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In this barest of corridors there was nothing, and so Zenith reluctantly looked back into StarDrifter's face.

"Who have you been with?" he asked, very low. His hands tightened fractionally.

She briefly closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and answered with all the courage she had.

"WolfStar."

"What! What!" StarDrifter let go her hands and stepped back in shock and utter anger. "Why WolfStar? Why?"

Zenith's eyes filled with tears, and she clasped her hands. "StarDrifter, I wanted to end it. I needed to see him, and come to terms with how I felt about him."

"And have you?" StarDrifter's face had gone completely white, but his eyes blazed with such rage that Zenith barely restrained herself from running away.

"I have found ... I have found it easy to spend time with him," she whispered.

StarDrifter was so profoundly shocked that he was incapable of speech. She found it easy to spend time with WolfStar and not with him?

"It has been good to be able to talk things through with him."

"And you can't talk things through with me?" StarDrifter said.

Zenith flinched, and turned her head away.

"You don't feel comfortable with me, but you can sit and chat comfortably with the man who raped and abused you?"

"He has changed —"

"Bah! WolfStar never changes*. Zenith, what can you possibly find with him that you cannot find with me?"

Her eyes blurred with tears. "I do not regard him the same way as you," she finally managed.

StarDrifter's face and voice were rock hard. "And that is?"

"As a grandfather."

Nothing else she could have said would have shocked StarDrifter more. He stared, helpless, his mind unable to come to terms with what she'd just said.

"And have you," he whispered harshly, "managed to go to his bed, then, if you can't stomach mine?"

She stared at him, then she lifted a hand and struck him hard across his face.

Without a word, Zenith bent and collected the linens, then marched, straight-backed, down the corridor.

StarDrifter stared after her, his entire world collapsing within him.

The room was cool and dim, only a single lamp burning on a far wall.

Zenith silently placed the linens in a chest, then turned and sat on the stool by WolfStar's bed.

He stretched out a hand, and she took it without hesitation.

"What is wrong?" he said.

Zenith let her tears slide down her cheeks. This was all wrong. What she wanted was for StarDrifter to so take her hand, and for her to lean against him and sob out all her woes and let him make them all better.

StarDrifter was all she wanted, and yet here she was with WolfStar. Why? Why? Why?

Because, strangely, she felt comfortable with WolfStar in a way she never could with StarDrifter.

StarDrifter was her loving, protective grandfather.

WolfStar was merely another man: one who caused her complex and conflicting emotions, true, but he was just another man.

Although he was also technically her grandfather, Zenith found it impossible to perceive him as such.

Just a man. But a SunSoar. A man of her own blood, and a man she could possibly learn to trust.

She pulled back her hand, and WolfStar let her go.

"Has the Healer seen to your wounds today?" she asked, even though she knew the answer from talking to the guardsman on duty outside.

"Yes. I feel ...better."

Indeed, WolfStar looked remarkably better. Whether it was the attention he was receiving from the Healers, or the undoubted benefit of breathing the untainted, undemonised air of Sanctuary, or simply his own remarkable recuperative powers, WolfStar was very definitely improving. His colour was good, his breathing unlaboured, his wounds scabbing and crusting over cleanly, and he could move about the bed without wincing with every minor effort.

Very soon, Zenith thought, he would be up and moving about the room.

She stiffened at the thought.

Are sens

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