Their fear changed into a careful, hidden gladness, because Rauvan’s anger was not pointed at them yet.
The baboons had come to demand Odette, but now the saber-tooth male had arrived for the baboons, and the elders were low enough in their hearts to feel relief at another beast’s danger.
They did not step forward to help.
They did not speak for justice.
They simply waited to see if this stronger predator would remove the weaker one from their gate.
A female beside Rauvan stepped forward before he said a word.
She was a striped cat beastwoman with a curvy, powerful body, a short hide skirt wrapped tight around her hips, and another strip of dark hide crossing her chest.
Her skin was warm brown, her eyes were bright gold, and her black hair fell in thick waves down her back, threaded with small bone beads and dried claws.
A sharp bone blade rested against her thigh, tied there with vine, and her fingers hovered near it without needing to touch it.
She was beautiful in a bold, dangerous way, with full lips, strong legs, and a face that looked like it knew exactly how to smile and exactly how to kill.
Odette’s gaze moved over her quickly.
There was no mating scent on her.
No mark.
No claimed warmth mixed with Rauvan’s scent.
If someone looked from far away, they might think she and Rauvan were mates because she stood close to him and spoke before he did, but Odette’s nose told a different truth.
The female was unmated, and yet she stood at the side of one of the most feared males in the Red Canopy as if she had earned the place with blood.
The female’s voice was smooth but hard when she spoke.
“You baboons made noise near our path.”
The baboon envoy’s jaw tightened.
“We did not know the saber-tooth war-pride was passing.”
The female tilted her head.
“You smelled us.
Your kind smell everything when you want to steal, rut, or eat.
Do not pretend your nose died only when our blood touched the grass.”
One of the baboon males grunted angrily, but the envoy snapped his teeth at him before the sound could grow.
That small act made the watching Thorn Hollow males even more afraid, because baboons did not quiet each other unless the danger in front of them was real.
The envoy lowered his head slightly, not enough to show true respect, but enough to keep his throat farther from Rauvan’s gaze.
“We came for our dead male.
A female of this hollow killed him.
That matter is between us and Thorn Hollow.”
Rauvan did not answer.
He only looked at the envoy.
The silence stretched until it became painful.
The air smelled of blood, wet mud, fear, old smoke, and the bitter crushed leaves still clinging to Odette’s skin.
Somewhere behind the roots, a wounded child whimpered and was quickly hushed.
Pearl was hidden near the side of the holding cave, her small duiker ears trembling as she watched everything through hanging roots, and Odette saw her just long enough to understand that Pearl had not run away.
She was still there, frightened but listening.
The striped female smiled without warmth.
“Your dead male crossed near our hunt.”
“He is dead now,” the envoy said, forcing his voice to stay steady.
“The female paid blood with blood.”
Rauvan finally spoke.
His voice was low, deep, and almost bored.
“Did I ask about your dead male?”
The envoy’s mouth closed.
The whole gate seemed to shrink under that one sentence.
Odette felt it then, the strange weight of power that did not need to roar.
Rauvan was not loud.
He was not waving his claws or beating his chest.
He barely moved, and yet everyone listened as if his quiet voice had teeth.
Even the mandrill elder, who had roared at Odette and called her red-clawed, kept his head slightly lowered now.
The envoy swallowed.
“We do not seek trouble with your war-pride.”
The striped female’s eyes narrowed.
“Then why did your males tear through the lower trail?”
The envoy’s nostrils flared.
“There was blood scent.
Hollow blood.
Female fear.
We followed.”
Several Thorn Hollow males growled at that, but none of them sounded brave.
The envoy turned his head slightly toward Odette without fully taking his eyes from Rauvan.
“We only came to take this female.
Give us the bird female, and we leave the hollow.
Our troop has no reason to cross your path again.”
It was said like Odette was nothing.
Not a living creature.
Not a female with blood still drying under her nails.
Only a thing to be moved from one set of teeth to another.
Nobody looked at her at first because nobody thought she had a place in the conversation.
The elders were watching Rauvan.
The baboons were watching Rauvan.
Rauvan’s people were watching the baboons.
Even Gorran, still half kneeling in the mud with his broken knee clutched in both hands, was breathing through pain and hatred as if Odette’s existence had become an insult to every male who had ever thought females were easy to hold.
Odette looked at the saber-tooth females again.
She looked at their blades, their scars, their lifted chins, their steady feet.
Then she looked at the elders of Thorn Hollow, who had already thought of trading her, hiding her, mating her, locking her, and using her as proof that they still controlled their females.
Something inside her settled.
It was a stupid choice.
It was a dangerous choice.
It was probably the kind of choice that got females killed before their bodies even cooled from the last danger.
But it was still the only path that did not lead back into a root-lock cave.
“I want to go with him,” Odette said.
The words cut through the air so clearly that even the insects seemed to stop.
Every head turned toward her.
The mandrill elder’s eyes bulged with fury.
The wounded males stared as if she had spoken with a dead beast’s voice.
The females looked frightened for her, not because they hated her, but because no sane female in Thorn Hollow would look at Rauvan of the Saber-Tooth War-Pride and ask to be taken near him.
Even the baboons stared at her, their mouths slightly open, their hunger confused by her madness.
The striped female beside Rauvan lifted one brow.
Rauvan did not look at Odette.
That almost made the elder more furious than if he had.
“Shut your mouth, dumb female,” the mandrill elder snarled, spittle flashing against his tusks.
“You do not speak into matters between males.”
Odette’s side hurt.
Her throat hurt.
Her leg burned.
Her whole body felt like it had been chewed by the night and spat back into the mud, but she still forced herself to sit higher.
Blood slid from the corner of her mouth, and she tasted iron as she spoke again.
“I said I want to go with him.”
This time, Rauvan looked at her.
Not past her.
At her.
His pale blue eyes settled on her face with the weight of a claw pressing into skin.
He took in the mud dried across her cheeks, the blood at her mouth, the torn skin on her knee, the crushed black-tipped feather crests half hidden in her silver-white hair, the sharp line of her stare, and the fact that she was barely able to stay upright but had still chosen to speak in front of elders, baboons, and his war-pride.
For the first time since he arrived, Rauvan truly acknowledged that Odette was there.