aren venter . (meanerthan) wrote in exsanguious, @ 2015-08-31 21:14:00 |
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AREN: Knowing that lions had come anywhere near one of the Clan was grating on Aren. No blood had been spilled, no bones broken or lethal intent exercised, but to Aren it was bad enough that one of those filthy cats had come anywhere near one of his mother’s people and walked away to talk about it. Bragging maybe. Telling all their arrogant companions about the hyena they’d found and helped, what a pathetic creature it was, needing help like that. Aren couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stay inside, and as soon as Ethan had told him about the encounter, about the incident where he had started to shift uncontrollably, he had needed to get out and do something about it. There was only so much he could do though, his mother’s word was law and Meria had forbidden any of her followers from pursuing the lions and he was no exception, he was not exempt from her rules just because her blood ran in his veins. If anything he was held to a much higher and stricter standard than the rest of the Clan because he had been raised by their Matriarch, because he had been following her rules from the very beginning and disobedience or disloyalty from him would be the ultimate failure and betrayal.
As much as Aren wanted to find the blonde bitch who had dared to approach a Venter hyena and beat her to a bloody pulp he couldn’t do that, it was forbidden, and all he could do instead was patrol the territory’s borders to make sure none of the cats had come close in recent days. It had to be enough.
It wasn’t, though, and that dissatisfied energy crackled through his veins like electricity as he moved from the bathroom to the bedroom without stopping anywhere in between, his feet still bare from the shower he’d taken with the intention of clearing his head and cooling down, dressed only in boxers and his pants, the belt undone and hanging open at the front, the buckle rattling lightly as he walked. The boots he planned to wear were at the foot of the bed but he bypassed them completely on his way to the dresser to pull out a shirt. The muscles through his bare shoulders, back, and chest were visibly tight, tension making him feel increasingly restless, in need of some sort of action. Some kind of release.
ZORAH: Even when he had stalked off to take a shower she had known that it wasn’t really going to relax him. Zorah had seen him like this before, not under the same circumstances, but the tension was something she recognised. While he thundered around the bedroom, a hurricane in a teacup as it were, she came from the kitchen to lean on the doorframe with an actual cup of tea in her hands. Watching him intently she blew steam from across the top of the scalding liquid. Aren was every inch the caged animal. Only one thing was going to satiate him and it was the one thing that he was forbidden to have. Revenge. Retribution. A pound of flesh. As exciting as it always was when he was riled up and restless she was not so cruel as to want him to suffer that way. If there was a release he could have for the buildup of pressure then she wanted him to have it.
Zorah crossed the bedroom quietly, barefoot, and placed her mug down on the dresser. Without speaking she went to the closet and opened the doors. In the mirror mounted on the inside she could see her mate reflected back at her, those tense shoulders, the tight muscles of his back; all vexation and nowhere to channel it. Even going out to patrol the edges of the territory might not do him much good. There would be no lions for him to kill and as Zorah brushed her fingers through the clothes she had hanging up a warm little flutter went through her; it was natural for hyenas to hate lions, filthy creatures that they were, but she knew that at least part of his utter blind loathing was because they had hurt her. That was a thrilling feeling.
When she turned around and walked towards him she had a dress in each hand, one white and patterned with little red flowers and one powder blue. “Which one?” she asked him, knowing he likely wouldn’t actually care but also knowing that he would take her meaning; she was going to come with him and that was a rare occurrence.
AREN: Natural as it was, hardwired into his brain along with every other predatory instinct, every drive to hunt and kill, a lot about his hatred had to do with what those mangy creatures had done to his mate. Hatred was not a strong enough word, actually, it didn’t even come close. Loathing fell short as well, it was a laughable understatement and Aren had come to believe there was no word in any language he spoke that properly summed up his feelings when it came to the lions. All lions. If Aren had his way he would have hunted them all down methodically, one by one, torn them limb from limb with his bare hands, made sure to leave them alive while he did it so they could watch themselves bleed out. Not being able to do that drove him crazy. As much as he understood his mother’s ruling on the matter it was maddening to him that the lions had been permitted to live after what they had done, the damage had not even been close to equal and that grated on what few nerves he had. Badly. Like nails on a chalkboard, a harsh scraping on the inside of his skull that threatened to unravel what sanity he possessed.
