Chapter 143: The Panther’s Quiet

He had been allowed to see his uncle before leaving.

The old man had put on a sad face and even pleaded with Naiya, but she refused.

He did not understand why everyone had just turned cold, especially her.

Everyone had just accepted his exile without complaining.

He had thought he understood why. He was tainted and had been touched by the shiftless female. His presence was a reminder of what had been done to Naiya.

But Ermin had also been a victim. And no one had said a word in his defence.

They had all believed he betrayed Naiya, even though he was the one who had been drugged.

Althea dropped her meat chunk and reached for Ermin’s tail instead, wrapping both tiny hands around it and tugging experimentally.

He stared at his daughter as she tugged and tugged until she grew tired of it, dropping his tail to press her face against his chest. Her small body was warm and heavy with food and approaching sleep.

Ermin wrapped his arm around her, and his gaze drifted across the clearing to where Tera had disappeared.

She was so different now. Her body had changed considerably, but there was a steady warmth in her eyes that had never been there before.

Not once had he imagined he would build a family with this female or even picture her having his cubs. The thought of it would have made him sick a year ago.

Now it was the thing he held tightest to.

Tera had kissed his cheek just now without any ceremony.

Naiya had never done that.

Everything with Naiya had to be earned. Every touch, every glance, every moment of closeness had come at the end of a performance that Ermin had rehearsed and refined until it was flawless. He had been so proud of his ability to win her attention that he had never questioned why it needed to be won in the first place.

Tera just gave it.

The thought crept in sideways, and Ermin wasn’t ready for how much it hurt.

He had told Naiya once to banish Tera from the tribe. He had been irritated by the shiftless female constantly hovering around her cousin, disturbing her with pranks and noise and the particular brand of chaos that only the old Tera could produce.

Naiya had shrugged it off. "She is my blood. She is harmless."

Tera was harmless until she wasn’t.

Ermin wondered sometimes what his life would have looked like if Naiya had listened. If Tera had been banished before the drugging. He would still be in the Jackdaw tribe, still grooming himself each morning, still performing for a female who required him to earn what Tera gave freely.

He would never have met his daughter.

Althea shifted against his chest, making a small, sleepy sound that was sweet to his ears.

The guilt of the thought washed through him. He couldn’t wish away the path that had led him here without wishing her away too.

And he loved the new Tera very much.

While he didn’t mind her staring into space as a side effect of hitting her head hard, he felt a bit odd at times whenever he tried to reconcile her with the Tera from Jackdaw.

They were so different now.

Around him, the feast was winding down. The last of the soup had been served, and a few of the females were already carrying sleeping cubs towards their shelters while the males tidied up the place.

The fires were dying into beds of glowing coals, and the conversations had shrunk to murmured exchanges between exhausted beasts.

Ermin felt lonely.

He would like to talk to someone, join a group, or say something to the clan members who had tried for months to include him in their conversations, all to no avail.

And now, he didn’t know how to anymore.

He had declined their invitations so many times before, because his chest had been too full of poison to make room for anything else. The resentment toward Tera, the grief for his old life, the confusion of the bond, all of it had taken up every available space inside him until there was nothing left for simple friendship.

Now they had stopped inviting him.

They were not unkind. They had just stopped asking, and Ermin had been too shy to make the first move.

Xavi was different, but only slightly. They shared meals, shared the care of the cubs, shared a mate. They had fought side by side and searched for Tera together. But the bear was strangely closed off.

It was to everyone, not just Ermin.

And while he was gentle and caring towards Tera and even towards him, Ermin barely knew anything about the bear.

Though it wasn’t like he had shared anything about himself with Xavi either, so maybe that was the problem?

Ermin didn’t know what the bear thought about when the camp was quiet. He didn’t know what had driven a massive, powerful male to wander alone and collect broken beasts into a clan instead of joining a tribe that would have welcomed his strength.

They were comrades, not friends, and Ermin would like to be friends with Xavi.

Althea’s breathing had evened out. She was asleep, her small face pressed against his chest, her pink ears soft and still.

Ermin looked down at his daughter and pulled her closer.

"Ermin..."

He looked up, stunned. He hadn’t known when Tera had walked up to him.

Her silhouette was soft against the dying firelight, and her face was relaxed, the tiredness from earlier having faded into a gentle look.

"I can take Althea to rest with Nadia and Xavi," she said quietly, crouching down beside him. "She is already asleep."

Ermin blinked. He had been expecting her to tell him to come sleep too. He had been preparing the polite refusal in his head that he wasn’t tired yet. His mind was too full for sleep and the thought of lying still in the dark while his thoughts circled was unbearable.

But she wasn’t asking him to sleep.

She was just taking Althea.

"Thank you." He looked down at the sleeping cub on his chest, feeling oddly reluctant to let go.

Tera reached out and carefully lifted Althea from him. The panther cub stirred, her tiny face scrunching with displeasure at being moved, but Tera tucked her against her chest with the practised ease of a mother who had perfected the art of transferring sleeping babies without waking them.

One of Althea’s small hands found a fistful of Tera’s hair and gripped it loosely, anchoring herself even in sleep.

Tera pressed a kiss to the cub’s pink ears and turned back toward the shelter.

Ermin watched her go and sat there waiting with the faint hope that Tera would come join him.

But as the minutes stretched, he had started to wonder if Tera had simply gone to sleep too, when her figure reappeared again.

She walked up to him, and the way she stared so fondly made his heart skip.

She stopped in front of him and tilted her head.

"Do you want to take a walk with me?"