That was a strange thought. Why should he care about that? They were both strangers… and yet, being with Denai these days, he felt a little differently to her now. She seemed like a child to him, and he was starting to warm to her under that concept. Tarrin may hate strangers, but he never had nor never would extend his feral nature to children. Var… well, Var was still a little disconcerting, but Tarrin was getting used to him. He'd gotten used to Camara Tal, Sarraya, and Phandebrass as well. Maybe that was a good sign. Var and Denai kept him on edge when they were near him, but the sense of that fear had started to dull over the last couple of days.

That wasn't the only thing. Ever since the fight with the Sha'Kar, the eyeless face that had haunted him for so long had been slowly losing its potency. It was still there, but now it did nothing more than remind him of what could happen if he lost control. There was no more hatred or loathing or fear tied up in its gaze, almost as if it had lost its venom. Jula's rage had reinforced that, reminded him how narrow a path he walked to keep his calm, keep his very sanity.

"Quite a view," Denai said, coming up behind him. Her voice startled him a bit… he thought she was trading stories with Var. Had he been pondering that long? But, to his credit, she didn't invoke a powerful response out of him. Usually he would have turned on the object that startled him and challenged it. But the realization that it was Denai smoothed over any hostile impulses immediately.

"Something you don't see every day," he said mildly. "What do you want?"

"Do I have to want something?" she asked.

He looked right at her. "Yes," he said bluntly.

She gave him a look, then she laughed, giving him that disarming, charming smile. "Actually, Sarraya asked me to come get you. We made dinner, we thought you may be hungry."

He looked down at her. She was so small. She only came up to his chest. She was cute, and had that charming smile, and she had a fearless temperment and adventurous spirit that would exasperate any male she married. But there was something about her, that ethereal quality he noticed when they first met… Denai was affable, likable. It was very hard not to be swept over by her charisma. She was so much like Dar in that respect; Dar had this strange quality that made everyone like him, almost immediately after they met. It was something that he had noticed, and was probably why they had paired Dar with him for his Novitiate. They probably figured that if anyone stood a chance of not getting killed by him, it was Dar. Denai had that same sense about her. It was different in her, because she was Selani instead of human, but it was still there.

"No, not really," he answered her, seeing that she was growing uncomfortable under his penetrating stare. "Go back to the camp."

"Why should I?" she asked petulantly. "I rather like it here."

"Did you think that I might want to be alone?"

She grinned at him. "I've been watching you," she told him. "If you wanted to be alone, you would have growled at me before I got close enough to say anything."

He would have, he admitted inwardly, if he knew she was there. But he wasn't about to admit that she snuck up on him. "Probably," he acceded. "But I don't feel like talking."

"Who needs to talk?" she asked. "You look like you could use some company. That doesn't take talking."

Tarrin put a flat stare on and levelled it at her. "Go back to the camp," he ordered.

"No."

That totally scattered him. She disobeyed him! It shocked him so deeply that it put him off balance. How could she possibly not obey? But then he realized that he was thinking like a Were-cat, and she wasn't a Were-cat. Any Were-cat would have obeyed, because Tarrin was the dominant. But to her, that didn't matter all that much. Denai did as Denai wanted, and if that pushed the envelope of safety, that made it even more fun. It was a part of her irresistable charm.

"You'll go back. Whether its whole or in pieces is your decision," he said threateningly, extending his claws on both paws.

"Oh, put those away," she said with that charming smile. "You're not going to hurt me. I can tell just by looking at you. It took me a while to see that, but now that I do, I'm not afraid of you anymore."

This threw him off, because she was right. Tarrin would never harm a child. And since he saw her as a child, that meant that he would not raise his paw against her. He realized that she was going to use that to basicly flaunt herself in his face. And no matter how aggravated he got with her, it wouldn't come to an end with blood. He didn't accept her as a friend, but he also wouldn't attack her as an enemy. That put Denai in a curious gray area, where her presence bothered him, but he wasn't willing to put her off by force.

"Now that we've established that, why don't you sit down and talk with me?" she invited. "I'm curious about some things, and Sarraya won't answer my questions. She said you had to tell me."

So that's what this was about. Denai was curious, that was all. That was easy enough to assuade. "The less you know, the safer you are," he said honestly. "I've killed men over just thinking they knew too much, Denai. I may not be willing to raise a paw against you for being friendly, but I will kill you if I think you know more than what's needful. Do you understand me?"

The sheer honesty in his voice put Denai back. She stared at him in surprise for a long moment, then finally nodded her head. "I don't think everything I want to know falls into that, though," she said. "Tell me about your daughter. How old is she?"

That, he didn't mind talking about. He looked down at her and gave her a neutral look, then stared out over the chasm in thought. "She's older than I am," he answered. "She's what you may call adopted."

"Strange, but then again, you're not Selani, so you must have customs that seem strange to us. Some of our customs must seem strange to you too."

"Some," he agreed. "Jula is like me, turned. I took her in because she needed someone to help her adjust to it."

"To what?"

"To this," he answered, holding out his paw. "I wasn't born this way. I was changed into this by one of my new kind."

"You're a Lycanthrope?" she asked in sudden intense curiosity.

"I didn't think the Selani knew about them."

"There are some stories," she told him. "Old stories about creatures that wandered the desert, creatures that could change from humans into jackals. One of the Watchers called them Lycanthropes, or Were-jackals. The stories said that they preyed on our herds, so our ancestors chased them from our lands."

"Possible," Tarrin mused. "There are many kinds of Were-kin. I've never heard of Were-jackals, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist."

"What is this Jula like?"

"I don't like her," Tarrin said bluntly. "I did what I had to do because it was my duty, nothing more."

"Honor and blood," Denai recited. "Duty is honor, and the cost of that honor is blood."

"It feels like it sometimes," he agreed.

"Are all your people as tall as you?"

"No," he replied. "Only Triana, my bond-mother, is my size. Everyone else is a little taller than you on the average."

"Bond-mother?"

"My patroness, much as I'm Jula's patron," he explained. "Triana was the one who took me in and taught me how to cope. Unlike Jula, I very much love and respect Triana. She's my second mother."

"It sounds like you have two families."

"I have one, but it's rather large and diverse," he said with a wry smile. "I have my original family, my blood-sisters, my bond-mother, and my friends. They're all family to me." He looked at her. "My world is centered around family, Denai. You're either family or you're not. Family is trusted, everyone else is not."