The house was pristine. Strangely so.

I stood alone in a large room, which was full of tables and chairs… as if there was about to be a great feast and a whole town had been invited. And every table. Every chair. Every piece of furniture… all the rugs, and the framed paintings… They were all immaculate.

Not a single speck of dust could be seen. Not a single hair out of place. It made me want to clean the chair I had just been sitting in, since I might have gotten dirt on it.

It made me feel uncomfortable, somehow.

Especially since this house was huge. I’d only seen a few rooms so far, but they’ve all been as massive as this. And we were on the third floor, and I knew there was a couple more above me.

It was as if this place had been made for hundreds of people… Yet I knew, by smell and sound, that there were only two others nearby.

Lilly and her husband were upstairs, in what she had said was her husband’s study.

They were talking, and not too quietly. They weren’t shouting, and in fact spoke evenly… but to me it sounded odd.

After all, I had expected them to whisper. To hide what they were saying, from me.

Instead they spoke openly.

“Come down and greet her, Windle. Or I’ll drag you myself,” Lilly said firmly.

I smiled as I heard hurried footsteps. Lilly had actually stepped towards her husband, as if to put validation into her threat.

“Okay! Okay! Fine!” Windle spoke loudly, upset. Upset at me. At his wife.

He hadn’t wanted to meet me.

I stood up straight as I heard their footfalls grow louder. Leaving the room they had been in, and into the hallway above me.

“Come on,” Lilly spat, and I heard a quick few footsteps in succession.

He had stopped, and she had pushed him.

Grabbing the back of a chair in support, the one I had been sitting in earlier as I had told Lilly who I was and why I was here… I felt silly.

Why did I feel so embarrassed? Why was I so anxious to meet her husband? I felt giddier now than I had when I first found Lughes and the rest!

How and why? I felt as if I was some little kid again. I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks, as if I was doing something outrageously embarrassing.

It made no sense. Yet…

I knew why. How could I not?

After all this was the first real married couple I’d ever met. Of our kind, at least.

Other than my parents. But they had been…

Holding my breath as they descended a wooden stairwell, I noticed the fine shoes on the man who walked down first.

He paused, going still with wide eyes upon seeing me.

I too went still, and tried my best to smile gently. To not seem too dangerous. To not scare the obviously very timid man.

The man opened his mouth to say something, but couldn’t. He stammered, and began to twitch and shiver… as if frozen in fear.

Lilly finally stepped down as well, and her wide eyes were narrow in a glare since she had to stop because of her husband.

“By the tree, Windle!” Lilly shouted at him, and then kicked him.

“Gah,” he made an odd noise as he fell forward, and I startled as he actually tumbled down the last few stairs… landing harshly on the wooden floor. Face first.

“Uh…” I heisted as I watched the man. He remained on the ground as Lilly huffed, descending the rest of the stairs and entering the room. She ignored her poor husband as she smiled at me.

“Renn, this frail man is my husband. Windle. Please don’t be gentle with him, he doesn’t deserve it,” she said to me.

“I… I see. Hello Windle, my name is Renn,” I said to him, and stepped forward. To shake his hand. I only made it two steps before I realized there was no point. The man was still on the ground, groaning.

Odds were he wasn’t actually hurt. Even if timid, he was still not a human. Even if he looked more human than his wife… did he not have wings or feathers at all?

Seemed he only had the wide eyes of their kind…

“Come sit, or I’ll make you sleep in the field for a moon,” Lilly ordered harshly, not even looking at her husband as she went back to sitting at the table.

I gulped as I quickly went to sitting back in the chair as well. Sitting across from her, I watched out of the corner of my eye as her husband slowly found his feet… gingerly walking to a chair himself.

“Seriously, Windle?” Lilly asked with a sigh as he sat down, at the other end of the table. Nearly the farthest chair from me.

“Hm,” he made an odd noise as he sat, staring at me with his narrowed eyes.

Was I really that terrifying?

Glancing at Lilly, I found her glare… which was directed at her husband, not me, to be far more intimidating than I was.

She was nearly twice my height! And fierce!

Yet it was I who scared him.

“Vim spoke of her,” Windle spoke, but his voice cracked a little. He quickly began clearing his throat.

“She needs to get to Vim before he heads south,” Lilly said.

Windle frowned then shook his head. “Then why stay here? He’s probably at Twin Hills,” Windle said.

“Sometimes I wonder why you’re here,” Lilly said.

“I’ll depart shortly, I promise,” I said. It was pitiful how worried he looked.

Lilly’s glare left her husband and came to me. I sat up a little straighter.

