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Grovar had been dismissed for the afternoon and was enjoying her leisure time by one of the few means available to her. That is to say, she was watching other thralls, especially leonine ones, working hard.

She had never really felt very strongly about felines until that brute Aesir beat her and dragged her back to his pride. Now she had a deeply ingrained aversion to all felines, but a special hatred for lions.

Her mistress might not be so bad, but she had never questioned the manner in which Grovar was captured, nor asked how Grovar felt about her daughters being taken from her and given as gifts, so Grovar felt no compunction about slacking off or taking pleasure in watching other lions labor while she was at her ease.

Like Grovar, Solv was watching other lions work with a certain amount of satisfaction. Due to his own lowly status in the pride, the silver and black lion had a great appreciation for the difference between his status and that of a thrall. Namely, thralls were virtually the only people he outranked, and so it rankled when they did freeborn things like relax in public.

In fact, if there was one thing that irritated Solv beyond all reason, it was the sight of a thrall sitting idle. Like that grey hyena right in front of him, just sitting on her a**, doing nothing. That really got his blood boiling. How dare she behave as if she had the right to relax while others who were superior to her by birth toiled?

"You, b***h. Get up. Can't you see there are lions working over there?"

Grovar got up all right. She got up so she could see what festering carbuncle had called her a b***h and then put him in his place. That would be even more fun if he was a leonine thrall, but she would settle for a leopard, or even a cheetah.

It was a lion. Unfortunately, this was not a lion who carried that reek of slavery that made it indescribably simple for Grovar to discern between thrall and freeborn, but which most of the lions in the pride could not detect. It wouldn't surprise her if she was the only person in the pride with that ability, being the only adult hyena, as far as she knew.

"I can see them quite well," she replied. "As can you. Why don't you help them if you care so much?"

Solv's growl came from deep in his chest. It was an unaccustomed thing for him, growling. As the lion who was basically the least dominant freeborn in the pride, his sense of self-preservation saw to it that growling was an activity that he simply did not engage in.

But this was a thrall, and he knew from years of experience that he could do whatever he wished to do with a thrall and nobody would care. If that weren't the case, he would probably still be a virgin. Not that he had any intention of having sex with this creature. But violence was just as casually accepted in the case of the inferior ranks.

"Come here, thrall, and receive your punishment," he commanded. To his amazement, he was still growling.

Grovar did not like to admit it, but after her life-altering encounter with Aesir the sound of a lion's growl sent unpleasant shivers down her spine as her body recalled the amount of pain and fear that one lion had subjected her to in such a short time and with so little compunction.

"You can't punish me," she barked, hoping to the gods that she was correct in her reasoning. "I'm not yours. I belong to someone. Kazul Aesirsdottir."

She hated, hated the way her voice sounded so thin and reedy. The lion wouldn't need her keen sense of smell to know that she was afraid he would strike her or worse. It was the or worse that really concerned her, though she knew that even a light blow from a lion was no mean thing to a creature her size.

Even more than that, she hated hiding behind her mistress's name.

Solv's magenta eyes took on an unusual expression when the thrall defied him. He would definitely hurt her, and he would enjoy doing it. He was halfway to imagining the punishments he would inflict on a smartass thrall when she claimed to belong to Kazul.

That could be a problem, if it was true. Kazul had always been extremely possessive of her things, and Solv didn't doubt that she would take it ill if he were to discipline her thrall without her knowledge or permission. He had never decided if it was some sort of stuck-up Warlord's daughter bitchery or if she would have been like that no matter who her dad was, but it didn't really matter in this instance. Without her say-so, he knew better than to strike her thrall.

But he could call the hyena's bluff. "I know Kazul, you know. We are actually quite close. I don't think she'd be very pleased to learn that you've been rude to me."

Grovar breathed a soft sigh of relief. The name had been enough to protect her. She hated that she needed to claim to be someone else's property in order to be protected, but at the same time she was unutterably relieved not to be presently in the middle of a beating.

Perhaps a more cautious, more prudent hyena would have been grateful for this reprieve and scuttled away, but Grovar was a hyena and power games came naturally to her. She got the feeling with this lion she might even be able to win, despite his being supposedly superior to her in status.

"That's funny. I've never seen you around my mistress's den, or even heard her mention your name. Are you sure you're close?"

And his calling of her bluff just got called. Dammit. Solv was angry again. Not that he'd actually stopped being angry since he first saw the lazy hyena, but it had been momentarily quelled by learning that he couldn't beat the b***h for her laziness or insolence.

"You are insolent and lazy, two things that a thrall belonging to the Warlord's daughter ought never to be. Why don't we two go back to your mistress's den and discuss the matter of your discipline with Kazul?"

His voice was silken smooth, no hint of the growl it had held before, and yet this was infinitely more threatening. He was not accepted as a bard by one of the four bards of the pride, but his voice was very good and he could use it well and to great effect if need be. Right now he was using it to effect menace.

"I think I will recommend that she send you to Kjar the Breaker for some remedial training."

Grovar's eyes widened. The menace was working. Either that or the mention of the lion known around the pride as the Breaker was working. Whichever one it was, Grovar was wishing very hard that she had not decided to play power games with this lion.

"If that is what you wish, Freeborn," she answered softly.

The look in his eyes said that he not only wished to do that, but wished to be present when the Breaker went to work on her. Grovar had never seen the Breaker at work and had never had any reason for him to note her presence, but the threat was enough. She had seen other thralls after a session with him.

It seemed she would once more have to place her faith in her mistress and hope that Kazul did not agree with this spotted lion.

Solv doubted that Kazul would agree to send her hyena to Kjar. More of that uber-possessiveness coming into play. But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the effect his words had on the thrall until they spoke to Kazul about it.

He wouldn't mind seeing Kazul, actually. For all that she had basically dropped him like he was a bladder stuffed full of scorpions, she was still one of the few lions in the pride who could appreciate his wit. Besides, he wouldn't mind delivering a few of the barbs he'd been saving up for a season or so to use on her when the occasion arose, as payback for the way she'd dropped him.

Wearing a disdainful expression, but without looking at the cringing hyena he ordered her to, "Come along then."