I exhaled slowly, memory surfacing unbidden of the way Arwen's hand had lingered against my brother's shoulder in the healer's tent, the fierce, protective urgency in her voice when she'd promised to return to him before facing Caspian on the border road. I thought, too, of my reaction to her presence in the camp the reluctant respect that had grown despite every instinct warning me against trusting Lycan royalty, the way her courage in the face of my people's suspicion had struck something I hadn't expected to feel toward a woman I'd first threatened at knifepoint in a darkened forest.
I said nothing of that particular complication, not yet, filing it away alongside every other tangled thread demanding attention before the coming hearing could even be faced properly.
"We'll deal with co