“No need to hurry. He most likely will spend several weeks there, waiting for Lomi to acclimate,” Lilly said.

“Ah. He will,” Windle nodded.

“I’d still like to hurry, honestly,” I said.

“I’m sure. The human that Vim took to Ruvindale is dead,” Lilly said to her husband.

“The saint’s daughter?” Windle sat up straight, his trembling stopped.

I nodded, even though it was hard to admit it.

Windle closed his wide eyes, and slowly covered his face. He released an odd whine, which sounded eerily inhuman.

Glancing at Lilly, she nodded. “That’s bad,” she said.

“That Amber died, or his whine?” I asked.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Both,” Lilly sighed.

“Vim will not be happy,” Windle then said.

The man was still covering his face, and I wondered if he was crying. He sounded as if he were.

Unsure of what to say, I squirmed in my seat as Lilly studied me. Her large eyes made it difficult to not feel conscious of her stare. They were easily twice as big as any human’s eyes.

“Vim will not blame you. But he may grow upset at you all the same,” Lilly warned.

“I’ll face it,” I said quickly, nodding.

“Typical predator mindset,” Windle said.

“Aren’t owls predators too?” I asked him.

“Do I look like an owl?” he asked back.

For a moment I wondered if maybe he wasn’t. There was a good chance; after all I had just determined he had no official traits like his wife did…

“He’s an owl. Most of us have become very weak-willed. I’m glad to see you at least have a spine,” Lilly said to me.

“Do I? I just ran for my life,” I said.

“If my husband had been the one chased, he would still be curled up in a ball sobbing right now,” she said, glancing at him.

“It was… scary,” I admitted. Although I was no longer worried, I could still feel parts of my clothes that were a little damp from the sweat.

I had ran with all my might, but the sweat hadn’t just been from the exertion and strain… I had genuinely been scared.

My tail, lightly swaying to the side of the chair, still felt a little odd. It had been many years since I had been so hyper-focused.

Even when I had walked in that one morning to find Nory collapsed on the floor I hadn’t been as shocked.

“Most predators who had any backbone died a long time ago Renn,” Lilly said.

“Hm…” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I didn’t feel as if I had much of a backbone.

After all wouldn’t a true predator had stood their ground and fight? Instead of run as I had?

Something told me Vim wouldn’t have run away.

“Vim will not be pleased at all. What of the rest? Shelldon? Lughes?” Windle then asked.

“They were fine last I saw them,” I said.

Should I show them their letters? None of them had referenced them, in fact most had been written for Vim himself…

“All the same. I’ll go make you something to eat; I heard your stomach earlier. After you eat and rest you may leave,” Lilly said as she stood.

Windle was the one who sat up straight, going stiff at her sudden exit. I smiled gently at the two as I watched Lilly happily smirk and glare at him as she left.

She had left him alone with me on purpose.

“It is nice to meet you Windle. I do hope you’ll forgive me for intruding into your nest so brazenly,” I said to him as Lilly headed out of the room.

The man turned to look at me with an odd stiffness. As if he couldn’t move his head at all.

“Yes… It is alright, young cat. Our branches welcome all members of the Society. Always have and always will,” he said.

His branches…

Glancing to the only window in the room, I saw the dark tree not too far off in the distance.

It was huge. Looking far bigger than it should, even though I knew it was a small ways away.

So that tree was precious to him. To them all.

“It is beautiful. I’ve not seen a tree as big as that before,” I said. I’d seen similar sized ones, but this was definitely the largest. It was wide enough that one could run around it and grow tired after only a few laps.

“She is. She’s also rare. There are only a few of its kind left in all the world. We try to help it propagate but it’s insanely difficult,” Windle quickly spoke, and seemed all the calmer because of it.

A man with a study. A man who was a coward… An owl. Yet his wife, although stern with him…

Smiling at the man who probably had no idea just how much his wife loved him, I wished I could stay here for a few days.

To spend time with them.

To learn from them.

Maybe Vim would let me come back here later.

If he let me live.

“Vim mentioned you grew up in a forest as well, Renn. Was it like this one?” Windle asked.

“Ah… yes. Somewhat. Though not as dark, it was just as thick of trees and foliage. There were a lot more thorny bushes though, the types that were painful to mess with,” I said.

“Dark indeed. Thorny bushes are more common in the north… Perchance did you come from the snow?” Windle asked.

My gut tightened at the sudden… accurate question.

“Yes,” was all I was able to say.

“I see. Would explain your hardiness. To have encountered the Shadow Bear,” Windle said.

“Shadow bear? So it had been a bear,” I said.

