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"I told you what I'm doing here," Khozar said softly to the lioness lying on the rocks beside him. He didn't look at her and she didn't look at him. Both of them were watching the sky, enjoying the first sight of the stars that the pride had glimpsed in months.

"I don't see why you find it so difficult to believe. My sister will come here, one way or another. I simply have to wait."

It was a fairly flimsy explanation, and not one that held up to any sort of logical examination, but it was the only explanation Khozar could offer. He could understand Honning's skepticism. Had anyone else given him an explanation like that, he would have laughed in their face. At least she had the courtesy not to do that.

"What difference does it make to you?"

Honning stole a glance at Khozar from the corner of her eyes, but he did not look at her at any point while he offered his flimsy explanation for why he was staying in the pride. Frankly, she wasn't buying it. He admitted that he was no seer, and yet he had settled down in a pride he clearly disliked because he had a feeling he would find his errant sister.

"But how do you know she'll turn up?" she pressed him. "Did you agree to meet her here or something? It seems like a really big chance to take."

Privately, Honning could not help hoping that if she kept asking Khozar variations on the same question, worded a little differently each time, he would let slip some other details. Ideally, one of those details would be that he was actually staying in the pride because he couldn't stand the idea of leaving her, but that was pretty unlikely given the newness of their acquaintance. She hadn't even spoken to him before scolding Kraken for playing that dirty trick on him.

"No, we didn't agree. I just know, okay?" Khozar was growing defensive because he knew exactly what Mirsajadi would have said about him and the idea of "just knowing" something.

"Can we talk about something else? Or, better yet, can we not talk?" It did not occur to Khozar that his request could be interpreted as some sort of a come-on. He really wasn't thinking of anything along those lines whatsoever.

Khozar hadn't seen the stars properly since he first came to this soggy, stormy pride. There was always cloud cover, or cloud cover and fog, or cloud cover and fog and rain. He had not realized that he would miss stars until he could no longer see them on any given evening. He was willing to get snappish when his star-viewing pleasure was interrupted by a lioness he barely knew badgering him about Isa.

Honning gave up all pretense of not looking at Khozar at this point. Had he just suggested that they...? Surely not. She barely knew him, and while she liked him and found him attractive, she was not that kind of girl. Unless she was. What was wrong with indulging in a harmless night of fun with someone she found attractive? She was a freeborn lioness, it was true, but there was a new warlord, and linoesses were no longer held to the same set of standards.

"I would be all right with not-talking," she said in what she hoped was a sultry and seductive. Then she shifted closer to him until her shoulder touched his side.

"I'm surprised, though, that you would propose it. After all, we are barely acquainted and you seem to be the sort who considers every decision carefully." It thrilled her to think that he might have given his suggestion all the consideration and thought she imagined. It thrilled her more to think that he might not have considered it at all, and had simply been overwhelmed with desire.

Unaccustomed to being touched, Khozar flinched away from Honning's sudden touch, turning the motion into something more innocuous as he turned to look at her. His expression was clearly one of "what the ******** are you doing?" And then he realized what he had said, how she must have interpreted it, and what she was doing.

He wasn't indifferent to her. She was attractive and willing and old enough that he had no reason to feel like he was taking advantage. Hm. Of course, he wasn't interested in tying himself down. As soon as Isa appeared, he intended to leave and return to decent lands where he could see the stars and feel completely dry. But he had no way of knowing when Isa might turn up, and there was no good reason to live untouched in the meantime. He would just have to hope that nothing...cublike came of it.

"If that's what you want," he rumbled, "I am certain I can oblige you."

Stormlords! Honning had not expected to spend her evening like this. Oh, she'd had a few hopes about intimacy and confessions when Khozar told her he was planning on stargazing and suggested she might enjoy it, but they had not done anything even slightly romantic since meeting up. He really had been looking at the stars the whole time, and any conversation between them had been like pulling teeth. She had not considered until just now that he had been so taciturn because he was combating his insurmountable attraction to her.

She moved closer, breathing through her mouth to taste his scent. She'd never done this before, but she was sure that a lion as handsome as Khozar had a good deal of experience and would be able to teach her the ways of carnal pleasure. Just thinking of it she rolled her hips in anticipation. As he settled his weight over her and she felt his teeth catch at the back of her neck Honning began to pant with arousal. Stormlords, was this really happening?

Afterward Khozar felt an immediate urge to tell Honning she shouldn't expect anything of him, even if they had conceived cubs. The way she was looking at him with those blue eyes all big and dreamy made him nervous, like she had given him more than her body. He didn't want more than her body. He would have been furious if he had realized that these were almost the exact same thoughts Mirsajadi had about his mother, Arezoo.

He didn't say any of the things he was thinking though. He was not that stupid. She had confessed to him, breathlessly, that he was her first, and there was absolutely no way he could tell her that he didn't want a relationship with her after a revelation like that. The confession, however, had made him want to run for the hills. This was trouble. This was a lot of trouble. And he couldn't help thinking that once again he had been tricked by one of the Stormborn, betrayed by the weakness of his will.

"Thank you," he said a little coldly, hoping to make her stop looking at him like that. "I enjoyed that."

It amazed Honning that they could still see the stars. She felt as though she must be glowing so brightly that she could have outshone the whole of the heavens. Had she known what she was missing out on, she would have done this much, much sooner. But then she might not have been with Khozar, and it would have been different. Less perfect.

"Khozar..." she said softly, but he interrupted her with rather brusque thanks and an almost dismissive statement about enjoying himself. That hurt more than she expected, but perhaps he didn't realize how he sounded.

She decided to try again. "Khozar, we should talk. I just want you to know that I have no regrets, no matter what happens. After all, should something happen, we'll handle it together, right?"

Unbeknownst to her, her eyes were doing that totally-in-love glimmering thing again.

Khozar's eyes turned hard, all the golden warmth that had suffused them draining until they were nearly emotionless. It had been impossible to miss the devotion Honning clearly felt, and he would not - could not - allow himself to become bound to the pride in the way being a father would do.

"I don't see how we have anything to talk about, really," he said coldly. "Since you have no regrets, no matter what happens, it shouldn't matter what happens, or that I may not be here for it."

He hadn't realized how easy it would be to behave so coldly. It wasn't as if he was imitating the way he'd seen Mirsajadi treat his mother, either. This just came naturally to him. Easily. Later he would be unnerved by that, but right now the cold detachment served his purposes.

"I really hope you weren't planning to trap me with a pregnancy, because I won't be ensnared like that. When my sister comes, I'll be gone."

Honning actually gasped at the sudden hardness in Khozar. She had known that he was capable of being cold and analytical, and that he didn't think a great deal of the pride, but she hadn't realized how little he thought of her, personally.

"Khozar..." Her voice was faint this time. She felt faint. He had just accused her, more or less, of seducing him to try to force him to stay with her.

"It's not like that! I..." She what? She didn't love him, quite, although she had been well on her way to falling in love with him until he turned cruel like this.

In the time it took her to work out what to say next, he shook his head and left her alone in the dark with the stars shining brightly overhead.