When the meeting broke he walked, just walked because if he had stayed in that clearing one breath longer something was surely going to come out of him and he wouldn't be able to stop it. He could feel it; sitting there high in his chest hot and pressurized. He couldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing it. So he walked out without another word until the treeline swallowed him going until the sounds of the pack dissolved into nothing, there was only an internal decision that he would not follow Euphemia.

Kin.

The word rolled over in his mind like a stone with something rotten beneath it, he'd heard the word for as long as he could remember, traded between souls like it meant something, a load bearing word that held weight when you leaned on it. We are all family here; all of us kin. He paused, staring into the forest which was dark and indifferent as he stood with his sides heaving.

Because Euphemia had stood there, she had stood there folded into herself and chosen neutrality while Aurelia 's name waited for her to do the obvious thing. Aurelia who hadn't hesitated. She had stood up when it was Euphemia's name was in the air because that's what you were supposed to do because that was the whole point. If it didn't work both directions, it didn't work at all.

A sound came from the youth, low and involuntarily as his thoughts reeled.

And then. Then. The room had turned on him. Not toward Euphemia, or the abstention sitting there in plain sight. Toward him. His tone, his timing, Monty who couldn't conduct himself, Monty who couldn't let it go, Monty who was the disruption. He dropped his head, brows furrowed and jaw tight as his breath expelled in a long visible cloud in the cold air.

The cold settled into his fur and he stood and let it, because it was better than going back. Better than looking at any of them right now, than letting them see what was underneath the anger, what the anger was actually made of, it was something he had no intention of giving Dawnbreak a clear look at.

He even regretted letting Tiberii see it.

They'd gotten enough from him.

—