The appetizers did vanish much faster than they were replaced. Luckily, they had enough that Serove seemed pleased. The newlyweds returned to sit at the head table and enjoy the entertainment portion of the evening.

Enjoy was a loose word. Kalysto still looked like her scowl had been painted on. Reyz made several attempts to cajole a smile from her and never managed it.

Entertainments included a magician, a sparring match between two wolves, and—finally—a dancer. By this last, Oryen had enjoyed a beer for every three Serove had drunk, which brought Oryen up on four. Warmth bloomed pleasantly in his extremities, and Serove seemed in a far better mood.

On the floor where two werewolves had just sparred, a slight man walked, barefoot, into the centre. He wore only black trousers and bright red paint on his palms. His olive complexion and dark eyes drew sharp contrast with his shock of ash white hair. He did not say a word, or announce himself, or really do anything aside from walk to that spot, take up a pose with an arm extended gracefully to the surrounding crowd and wait there. Frozen.

Oryen found himself transfixed. There was something oddly familiar about the dancer. What's more, he could smell, even from this distance, that the dancer was human.

"Who's that?" he asked.

Serove squinted over his beer. "Oh, that's...thingy." He snapped his fingers to recall the name. "Beau! He's, uh, whatchacallit. A smuggler. Gets us nice things. Like this!" He raised his beer and clinked glasses with Oryen.

"What's a human doing in quarantine?"

"Jobs. Hazard pay is good I hear."

The amphitheater filled with music, and Beau began to dance. He drew a lyrical line with a toe through the dirt in a graceful arc, then stamped his foot to the beat of a drum. He floated across the space, the tension in his limbs making it seem as though an invisible force kept pulling him back to the place he started. As he danced, a story emerged too. Of a caged creature that yearned and fought to be free.

It was, Oryen reflected, an awkward theme for a wedding.

He thought at first that the music would lift and Beau would move more freely. Instead, the drums beat harder and the minor chords louder. Until the moment of the crescendo, Beau held his hands inward or in fists. As the music crashed over them, Beau's hands opened in a flash of red paint, which in a dervish of motion he streaked over his arms, his chest, his throat. Striped with it, the strings drew out one final, plaintive note as Beau rose up, as though a fish hook beneath his breastbone were pulling him painfully skyward. Then the music stopped and he crumpled into the silence that followed.

Oryen had not taken his eyes from the dancer. Though much of the crowd was drunk and distracted, they'd stopped to take notice. The performance seemed poignant. The noise of the amphitheatre fell away. In the space of that quiet, as Beau rose up and took a graceful bow from the stage, one pair of hands clapped.

At the head table, Kalysto was finally smiling.

Something stranger still happened. Beau, making a cursory sweep of the crowd as he exited, caught Oryen's eyes. And held his gaze. An indiscernible emotion passed over Beau's face in that barest moment. Oryen couldn't name whether it was anger, pain, shock, a combination of the three, or neither. He could identify only one thing in that look.

Recognition.

Beau left and Oryen's heart thudded somewhere in his stomach. Serove, having observed the entire thing, wore a lopsided frown and dug an elbow into Oryen's ribs. "You know 'im or somethin'?"

Oryen and the surrounding crowd seemed to shake themselves from the strangeness of the moment all at once. "No, just can't decide which side of him I like more. The front or the back."

Serove's laughter died quickly. He didn't step back, but his body leaned away. Just a little. It was this, of all things, that finally freed Oryen from Serove's watch over him.

"I've got to go," Serove said, and left.

Oryen tried to count this as a blessing, but the dancer's strange performance and that final look haunted him. Had he imagined it? He searched for Aryeta and, failing to find her, decided it was time to congratulate the new couple and leave this weird evening behind him.

He wasn't sure whether congratulations were given at werewolf weddings. A number of people were dropping by the head table to chat, but not everyone. Still, he didn't want to be rude. Besides, the idle stares from strangers who'd no doubt heard about the long-lost brother of their Alpha were beginning to give him the creeps.

At the head table, Reyz hugged a partygoer goodbye while Kalysto poured herself a steaming cup of coffee. Reyz didn't notice Oryen's approach, but Kalysto's eerie, pale gaze stuck to him and watched with discomfiting severity.

Oryen once again found himself smiling when he didn't feel like it. "Hi! I'm Oryen. Thought I'd introduce myself and congratulate you," he said.

"Please don't," Kalysto said.

"Kaly!" Reyz chastised. "Her bark is worse than her bite, I promise."

Kalysto rolled her eyes and blew on her coffee.