When Zorah crossed into the room he was aware of her, keenly and constantly as he always was, and not just because she passed close enough to set that mug down on the very same dresser he was pulling a shirt from. Wherever she was in their apartment he sensed her at all times, he was always conscious of her position in relation to his and normally proximity would have eased him but not tonight. True though it was she was the one thing keeping him grounded in that moment it would take more than closeness with his mate to unravel that tension that was all but straining his muscles to the point of discomfort.
With a shirt in his hand -- black, just in case, blood showed up so easily on anything else and preparation was paramount in Aren’s world when it came to responsibilities such as these -- he turned his head when Zorah came closer, looking first at her face and then the dresses before bringing his eyes back up to hers. Dark, intelligent, knowing. In those eyes he could see the understanding of what this was doing to him and the determination to accompany him on his self-appointed mission. Aren had no intention of arguing with her. “The white,” he said to her because the red caught his eye, he had to wonder if she had known that it would.
ZORAH: Neither of the dresses she had chosen would hide blood but she didn’t always want to. There were plenty of black dresses in her wardrobe that she could have chosen but instead she had made the very conscious decision to go for something bright, something that would not blend into the shadows but instead burn in them. Some of her clothes were disposable and some were not. Some she would gladly wear and ruin on a night out with her mate and some she would never. It was clear that she had decided to opt for something disposable tonight, should the need for bloodshed arise. For Aren’s sake she hoped it did and if not she would have to do something about it; whether or not it was a lion a kill would aid in the release that she could see he so desperately needed.
The white dress, crisp and pressed vintage lines with little red flowers, almost mimicked blood spatter. Zorah had suspected that would catch her mate’s attention as a result. Aren could dress in all his dark colours, all that black, and she would be beside him in white and red, his own personal venus fly trap; sweet on the outside but completely deadly. Just the way he liked her, she was sure. “White it is.” Zorah smiled at him a little, casting the blue dress off with a toss so that it landed on the bed. Contrary as she could be -- and Zorah could be extremely argumentative when she felt so inclined -- she was more than happy to acquiesce to his decisions tonight. Part of her felt that perhaps he needed that too, that even the smallest ounce of control in a situation where he had none in the larger scheme might help to ease him. When she wanted to be in charge she was but sometimes she liked to let him command her. That was the give and take of their relationship.
Silently she changed out of her comfortable clothes -- dark and flowing with draping sleeves and loose pants -- and into the dress standing at the end of their bed to do so. Then she went over to him and turned around so that her back was to him. “Zip.”
AREN: There were many subtle messages in all the things Zorah did, she communicated so much in the simplest of actions and as in tune with his animal side as he was there was no way Aren could miss them, certainly not with how much time they spent together. They had gotten to know one another on the deepest and most intimate levels two people could know one another and he recognised that she was following his lead without a word of challenge or complaint, that she had chosen an item that she knew would catch his eye, that he needed this hunt, fruitless though it would likely turn out to be, in order to regain some sense of balance and stability. Right now he felt on the edge, at risk of tearing himself apart from within, and neither one of them could allow that. Zorah would be there every step of the way to make sure that didn’t happen and Aren trusted her with every piece of himself, inside and out.
His own shirt was still in his hand when she made her way back over to him, he had momentarily forgotten about it as he watched her strip out of her other clothes and he lightly tossed the item to the side and into the armchair tucked into the corner of the room so that he had his hands free. The backs of his fingers stroked down the length of her spine slowly, almost meticulously, before he took hold of the dress in one hand and pulled the zip all the way up to the top with the other. “We won’t find any,” he said, his voice low and tight, gravelly with poorly veiled frustration.
ZORAH: Inaction was akin to a death sentence to him. Zorah knew that very well, that being still, being without the thrill of the hunt or at the very least some purpose for his fists, he felt choked, stifled, suffocated. That was not something she could allow to stand, she did not want him to be uncomfortable or unhappy, she only wanted the best for him in every aspect of their life and while to her that sometimes might mean clothes of a certain quality on nights like this it meant a kill deserving of his primeval savagery. That was how well she knew him, that was the level on which they were intimate. No matter what the night brought she would see to it that by the time they came home he was feeling better, more relaxed. There would need to be blood for that, there was always blood when that was the goal.
