unlike him. Elreth frowned.

“What?”

Gar, never one to mince words, just asked her outright. “What are you going to do about Tarkyn?”

Elreth grimaced. “I don’t know. I... I’m not angry with him. I just... I don’t know.”

“Come on, El. You know that any of us would have done the same thing,” Aaryn said quietly. “I didn’t give two shits about Tarkyn stepping into that prison with him when it meant that it got you free. We’re all wired to protect our mates.”

“I know, I know that,” Elreth said, her chest beginning to tighten again. “I just... I need to see him and talk to him, I think. That’s... that’s going to be the way to see clearly. I hope.”

They both watched her warily and Elreth hated that feeling. She wanted to growl. But instead she pushed forward.

“Other than that, we’re just avoiding crisis, right? Tell the guards to warn me if there’s any sign of the Chimera moving. But otherwise, hold the ravine and just wait.”

Gar nodded and he and Aaryn shared a second glance, but he left without saying more. El was uneasy as she watched her brother leave to go do everything that she should have been doing.

“Maybe I should-”

“No, absolutely not,” Aaryn said, emphatic-and he placed his Alpha Authority behind the words.

El gaped at him. “You don’t need to do that?”

“Don’t I?” he muttered. “You just told him we were resting today, but you were about to follow him out there and start working again, weren’t you?”

Elreth twitched. “I mean... it just seems wrong to sit here and relax when all of this is going on out there.”

“Well, tough. I’m King and I say that today is a day of rest. And now... now we’re going to go take a bath together.”

Then he grinned.

Elreth couldn’t help smiling back at him. “I thought we were resting?” she asked dryly.

Aaryn’s grin turned wicked. “There’s rest and then there’s rest... This is... the kind of rest where you stop being Queen and get to just be mate and mother.”

Elreth sighed happily. Gosh, she loved that word!

Aaryn sidled up to her, taking her hand and giving her a quick kiss before turning and leading her towards the door to the bathing pools.