Reyz continued, "It must seem strange, the both of us, but we hardly know each other. Our marriage was arranged. We're making the best of it for the betterment of our Packs though, aren't we?"

"Indeed," Kalysto said.

"I didn't quite catch your name though." Reyz extended a hand.

"Ory-"

"He's Lazro's estranged brother, you idiot."

Reyz didn't even flinch at Kalysto's slight, his eyes widening. "Oh yes, his brother! I remember. Isn't this a special occasion then? Where have you been?"

Oryen smiled blithely. "Wasn't a werewolf until a little over a week ago."

"Jeeze. This must be so weird for you." He indicated the drying stains of the berry juice on their chins and throats. "We should be more welcoming, shouldn't we darling?" he added, placing a cajoling hand on Kalysto's knee.

Two things happened in swift succession. Kalysto, nostrils flaring, upended the scalding coffee onto the offending hand. Reyz bolted up from his chair, sending it sprawling behind him. His face contorted—suddenly too long and with too many teeth.

"Oops," said Kaly.

Reyz's retort was garbled by a wolfish snarl.

"Hey now." Oryen raised placating hands, but the sight of a half-transformed werewolf made his guts churn. "It was an accident-"

"No," Kaly interrupted him. "It wasn't."

Oryen left, still uncertain what it was he'd just witnessed. Not a union of love, that was for certain. He wound his way through the vacant streets on his way to the barracks with a head full of questions he couldn't begin to answer. He'd hoped Aryeta might have been available to answer them, but once again he couldn't find her. He left the wedding alone.

Nearing the barracks, a chemical smell like wet paint drifted on the air. He didn't think much of it, his thoughts too consumed with the strange events of that evening. Until, from the darkness of a doorway, a bloody hand reached and snatched him by the front of his shirt.

With surprising strength, the stranger pulled Oryen into the shadow of a doorway. He was pulled against someone, their chest hard against Oryen's back. A flash of silver and cold metal pressed into Oryen's throat, just beneath the thick leather of his collar. He remembered what would happen if his collar was tampered with. His throat went dry, but he couldn't swallow for fear the bob of his adam's apple would nudge the knife higher.

He spoke as evenly as he could, without moving his jaw too much. "You can have the tags."

Still holding the knife to Oryen's throat, his assailant circled round so they were facing one another.

Beau looked him in the eye. The blood on his hands and chest was not blood but red paint. Streaked with it and holding the knife, he looked like a butcher. His dark eyes bored into Oryen's with recognition that Oryen didn't reciprocate and which unnerved him to his core. His face was close. Four scars scored his skin. The longest stretched from the bridge of his nose to his jugular, the shortest just barely nicking his upper lip. Scars made by a Wolf's paw.
Oryen tried for congeniality, but his heart thundered in his ears. "I usually have to open my mouth before people want to kill me."

"What are you doing here? Spying?" Beau intoned.

Confusion pinched Oryen's brows together.

"You're not a werewolf. Did someone from the quarantine initiative hire you?"

"You're not a werewolf either," Oryen pointed out. His scent was human, not a trace of animal there. How Beau could tell Oryen's status was a mystery. "But, if you'll let me—"

Beau didn't take the knife away, but he allowed Oryen to slowly raise an arm, where the bite scars stood out pink and visible in the night.

Beau's eyes narrowed. "Do you know who I am?" he said. "You don't. Do you." Not a question. An accusation.

"Do I owe you money? I mean I was always a good boy so I don't know h—" Oryen stopped short with a hiss when Beau moved the knife. Down. He pressed the tip against Oryen's collar bone. It pricked like a bee sting. Then Beau slid it lightly across. Not enough to cut the skin further. There was the soft snick snick as it sliced easily through the material of Oryen's shirt. Oryen's heart pounded. He was too late to stop it. The slow, violent stripping down of this one flimsy defense. And how could Beau know where it was?

The shirt collar, cut and peeled aside, revealed the tattoo underneath.

Beau's eyes, burning with hate, met his. "You're the Fen that destroyed my Pack."

--------

Author's Note: We finally get to the meet-cute! Since this is a trilogy-in-the-making, it's more spread out than I'm used to. I've been waiting to post this chapter for what feels like forever! Now that we're ten chapters in, I'd love to get your feedback and thoughts.

Which characters so far are your favourites? Least favourites? Who most intrigues you?

The cast is pretty huge compared to my other works. Did you find yourself confused/forgetting who someone was at any point?

What are you most looking forward to? Conversely, were there any areas where it felt too slow/I could cut things down for pacing?

Thanks a bunch for being my early readers, I really appreciate your support while the book is still new! <3