A sighed passed her lips when his fingers stroked against her skin that way, her eyes closing briefly at the softness of the contact; even now when he was on the precipice he found it in himself to touch her delicately. “No, most likely not.” Zorah leaned back against him ever so briefly, the heat of him, the solidness so reassuring even when he was fit to erupt. “We’ll find someone, though.” It mattered little who, really. They would not be a lion but if they had a heartbeat and misfortune in their stars they would do. At that she turned around to look at him, close and warm and utterly devout in her words and actions as she took hold of his belt and began to fasten it, all sharp tugs and quick fingers. Somehow it was still amorous, even though normally she would have been stripping him out of his clothes, there was still some degree of heat there. “I won’t let you starve.”
AREN: In the moments before she turned around Aren dipped close enough to bury his nose in her hair against her neck, breathing her scent in deeply and fully, flooding his lungs with it. When she turned he remained where he was, his feet planted, wanting her to brush against him, needing to feel the heat of her that close. As she spoke he listened and watched her face, feeling the confident and quick motions of her fingers as she worked on tightening and fastening his belt for him, his dark eyes fixed on her features as she made promises he knew she would keep. Zorah would not let him come back here unsatisfied, lion or not she would find some poor soul for him to destroy and he would take pleasure in it, it was the kind of sentiment other people would not understand but one that they had come to expect from one another. When she felt that buzzing between her ears he brought her prey and when he paced and prowled and snarled, fit to burst with fury and restless unbridled aggression she saw to it that he could unleash the hunter within, satiate the killer that lurked beneath the surface of his skin.
A low growl rolled in his throat and one hand came up so his fingertips could brush along the underside of her arm. So gentle with her when every fibre of his being wanted blood and murder and brutality, ever nerve singing out for destruction and devastation. “Someone who puts up a fight,” he said, his voice low, a predatory rumble of words over his tongue. Aren wanted a fight, he wanted the rush, the violence, that was what he needed and Zorah knew that. As well as he could read her she was equally as adept at reading him, picking apart the little cues in his behaviour, never missing a thing.
ZORAH: They looked after one another. It might not seem that they needed much care being fierce each in their own rights, being strong and murderous and having hundreds of kills under their belts, but in their own ways they had fragile secret parts. Zorah was needy, she craved attention and loyalty, she needed to be needed and wanted and relied upon. For so many years she had sought the approval of her mother, just as Aren had his own, and she had aspired to be just as strong and indomitable as Sévérine Graves but striving to reach such stratospheric standards had left a hole behind, a gaping, aching absence of the kind of affection she had always wanted and only rarely received in scraps. Aren gave that to her whether he was being gentle and meticulous with his touches or rough and raucous. It was all love. It was all affection. It filled the chasm inside of her but sometimes she felt as though it might be bottomless and that no amount of kisses or touches or secret sojourns in backwater cabins would ever satisfy the absence in her, the nothingness in the pit of her. It left her always wanting more from him, demanding everything that he had the capacity to give, changing his capacities so that he would know what it was to feel not just lust and provocation but love, affection, tenderness. Aren knew those things, he gave her those things. Zorah felt it when his nose buried in her hair, drawing in her animal scent.
“Maybe we’ll find you a bear.” Zorah’s own voice was an encouraging purr, content in the way his fingers traced against the bare skin of her arm. If Aren wanted a fight then that was what they would have to find for him, if he wanted an opponent that was going to put up a decent fight then they would have to find someone with power, age or experience or a combination of the three because her mate was such a skilled fighter, just a perfectly evolved killer that lesser beings rarely stood much of a chance around him. Zorah lifted a hand from his belt to capture his chin between her thumb and her curled index finger and then she leaned in to plant a soft, chaste kiss against his lips. “Let’s go before you destroy the flat.”
AREN: Being so close, so intimate and so observant of all those little signs and clues meant that they could see things in one another that no one else could, they were able to pick out the pieces that others overlooked so easily. In Zorah he saw the need, the itch that needed to be scratched, the drive and the desire to unleash her creativity and lethality. There was no way for him to miss those things, not now that he knew how to recognise them, just as she saw how fine the line was between the hunter and the man, the animal and the skin within which it walked, a thin disguise to the rest of the world and one she had never been fooled by. Zorah saw in him the need to hunt, kill, rend and tear, shatter and pulverise, she saw the cravings that needed to be sated and also the importance of purpose and function. Aren had lived his life doing his duty to his mother, to his Clan, for over two hundred years he had known his place and his responsibilities and now inactivity was unbearable to him. Always moving, always on the go, doing something, working towards a goal. Zorah recognised that perhaps more than he could for himself, he had never been the most self-aware individual in the world and Meria had raised him to be that way.
