Why did he have to yell? To block my path to my friend Eranna who has returned and try to force his presence upon me, hands like bars on either side of me, reeking of lust and anger and desire, like some overheated lion in a rut intent on forcing me to the floor so he could reclaim me with his body? I was so very wrong to have let him in.. he is too young. Too young by far, with a boy's impetuous demand that he get all he wishes now and no care for what cost may be had for others.

I gave him a chance. A sliver of hope, that if he should show patience... maybe in time things might change. And he frowned and cried out like a mewling suckling babe that it was too long to wait. That he wanted me now. As a woman, HIS woman, like I were some beast, or a human. He is no better than Ythfas was in his effort to possess. He claims he only wants to be alone with me to return to friendship. I do not believe him, not with that light in his eyes or that stink of him or his effort to hold me when told to let me go, or stand down. How far a step is it from holding me against my will to the rest? I do not know this child of a male in my command. Perhaps I never did.

May he find some human woman with a haste like his own and rut there, and cease to offend my eyes.

May he find any other woman and cease to be such a child around me once his need to mate is sated.

I suppose it will come back to haunt me that I DIDN'T kill him when he tried to hold me against my will.

I HAD kept my temper really by reminding myself that he's a boy, with a boy's understanding. The alternative is too ugly to contemplate - that he is a grown man who actively chooses these dangerous, idiotic and hurtful paths to walk, ignoring good sense, love's soft demands, and his own commander's orders. I wonder how he would have felt if Aurorana had been raped or killed by that demon he told no guard, no Sentinel of for two long months, waiting for a Warden to drop everything and dance to his bidding.

Not one request I have made of him has he obeyed in spirit as well as letter. I can make him bend in letter, but always he chose his pride over my long-learned knowledge. Always he chose his pride over my command, my request, and even my pleas. I no longer care for his spirit's loving obedience, for that would require adult love, which knows when to bend and comply.

I have tolerated more from him than any lover in my long life. A slap, shouting, seizure and attack, and now this.

He is lucky I did not kill him. I told him he is not my mate, but his child's ears did not hear deeper. I did not say an untruth - that I did not love him. But love IS meaningless, and as the older of the two of us, it was my grave mistake to permit its growth like some lichen to erode me, and permit his increasing outrages. I am as much to blame for how unmanageable a child he has become.

I think I am the unlucky one of the two of us.