She let him rant, listening. So he was aware she was pregnant. Good. She felt a small stab of satisfaction that he knew and it rankled him. Her fingers stilled when he spoke about her newest habit, her palm flattening over the new wound as if to hide it. Her bi-colored eyes showed nothing as she looked into his eyes. Deep down she was hurt that his eyes were so cold, but she understood, in a way. After he was finished speaking, she allowed his words to digest. After a long, silent moment, she spoke quietly.
"I thank you for your honesty, Lucifer. Yes, it is true that I am pregnant with Haku's pups. I feel no shame in that, though. I am proud to bear his pups, actually. Just as proud as I was to bear yours. I will not apologize for that." She paused, considering her words about Iskata and him carefully. "Iskata has her prejudices, I have mine. There are members of this pack I would not have allowed in, had it been up to me, and yet she allows them in. She would not have allowed you in, excpet for that Taliesin and I are here. She would protect me, same as I would her. I do not blame her for that. She is hard on you because she doesn't want to see me hurt by you again. And perhaps she still holds what happened between you and Dierdre so long ago against you." She shrugged. "Your issues with her are not mine. But know this. With any other member, I would not have lifted them from the rank she assigned without first speaking to her. You are the first and only one I have done that for."
She paused again, unconciously smoothing the fur over the area where she had been picking at her skin. Now she looked away, in a sense giving him rank over her, had he been looking at her. "Everyone has something they do...I am not the first, nor am I the last to hurt myself. What i do, I do for my own reasons," she returned her gaze to his face and continued, "And it is my own buisness and no concern of yours. Yes, Akumu threw me out of Syemv for trying to kill myself. But here, I am leader and I make the rules." Her now steady gaze added, 'and don't you forget it, either.'
"I am glad you came back. It hurt me that you were only steps away from me, and didn't say goodbye face to face. That made me loose a lot of trust in you that I held. And then you came back so vastly different. You are not the one I fell in love with; he was stong and brave and wouldn't have let anyone intimidate him. Especially not some 'stinky girl,'" she added with a half smile.
Her smile faded, and her look became more stern. "I never asked Iskata why she'd placed you so low. Maybe I should have." The wordless threat was that it would be easy to put him back where Iskata had placed him in the first place. Only Deuce knew she wouldn't do that. Her emotions flowed across her eyes, making them flash. Regret, sadness, longing, love, lonliness. Her gaze finally settled on the ground between his paws in an expression of loneliness. "The only thing I ever really asked of you was to love me. I was too suspicious, I guess I killed the love you held for me once." Her voice firmed up and her expression changed to one of resolve. "But whether you love me or not, I will still bear Haku's pups with pride. He was there for me when I needed him most. Where were you when I needed you, Lucifer?"
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