At the mention of a bear, the possibility of fighting what had to be the ultimate opponent in the supernatural world, Aren’s breath all but shuddered out of him, a thrill chasing through his veins that was almost icy, refreshing and sharp. If her intention had been to chase away some of the tension still knotting his shoulders and back then she was successful, Aren felt a little of it melt away at the prospect she dangled before him and when she kissed him he returned it, reminding himself not to get caught up in the moment. There was work to be done. With a low growl he smiled at her, looking more content than he had all day but also more eager. Even if they didn’t find a lion his mate would find something for him to beat to a bloody pulp, something he could batter and bloody and break. Separating himself from Zorah, no easy feat under any circumstances, he reclaimed his shirt from where he had tossed it and pulled it over his head, casting dark curls across his face but they did little to mask the intent gaze he angled her way before he moved to lead the way out of the room, holding one hand out for her as he did so.
ZORAH: It was always her intention to rid him of tension. One way or another she always found a way to relax him, to help him unwind. Aren carried a lot of responsibility with him day to day, he stood for a lot, he was an idol forged to represent his mother and everything she and the group stood for, their strength, their rigidity. Zorah knew what that was like, what it was to be both more and less of a person, to be raised above the standards of others and yet to somehow reduced to them. That was why it was so important to her that he know she could see him, really see him. Everything that made him a man, a formidable one, but also everything that made him her mate, his ability to be loving and so achingly tender when he wanted to be. Those were things that were not and never could be part of the icon that he was on behalf of the Venters. Those were not things that she could ever imagine his mother being comfortable in him even displaying or owning. Yet they were hers, her parts of him, the best parts. Zorah smiled when he held out his hand to her, like he was asking her to dance. In a way he was. This was their song.
Outside the night air was warm and thick and they drove with the windows down to the edge of the territory before parking up and continuing by foot. Zorah had armed herself but only a little; under the folds of her white and red dress she had strapped a favoured blade to her thigh but she doubted she would need it. Tonight was Aren’s night and this was all for him. As they walked she slid her hand into his, wanting to hold him, to be connected to him always. It made them a little less conspicuous as well, gave them an edge when they wandered along like a mortal loving couple enjoying the night when what they really were, of course, were predators out seeking prey.
This was better for him even if they did not find him something to kill right away because she did understand that he could not stand to be idle, that sitting around and waiting for something was not in his nature. Aren was much like a shark, in need of perpetual motion to stay alive, to stay sane. Zorah pulled into his side over the course of a few paces, running her free hand up his arm while her fingers clutched at his. They would find something soon, she was sure, she was determined to seek out a worthy opponent for him tonight. “I haven’t watched you fight in a long time,” she whispered to him. Kill, yes. Kill things much lesser than him that he could break in one strike but fighting was different.
AREN: Being outside in the fresh air was a good start, Aren liked having room to move, to be free in the way animals instinctively craved and appreciated. Having Zorah’s hand in his and feeling her step into him so she could brush against him, share their warmth, made things better. Out here he could think, the frustration that stemmed from confinement he had experienced in the apartment had begun to fade as soon as he’d felt the warm breeze washing over his face as they’d driven to the edge of Laguna Lake, the borders of the Clan’s territory, being able to prowl and patrol made him feel more in his element. More comfortable. Had it been anyone else with him he wouldn’t have even welcomed the close proximity but as was the case in every other way Zorah was the exception to the rule, she could touch and press and lean against him, she could take his hand or his arm, she could whisper in his ear. Better than anyone else she knew these things, she had already learned his language fluently, she had deciphered him years ago now and knew exactly what she could do. There wasn’t much she couldn’t do.
