Goosebumps prickled along Oryen's skin. He had to check he hadn't grown fur. He'd never thought of Kolraga that way. As a trap instead of a fortress. Nor had he thought, when he submitted himself to quarantine, he'd have ended up at a table discussing inter-pack politics and conflict with his brother spearheading it all. The sudden sense of being displaced, of not belonging, hit him like a hatchet to the sternum.

Beyond that, Lazro's reasons for mistrusting his Alphas was becoming more rapidly apparent by the minute. Oryen hardly knew any of them apart from Reyz, who seemed the most good-natured yet least politically engaged.

After a long pause, Zarkerya cleared her throat. "Kahleir's stance on the Mardero pack has been unwavering since the beginning of quarantine. They see us as traitors to our kind for accepting LycanCorp's handouts in exchange for our aid in keeping the peace, which we've seen is an impossible task. It's my belief a reconnaisance mission like this would only serve to kick the hornet's nest. Better to find out how Kahleir has infiltrated our stronghold and root them out of our home than engage them where they have the advantages of secrecy."

Beside her, Tavell huffed, but when pierced by a look of reproach from his wife, nodded in agreement. "Perhaps I was too hasty. It is unnerving, to say the least, that they have hit us so close to home."

Lazro waited a beat. Finally, he said, "Perhaps you're right. We'd risk too much by sending our own into unknown danger. While I agree with Kalysto's assertion that we need to reach out to Kahleir eventually, now may be too volatile a time if we want to avoid bloodshed."

Reyz spoke up for the first time. "So, instead of rooting out Kahleir from their hiding place or spying, we root them out of our home first?"

"Or capture these infiltrators and communicate with them," Lazro said. "So, on this front, where do we begin?"

Oryen hadn't spoken the entire duration. He wondered why he'd even been asked. Beneath all this, a worm of unease had burrowed beneath the surface of the conversation and into Oryen's heart. He watched Lazro speaking. Firm, yet delicate. Like a tiger that knew exactly where to place its paw in order to avoid snapping twigs that would alert his prey. As a teen, Ezra had been brash, bald-faced in his opinions.

Now he asked for theirs. And listened. And watched. And waited.

Oryen had listened and watched too, all the while his mind buzzing like flies over something rancid. Because they were getting to a point in the conversation where they had to address the elephant in the room. Someone had let Kahleir inside.

Beau had access to world outside Kolraga. He was technically Renvathi, even if not a werewolf yet, and he was searching for his lost family. He had access to contacts like Daxun, could smuggle in resources from outside the walls, even intercept Oryen's letters from Edrik.

He was perfectly positioned to get a Kahleir assassin into Kolraga.

But why would he? To get back at Oryen? Or for some other slippery reason.

He couldn't voice his suspicions in front of everyone. If Lazro didn't trust the Alphas, neither did Oryen. He couldn't risk them asking how he knew so much about this human smuggler. Or worse, perhaps they'd tell Beau about the suspicion cast upon him, and Beau would reveal Oryen's secret.

He would have to find a way to speak with Lazro about it privately and without implicating himself.

The room had gone quiet in the wake of Lazro's question, unease ripe as summer fruit in the air. Zarkerya turned just slightly to regard Oryen, her eye contact pointed.

"I have a question regarding the assassination," she said. "Since you were the one to save Lazro, I wondered if you noticed anything earlier. Something that tipped you off about the killer's intent?"

Kaly said sarcastically, "Maybe it was the knife."

Oryen felt the laser of everyone's gaze on him, though. "I just reacted. I don't really remember it."

"Did you see the assassin earlier, before the attack? Anything... suspicious?" Zarkerya pressed.

"No. I saw movement behind Lazro and—it was more instinct than anything."

"Curious," Zarkerya said. She had to lift her chin high to meet his gaze, but managed to make him feel small, like a teacher catching a student passing notes. "You were the only one to notice."

Oryen couldn't mistake the tone of accusation. "I guess I was in the right place."

"Doesn't that seem a little convenient?"

"How is the attempted murder of my brother convenient?"

He hadn't meant the words to come out serrated like a chipped knife, but he felt keenly aware of his brother's gaze flicking between them, of her insinuation that he had anything to do with it when the very thought of losing Lazro now turned his heart Arctic.

Lazro's voice came out taut as a drawn bow, ready to loose an arrow. "If you have something to say, Zarkerya, don't hold back."

She appeared to second-guess her words but with a pinch to her brow. She viewed Lazro's defense as blind nepotism. That much was clear. "I only speculate out of fear for your safety, Lazro. Oryen appeared in Kolraga and joined us, bitten less than a week previous, at a time when our Alpha is in dire need of a Beta. Then a packless rogue no one else saw attempts to assassinate Lazro, and Oryen is the only one to see it coming, securing trust and respect enough to join us at this table." Her lips twitch. "I'm not accusing him of collusion. Merely commenting on the unlikely nature of this good fortune."

