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READER SHOUT OUT: This chapter is dedicated to DespinyaNY (again!) for being the most mind-bogglingly supportive reader and friend. I am truly lost for words (and that is saying something!) Your generosity of spirit, and sharing is an example to me. Thank you for offering so much love in this world.

*****

GAR

Rika had seemed so tense—but in a sad way. As if she worried. He was touched by her concern, and her words about worrying if the humans learned of his and Elreth\'s existence… it made him hope that she was beginning to care. Really care. For him.

But then everyone looked up as Hannah and Marryk came in, and Rika\'s entire countenance changed. While Elreth greeted them and the other disformed who\'d walked in behind them, telling them what the meeting was about, Rika\'s face turned from shock, to confusion, to horror.

Her scent was suddenly bathed in fear and Gar bristled in simple response to her perceived threat. But he couldn\'t see it. The disformed were safe—had she somehow sensed the differences and thought… but no, he\'d spoken to her about the disformed before.

Then Hannah and Marryk began across the floor to join them for the questioning, and Rika shifted unconsciously in her seat, leaning back as if she didn\'t want to be close to them.

Gar put a hand to her thigh. "Rika, what is it?"

She never took her eyes off Hannah, but leaned in to whisper in Gar\'s ear. "Hannah… she\'s the daughter of the man who ran the entire organization. My boss."

A growl began in Gar\'s throat and he started to his feet at the same time that Tarkyn and several of the guards leaped forward—they\'d heard her whisper. She\'d forgotten that Anima would hear anything like that in a closed room like this when it was quiet.

Rika startled when he leapt to his feet. But then it was chaos again. Gar was closer to Hannah than any of the guards, but he was torn between tearing apart the enemy, and protecting Rika—but she\'d gotten to her feet, pushing forward in the same moment Hannah looked around, confused, as the males started towards her.

But they should have watched Marryk. Gar knew better. He was just so taken off guard. Watching his mate, and the woman she\'d focused on. But he forgot Hannah\'s mate.

With Gar still half-turned towards his sister to make sure she\'d been paying attention, the male disformed, Marryk, let out a horrific growl and his face twisted as he leaped across the circle, arms outstretched, straight for Rika.

It was pure instinct at the time, Gar didn\'t even think—all he knew was that his mate was in danger, and the threat came from an unknown quarter.

Gar slid into the space between Rika and Marryk as he descended, meeting the male with swing for his face, but the smaller disformed man was quick, and there was too much room. Marryk dodged the swing, then as Gar\'s momentum carried him forward, darted past him towards an unprotected Rika.

"Bitch!" Marryk hissed as Gar whirled, pivoting on his heel and did something he\'d always sworn he would never do.

Despite knowing that he faced a disformed, instinctively Gar shifted, then leaped on Marryk\'s back, his beasts claws unsheathed, and inches-long teeth burying in Marryk\'s shoulder.

The male screamed—and so did Hannah, though she was being pulled back, away from the fight by the guards who\'d reached for her as soon as they heard Rika\'s words.

"Stop! Gar, stop!" Rika screamed, but his beast shook its head, teeth still buried in Marryk\'s flesh and the male screamed again, his hands scrabbling at Gar\'s lion face, hands clawed, but no strength in them as Gar bore him to the floor and shifted his grip.

As the screaming, sobbing male tried to shift his weight to the side, to curl up and protect his vulnerable organs and throat, the beast didn\'t even think.

He took Marryk\'s neck in his teeth and bit down, snapping it in two. The male shuddered, then his entire body went slack and his eyes, wide with fear and rage, suddenly went glassy, half-hooded.

"NOOOO!" Hannah screamed.

"Gar, what the hell are you doing!" Elreth shouted, shocked and angry.

Gar wrestled his way back into his own body, and blinked to find himself sprawled on the floor, over the male, teeth bared and hands braced on the wooden floor where a slowly spreading pool of blood made his fingers slick and smell of copper.

"He was attacking my mate! His Alpha\'s mate!" Gar snarled.

"But, he\'s disformed and protecting his own mate! We don\'t even know if he\'s a threat!"

"If he wasn\'t, why would he have attacked her so quickly?" he growled at Elreth, pushing to his feet. "Rika said she\'s the traitor. She\'s your spy, Elreth!" he snapped, pointing at Hannah, who stood, folded almost in half, sobbing, and her hands clutched to her belly, screaming Marryk\'s name.

Gar turned to Rika to look for her support, to have her explain, but instead of her frantic agreement, or indignant rage at Elreth, he found his mate, staring at him, eyes wide in horror, recoiling, her entire body pulling from him as she shook her head.

"Rika, love, it\'s fine, I was helping you—"

He reached for her and Rika made a strangled noise in her throat and stumbled backwards, tripping on her chair and falling to the floor with a painful thud, but immediately back on her feet and backing away.

Gar could only watch, heartbroken as she flinched from him when he stepped forward.

"Get away from me! Don\'t touch me!" she wheezed. "Get away!"

  "You killed him! You killed him!" Hannah screamed.

"SHUT UP!" Gar roared at Hannah, all his fear and frustration exploding out of his mouth in the direction of the spy.

Hannah startled, flinching backwards, but instead of the timid fear and shyness that had colored her every word and action in her weeks in Anima, she bristled to honor a lion herself and lifted her chin to meet his gaze with her own, tear-filled eyes and spat a curse at him.

"So fucking sure of yourself. So fucking sure of the world.. You\'re going to learn you asshole! It doesn\'t matter what you do," she snarled. "It doesn\'t matter who you kill—you\'re still going to lose! And when you do, I\'ve made sure they\'ll put a collar on you and parade you around for my mother!"