"A little," he admitted honestly.

"I can live with that. I just want to know that you don't hate me."

"I don't hate you, Jesmind," he told her with soft eyes.

Her eyes went vulnerable for a moment, which triggered a response in him. He wrapped his arms around her back and held her just tightly enough for her to realize it. "Do you really have to go tomorrow?" she asked in a hesitant voice. "I don't want you to leave again."

"Duty calls, Jesmind. If anyone would understand what duty means to me, I'd think that it would be you."

"Only too well," she grunted with a frown, looking down at him. "Since it's quiet, you can tell me some things."

"Like what?"

"Mother's told me about what you've done and where you've been, but she's usually not very descriptive about it. I think she's trying to keep some things quiet, or secret. What was that Demon woman like? Really."

"Shiika? To be honest, she reminded me of you."

Jesmind suddenly glared at him.

He laughed. "She is alot like you, Jesmind. She has the same directness about her. With Shiika, you know where you stand. We were enemies, but that didn't stop her from being… conversational. She was a strange woman."

"Was she pretty?"

"She's a Demon, Jesmind. She can appear any way she wants to appear. Don't you think she'd choose something attractive?"

Jesmind laughed. "Well, if she can look any way she wants, I guess she could."

"Vanity seems to be a universal constant," Tarrin said abstractly.

"What was the desert like?"

"Very, very hot," he replied. "The sun made me as dark as an Arakite, and it did this to my hair," he added, reaching up and touching the nearly white cap of hair on his head.

"I don't know, I kind of like it that way," Jesmind smiled, reaching up and patting it. "But it looks too severe like this. What happened to your bangs?"

"They grew," he chuckled. "I had to put them in the braid."

"I don't like it." She extended a claw and carefully sheared his hair, just below his ears, freeing his bangs. The blond-white locks slid down from their constrainment and tickled the top of his forehead lightly. "There. That makes you look much nicer. It softens your face."

"Until they grow again," Tarrin chuckled, reaching up and flicking the loose hair with a finger.

"You're a Were-cat, Tarrin. Just like that Shiika woman can appear any way she wants, you can make your hair any length you want. Mist keeps her hair almost as short as a human man's. It's all a matter of want."

"Well, if that's the case, I'll keep my hair this way," he said with a smile. "Just because you like it this way."

"I like long hair too," she said, tousling her hair for him. "Something else we have in common."

"At least mine doesn't look like a tornado went through it," he winked.

"It'll wash out," she said with a grin.

"How will I tell?"

Jesmind laughed, then reached down and drew little circles on the side of his cheek with her finger. "I like my hair wild."

"I noticed."

"Was mother pulling my leg when she said you helped Jula after she went mad?"

He shook his head. "She's a Were-cat, so I could use magic affecting the mind on her. With Dolanna's help, I was able to regress her madness back to where she was rational, then teach her how to stop the process from happening again."

"That was nice of you."

"I wasn't too happy about taking her for a child, but I guess it all worked out."

"I'm surprised you did, seeing as who she was and what she did to you."

"I know. I think I did it because I was tired of destroying things. Just once, I wanted to help someone, not ruin their lives. And, to be honest, I felt very sorry for her. If you'd have seen her like I did, you'd have done almost anything for her out of pity. She was the most hopeless, miserable thing I'd ever seen."

"Did you sleep with her?"

"Jesmind!" Tarrin said in surprise.

"Well sorry," she grumbled. "I'm curious, that's all."

"You're jealous!" he laughed.

"A little," she admitted with a slight blush. "All this time, I've still considered you my mate, Tarrin. Mates get jealous when their mates stray. I was jealous over Mist too, but not that much. At least with her, I knew you had a good reason for doing it."

"You said she's close. Have you seen her?"

Jesmind nodded. "She brought Eron to visit me," she said. "And introduce him to his half-sister. He looks just like a little you. He even has your hair and fur."

"He does?"

Jesmind nodded. "There's absolutely no doubt that Eron is your son. Anyone who looks at him swears up and down that it must be you, somehow magically turned into a baby."

Tarrin chuckled. "I hope he makes Mist happy."

"She's deleriously happy," Jesmind smiled at him. "I've never seen her so open before. She actually relaxed when she visited, and held Jasana. I never thought I'd see such things out of Mist. What you did for her, mate, it was a miracle."

"I'm glad for that," he sighed. "She was so lost. I felt so sorry for her."

Jesmind smiled. "She's absolutely devoted to you, Tarrin. Half the time she was here, she did nothing but ask questions about you. I don't think she wants you for mate, but you definitely have a friend for life. She'd walk through fire if you asked her to do it."

"I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon," he said dryly.

"I hope not." She looked down at him. "Why was everything still here?" she asked. "When I first got here, I found some things missing, but almost everything else here. Why did your parents leave so much behind?"

"Because they didn't think they'd be gone so long," he replied. "When they came to Suld, it was just to visit. But then I-" he closed his eyes. That was still a very painful memory. "But then I nearly killed mother, and they stayed in Suld while everyone was trying to find me. After that, Jegojah attacked them, and I told them to go somewhere where they couldn't be found, for their own safety. So they went to Ungardt for a while."

"I've always wondered about that," she said. "I about had a heart attack when I found that magical object in the cellar. I couldn't believe that they'd leave something that rare and valuable behind. They're lucky it was still here."

"This is Aldreth, Jesmind," he chided with a smile. "Nobody would dream of stealing it. Some things were missing because my parents wrote Garyth and asked him to store some things for them."

"He said something like that, but I wasn't paying much attention when he said it," she admitted.

"Well, there you go. The mystery is solved."

She smiled at him. "You're leaving tomorrow, aren't you?" she asked.

"How many times are you going to ask that question?"

"Until I hear an answer I like, I suppose," she said with a little smile. "I don't want you to go."

"I really don't want to go either, but I have to," he sighed.

"I heard what you want to do today, but what are you really going to do today?"

Tarrin looked up at her, then laughed ruefully. "Go into the village and make sure that everyone's going to be ready, I suppose," he answered. "Outside of that, I really don't know."

"Well, I know what we could do right now," she said in a husky voice, her eyes smoldering and her scent shifting in its texture noticably. She leaned down and kissed him with that same intense passion that made her the best kisser he had ever had the pleasure to experience, a woman that could probably charm any male or win any argument with a male because she could subdue him with one of those kisses. He made a mental note never to allow her into a position to kiss him while they were fighting, or he was going to lose the fight.

Being blessed with an unnatural sense of when an interruption would be the most disruptive, like all children, Jasana burst through the door with a laugh and a bounce, then sailed into their bed, interrupting the moment. "It's morning!" she declared happily, her little paws shoving on her mother urgently. "Wake up, mama, papa!"