Oryen's gorge rose at the implication, but with it came guilt, bobbing like the bloated remains of a carcass he hadn't weighted down. Her reasons for mistrusting him were false, but he reminded himself, she wasn't wrong to mistrust him at all. He was hiding things from Lazro, from them all. Still, disgust and anger won out.

"You think I'd try to have him killed just to make myself look good?"

Zarkerya said, "It has been a long time since you were brothers."

A thousand things that would sound like empty platitudes turned to ash on his tongue. I missed him. I worshipped him. Before he was your Alpha, before he was your hero, he was my brother. I wanted to grow up like him. He couldn't say any of it. He wanted to, badly, but it felt as if his throat had been stoppered with a stone.

"I'd never," he said.

Lazro raised his hands. "I trust my brother. I know it will take time for him to earn yours, but he hasn't been here long enough to even come in contact with Kahleir."

The tone he used made Zarkerya even edgier. In more sacharine tones that didn't suit her, she said, "I didn't mean any offense. I trust your judgment on this. Of course, of course." Changing tactics, "I have questions for another among us, then. Kalysto. I noticed you weren't present during the assassination attempt."

Though Oryen hadn't enjoyed when the dissecting gaze of everyone had been on him, something electric fizzled in his chest when that attention shifted to Kalysto. He'd suspected her but felt he couldn't say anything to Lazro until they were alone.

Kaly rolled her eyes. "Right. Me again."

"You are the only surviving witness of the Temple massacre. You claim someone killed Aro, though when we found him it was with your knife through his heart, his blood all over you, now you're mysteriously absent during this attack."

"Well, fuck me. I'm guilty if I'm there, I'm guilty if I'm not there." Sardonic as always, but Oryen thought he heard her voice catch on the curse.

"Not to mention, all this turmoil began when your pack arrived to join with ours," Zarkerya finished.

Lazro raised a hand. "That isn't true. We've had difficulties since Shrykor."

The name of the previous Alpha had a definitive effect on everyone, save Kalysto. As if saying the name summoned his ghost. Oryen didn't know anything about Shrykor, except that he'd been a tyrant and made Lazro's transition to leadership difficult.

Kalysto dropped her cutlery, not that she'd been using it to eat. "Fuck all of you. I joined my pack with yours for protection. Because this guy," she pointed at Lazro, "seemed to be hot shit and making quarantine bearable. I married this asshole, rented out my uterus to have his baby, all so our packs can hold hands and cooperate—"

"Baby?!" said Reyz.

"Now please tell me, Zarkerya, how does it serve me to kill the one guy holding this rickety ragtag shithole together? Hm? Maybe she who smelt it dealt it. Maybe you're pointing fingers to cover up your own bid for power. Don't think none of us have noticed how your peon of a husband—"

Tavell, outraged, choked on a cherry tomato.

"—has been trying to get your daughter hitched to the Alpha, either. We're not blind. You can keep trying to throw me under the bus all you want, but let's face it, the reason we're all here chatting shit is because we don't have anything to go on."

The table fell deathly silent. Everyone's jaws hung as if they'd lost a hinge, but no words came out of the rows of gaping mouths. The only one who did not appear aghast was Lazro, who listened to her tirade with the same considering expression he'd worn all morning.

Then Reyz broke the silence. "We're having a baby?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Don't get cute."

After another bout of stunned quiet, Lazro cleared his throat. "Uh, congratulations. I think." Kalysto waved him off, but Reyz appeared not to have heard, gleefully staring at his wife as if she hadn't just ripped everyone's figurative throats out. Lazro went on awkwardly, "I appreciate everyone's honesty today, but for now, I'm inclined to agree that we don't have enough left to go on. Perhaps it's best we adjourned. Let the newlyweds enjoy their good news. Congratulations again, by the way."

Reyz said dazedly, "Thanks."

"Last thing before you all go." Lazro folded his hands in front of him, wringing them as though preparing to deliver Kalysto's news in a more socially acceptable tone. "I know, given the circumstances, it's difficult for us to trust one another. I find myself failing on this front more than I ought to. But it's my hope that we can repair the scars still causing rifts between us. Shrykor did everything in his power to unbalance the pack, force everyone into dependence on him for fear they could trust no one else. I don't... I don't want that. In the future, I hope we can hold these conversations with more compassion." He paused, almost awkward, like a valedictorian giving a speech more vulnerable than he'd intended for an entire school. Only this case it was a school of pirahna.

"That's all," he finished.

"Kumbaya," said Kalysto.