The happy, prancing creature before her was far different than the melancholy but sensual woman she’d met on the beach, but Vesper was glad. The happiness infected her, and while she didn’t hop about and beam as brightly as the snowy-furred coywolf did, she smiled very gently and looked differently than she usually did: softer, less worried and stern, not so much like a boyish little fighter and more like a woman who’ d seen and appreciated the world. It was a telling change, but she didn’t stop to dwell on her own differences, instead pushing her muzzle into the other’s coat and chuckling as the other complimented her, resigned to it. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful like Gemma was (or had been, one could argue), but she’d had enough people tell her otherwise to not care about the compliment if it was meant well.
The other wound around her, and Ves stood still against the pressing then grinned at her question. “I’m the Centurion of Inferni now, second only to our leader, the Aquila,” she replied. She guessed her scent was a bit stronger and more dominant than it had been, if not overbearingly so. She was also aware of the softer, muskier, horsy scent of her lover that clung to her, but she didn’t say anything about this. Instead, she grinned and nudged the other with her head just before Gemma went to take a seat. “You smell different too,” she teased, though the reasons were more obvious. Yet there was a whiff of something else about her, something she couldn’t pinpoint yet.
“I’m here on business,” Vesper admitted reluctantly; she hadn’t thought about meeting an old friend and dumping her issues onto them. “An Infernian came here not long ago; I guess he’d fathered a child with an AniWayan. I wanted to see if—” And then her ear snapped up, her nostrils flaring as she realized what had been off about Gemma’s scent. “Do you have—” she tried, and her tongue stumbled over the words. She knew Jacinto’s mistress had been a coydog, and not Gemma, but that didn’t change the fact that the scarred woman smelled of children.
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