Turning his head just enough so that he could see her in the periphery of his field of vision he made a low rumble of a sound in the back of his throat, at any other time he might have managed a smile but he still felt too tight, too tense, to even attempt it. To do so would have been a wasted effort and Aren was saving his energy for whatever fight came his way. If it wasn’t a lion -- and the odds that they would find one were very small, next to non-existent -- then something else, Zorah had promised she would find him something challenging, something worth their time. There was no denying how much he loved the idea of her watching him, knowing that her eyes were on him while he unleashed all those skills he had naturally, talents that had been encouraged and cultivated, was a thrill close to the rush of the fight itself. “It’s long overdue,” he said to her, not just combat in and of itself but having his mate watch him assert himself so forcefully, so aggressively. As they had walked along he had been sifting through the scents on the air and while there were subtle threads of shifter there was nothing strong yet, nothing close enough to take note of at least. “Do you really think we could find a bear?” Aren wasn’t getting his hopes up but if the chance presented itself he didn’t intend to waste it.
ZORAH: She didn’t expect him to smile, not the way he was feeling. There was never a time when he needed to dress up his restlessness for her, anyway. There was no need to hide how he was feeling, to disguise from her his frustrations, not only would she see through any mask he attempted to draw over them but she would be upset that he even bothered to try; Zorah did not like it much when he was upset but she did like that she could see it in his eyes, his expression, in every tense, taut muscle. A smile would have been a lie and they didn’t lie to one another. Not even with smiles.
“I think we could. If we put our minds to it.” They might not find one tonight, not when their focus wasn’t on hunting a bear specifically and more on finding just about anything that would take the edge off for him. If a bear did happen to cross their path, if they were lucky enough for such an elusive shifter to be in the wrong place at the wrong time -- for him -- then she would be very pleasantly surprised. There was a chance, of course. It was just a remote one. Zorah’s hand continued to brush up and down his arm slowly, a near soothing motion as they walked pace for pace through the dark spaces at the edges of the Venter territory. “If we don’t,” she added in a sly and sultry tone, “then we’ll just have to plan a proper little hunt, won’t we?” Now that the idea had occurred to her there was little more that she wanted to witness than Aren in all that forceful, assertive glory of his taking down a bear. There was no stronger opponent for him to measure himself against, no creature with a more fierce reputation in the supernatural world. There was equally no doubt in her mind that her mate would be the victor. There was nothing he could not do in her eyes, no foe he could not destroy. Bears, and all.
AREN: There was one person in all the world with whom he was never false to any degree and that was his mate. Even with his mother there were certain facades he had to draw up and put into place, when in the Matriarch’s company it was important that he be completely composed and in control at all times, hard and steady, resolute and indomitable. With Zorah those standards were not only more lax but they did not even exist, not in the way they did with his mother. The female at his side now allowed him to be whatever he chose to be at any given moment in time without any expectations of him beyond what was expected of one mate from another. There were no falsehoods between them, no masks, no deceptions, they were honest and whole with one another no matter what that might have meant to others around them.
Surely if they hunted long and hard enough they would find a bear of some description, perhaps even a grizzly or some other kind of brown bear, one of the big ones that would provide a real tough challenge for him but he knew the low likelihood of tracking one down tonight. The idea of a real hunt for one managed to call up what nothing else had so far and when it showed itself it might have only shown at the corner of his lips but it was real nonetheless: he smiled. With a low sound of approval in his throat he said in a quiet rumble, “Yes we will.” In the past he had defeated a bear, it had been the last in a long line of challenges his mother had set for him when he was younger, he had been unarmed and considerably less experienced than he was now but he had managed to bring it down. The damage done during that fight had been considerable, broken bones and internal bleeding, a concussion so severe it would have killed a human, Aren had barely been able to stand by the time the bear finally fell but he had survived where the other shifter hadn’t and that had been the aim of the exercise. Defeating another after so many years of experience and increasing strength and force of will wouldn’t be effortless but it would be easier now than it had been back then. “We can make a night of it.”
ZORAH: When it came to smiles she had long ago learned to take what she could; they were slight and they were small and they were dark from her mate, the brighter ones so rare they were difficult to catch or induce, but she loved all his smiles no matter how slight because they were his and everything that was his was magnificent to her. While it couldn’t be said that he could do no wrong in her eyes there was very little he could do to upset or anger her for long; they had a tumultuous relationship by design, they liked to argue and push and sometimes to fight with one another, that tension, that friction between them was such a large part of the attraction they still held for one another even after nearly half a decade together, devoted wholly to one another. They were still akin to hormonal teens when they were around each other, touching, kissing, regardless of the company they were in they were more or less all over one another and that was because they accepted one another for exactly what they were.
