In unfolding her thought, she’d forgotten to whom she was speaking. The stunned look on Tats’s face stopped her words. She wanted to apologize, to say she hadn’t meant it. But her tongue couldn’t find the lie. After a few moments of his silence, she said quietly, “My bag is full. Let’s take what we have back to the barge.”

He bobbed his head in a brusque nod of agreement, not looking at her. Had she shamed him? Made him angry? Suddenly it all just made her tired, and she didn’t want to understand him or have him understand her. It was all too much trouble. It was so much easier being alone. She stood and led the way back.

She was only about three trees away from where they had left the boat when she saw Nortel coming up a trunk toward them. She halted where she was, moving back on the branch to make room for him. He came up fast and when he reached the branch he halted there, looking from her to Tats and back again, breathing hard with the effort of his climb. “Where have you been?” he demanded. Thymara bridled at the unexpected question.

“Picking fruit,” Tats replied before she could say anything.

“How can you think that’s fair?” he asked Tats. “You heard what Greft said. We all agreed. She gets to make her decision and then we all abide by it.”

“I didn’t—” Tats began, but Thymara raised a sudden hand, halting his words. She looked from one to the other. “What Greft said,” she repeated, making the words a demand for clarification.

Nortel let his gaze settle on Thymara. “He said we all had to play fair, and not take advantage of your situation.” He shifted his eyes back to Tats. “But that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Taking advantage of being old friends, of her mourning Rapskal. You’re using every excuse to be around her all the time. Not letting anyone else even get the chance to talk to her.”

“I went with her to pick fruit. We’ve lost a lot of hunting equipment. We need to gather what food we can, while we can.” Tats spoke in a flat voice. His words were reasonable, but the sparks in his eyes were not. They were, she suddenly knew, a challenge. She saw how Nortel swelled his chest, and she saw a pale lavender light kindle behind the green of his eyes. He reminded her, she thought, of his dragon and suddenly recognized what she was seeing; here was a male, come to challenge all comers for the right to be her mate. A strange thrill went through her. Her heart leaped and raced, and she felt her skin flush.

“Stop it,” she growled low, to herself as much as to the males. She did not have to turn to know that Tats was responding to Nortel’s challenge. “I don’t care what stupid things Greft says. He can’t set rules about who talks to me or when. Nor can he insist that I make some ‘decision’ that exists only in his mind. I have no intention of choosing anyone. Not now, perhaps not ever.”

Nortel licked his narrow lips and then accused Tats, “You said something to her, didn’t you? Something to set her against the idea.”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Nortel! Talk to me, not him!”

His eyes shifted between them. “That’s exactly what I’d like to do. Leave, Tats. Thymara wants to talk with me.”

“Make me.”

“Stop it!” She hated that her voice rose to a shriek and broke on the words. She sounded hysterical and frightened, when in truth she was angry. “I don’t want this,” she said and tried to make her voice calm and reasonable. “This isn’t going to convince me of anything.”

It was as if she hadn’t spoken. Nortel squared his shoulders and leaned slightly to one side to stare past her at Tats. “I can make you, if that’s how you want it,” he offered.

“Let’s find out, then.”

She was suddenly disgusted with both of them. “Fight if you want to,” she declared. “It won’t prove anything to me or anyone else. And it won’t change anything.” She tucked her carry-sack tight to her ribs, measured the distance to the next lower branch and leaped. It was not that far of a leap, and her claws were out and ready. Perhaps it was the bag that threw her balance off. In any case, she landed slightly off center on the branch, slipped, and, with an outraged cry, was suddenly falling.

She only fell perhaps a dozen feet before her outstretched hands caught another branch. With a practice born of years, she dug in claws, swung herself around, and was suddenly up and on it. Even so, she hunkered down, teeth gritted against the pain in her back. When she’d missed her grip and twisted, in her panic her back muscles had spasmed. The wound on her back felt as if it had torn. Her injury had not been comfortable, but at least it had been quiescent and perhaps beginning to heal. Now it felt not only torn but as if something were jammed in it. She reached back a cautious hand, but found that the motion hurt too badly for her to complete it. She couldn’t even touch it to see if it was bleeding.