Windle nodded. “Indeed it is. Corrupted, but a bear all the same. For how long did it chase you?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know. I felt exhausted an hour ago, but now I feel fine…” I said honestly. A part of me thought I hadn’t been chased very long at all, but based off the way Lilly had spoken earlier; she had heard its roars for a rather long time.

The man went silent as he thought about my answer, studying me.

“Is it just the two of you here?” I asked him.

“No. A large dog lives with us. It had somehow survived the dark forest and found its way here a few years ago…” he went quiet, going into thought.

“A dog?” I asked. Where was it?

“She’s hiding,” Windle said plainly.

“Oh…”

His eyes shifted, and then he raised his head higher as if in shock. “No. Not of you. The bear. She will hide for a day or so, based off what she usually does whenever it draws near,” he said.

“Ah…” I nodded, that made sense. After all, dogs usually didn’t care much for me but that didn’t mean they actually hid from me all the time.

Cats on the other hand hated me.

Which in a certain perspective, made sense.

“Can I ask you something, Windle?” I asked.

He nodded, although his gaze grew weary again.

“Your wife, Lilly… she’s strong, isn’t she?” I asked.

“Very much so. And in more ways than one,” he said, a small smile finding its way onto his face.

“Your children… are they strong like her?” I asked.

Windle blinked, and then sat back a little in his chair. At first he looked as if he was simply getting comfortable, but instead he seemed to go deep into thought. “One of my sons is. He’s also like her. With a backbone, as you two were mentioning earlier. He joined a war band recently, much to my protest. The rest however, my other sons and daughters… they’re more like me,” he said.

I nodded, and found that to be similar to my own situation.

My siblings hadn’t been brave either. Even though they should have been.

Or well, they had been brave. Strong. Stronger than me. But the moment their lives had been at risk, they had broken. Begged. They had become like him, as Lilly would put it they had lost their backbone. I hadn't ever judged them for it, in a certain way, since their lives had been in peril... but...

Even in death my mother had never cowed. Neither had my grandparents. Not a single cry of pain, or a tear in their eye.

Something told me Lilly was like that.

My father, although not as brave as my mother… hadn’t been a coward like Windle though. He would have, and did, stand and fight. Though he had broken like my siblings when his end had arrived.

“Why do you ask?” he asked.

“I was comparing it to my own siblings. I had several that were… well, honestly, like you,” I said gently.

“Ah. I see. Yes. Although the blood of predators flows through our veins, there are still many who lack the… fight, which one would assume all of us would possess. Vim calls it the diluting of the blood,” he said.

“Diluting,” I repeated the word, and found it rather proper. Yes… that was probably exactly what was happening.

Windle nodded, and seemed to be far more confident in himself. Either he was growing used to me, or talking about stuff like this made him calm down. “Our ancestors, for instance Lilly’s parents, were more animal than human. So their traits, obviously, were more instinctual. And thus she too is like them. I don’t know how much you know of owls, but as a base creature there are few things that are above them on the food chain. Owls hunt nearly everything, yet not much hunts them,” he explained.

“Yet an uncle of mine, who actually possessed claws and fangs, would run and hide from his own shadow,” I said.

The owl nodded, his eyes focusing on me. “Indeed. It goes to show that just like humans, we’re all very different. Guided, in a way, by our traits and blood… but still different. Our non-human traits influence us, but do not control us,” he said.

I nodded, agreeing with him. It made perfect sense.

“Do you worry over being a predator?” he then asked.

“Worry…?” I asked him back.

“That’s why you ask such questions, is it not? You worry that by being what you are, you’ll be not just seen as a threat but doomed to actually become one, yes?” he asked, nodding as if he already knew the answer.

For a small moment I couldn’t say anything. After all, that wasn’t the real reason I had asked… but it was also something I had feared.

“Don’t say such things aloud, Windle. It’s rude,” Lilly returned before I could say anything.

She carried a small platter, but it only had cups and a pitcher on it.

Lilly placed the platter down gingerly onto the table, and quickly went to handing out empty cups.

Holding the cup steady as she went to filling it up, I smelled the fruity liquid that was poured into it. “Wine?” I asked.

“Grapes are hard to grow here in the forest, so do please enjoy it,” Lilly said. Once my cup was full she went to filling her’s and her husband’s.

“Thank you,” I said, and meant it. That meant this was something precious to them.

“Our meeting, although rushed and not under the best of circumstances, is still to be treasured,” Lilly said as she went to sit for a moment.

She lifted her cup up into the air, to signify a toast.

“To the Society,” Windle said for her, lifting his cup as well.

I hurriedly toasted with them and nodded. “To the Society.”