“Now I hope we don’t find one tonight.” Zorah near purred the words at him; they could set aside time and make a real hunt of it, a real night, it wouldn’t be one of near desperation on her mate’s part because he needed to break and smash and kill but a calculated, planned night of violence. Her favourite. It was only after she had spoken that she raised her head from where she had momentarily been resting it against his shoulder. Something had caught her attention, a faint thread of a scent that was there one moment and gone the next In tandem they stopped walking. “Cougar.” In the thick night air her voice was a dead whisper.
AREN: There had been one of those rare smiles brewing before the air changed the way it did. No one in the Clan could deny that Aren and Zorah were more highly attuned to their animal sides than anyone outside of their Matriarch, they embraced the wild instincts that most tried to subdue and restrain, they gave in to those urges and impulses that most tried to ignore. Aren had been raised to listen to them, to heed and hone them, and soon after meeting his mate he had become convinced that she was much the same, that her upbringing had involved the same sorts of lessons. It was moment like this one that cemented that certainty, the way they both stilled in the way predators did when they caught the scent of prey, every sense on high alert. It was the precursor to the hunt, every around them seemed to stop, holding its breath in preparation of what was to come.
“It’s alone.” Aren’s voice was little more than a hushed growl, his dark eyes searching the darkness with the keen intensity of the animal that he truly was beneath his human skin. A lone cougar didn’t stand a chance against the two of them, even against just one of them, but cats were always so sure of themselves, they always believed they had the upper hand in any confrontation. Hyenas were not wholly cat, they were a unique species unto themselves and that gave them an edge. This lone feline would not live through the night, they would see to that. “That way.” Aren’s eyes had turned in the right direction as he knew Zorah’s would have as well even before he opened his mouth to speak. They were both apex predators, both flawlessly efficient hunters. They would find the cat and put it down. Permanently.
ZORAH: Standing in the darkness of the backstreets, still and attentive to the scents and sounds around them, Zorah’s hands tightened around her mate’s arm a little. They were never more in synch than at moments like that, moments when their animal brains took over their human ones, and it was such a solid feeling, such a reassurance that they were practically one mind in two bodies, one intent shared between two souls. They stopped dead, they looked off in the direction of the shifter they had scented. They felt excitement together, elation, anticipation.
Zorah moved in a smooth swish of skirts, a click of heels, so that she was in front of him. She kissed him, pressing his face between her hands as she did so. With how riled up he was, how aggravated by the tense truce between their clan and the lion pride, she did not want this opportunity to slip past them, she did not want the prey to slip away. When she leaned back again she declined to speak because there was no point; they had hunted together like this many times before and he would know that when she peeled away from him it was to loop around and hem the prey into a kill zone for them, for him. With that she melted away around a corner, the bright splashes of red on the white dress fading into the darkness. Zorah would herd the cougar in the right direction so that Aren could trap it, fight it and kill it, and so she would have the best seat in the house.
AREN: This had long since become a kind of ritual for them, they had their own habits and routines and by now they both knew them as well as they knew one another, every detail and every move was well and truly memorised and it was always the same with only the slightest variations. Any changes on the part of one were anticipated and met by the other reflexively, they were both smart enough that they could act accordingly if things went somewhat awry. That was rare though, they were both so viciously efficient, so brilliantly lethal, that they never failed. Not once. Tonight would be no different, of that much Aren was unwaveringly certain even before she stepped around him and took his face in her hands to plant that deep and heated kiss on his lips.
His hand brushed down her arm as she moved away and he watched her until she was out of sight, blending into the shadows like she truly belonged there. They both did, brutal killers like them were at home in the darkness, it welcomed them with open arms and that was a big part of what made them so good at what they did so naturally, without even batting an eye. Only when she was completely gone from his field of vision did he move, following his instincts and the path his feet set him on in response, anticipating precisely where his mate would drive the cougar.
There was room to maneuver in the space that he came to occupy, the houses were out of earshot so any sounds of conflict would not carry to open windows or doors and there was no artificial light. Open as it was there was only just enough space to clash with an opponent, a majority of it was closed off so the cougar would not have anywhere to go once they were corralled in by his mate. Aren lurked at the edge opposite one of the only entrances to the clearing -- such as it was -- that he suspected Zorah would send the cougar down, the shadows wrapping around him to the point that he would only be seen when he moved forward to engage.