He was absolutely riddled with guilt as he rushed toward the main structure on the island where Chimera and his Queens lived. He knew they were all healers in one way or another and he just hoped that one of them would be willing to help. After the belief that he should never use his more dangerous teeth on anyone had been shaken he had been practicing some of his fighting and sparring on some of the slaves that Chimera had shown him so that he could relearn how to fight with biting and gripping involved. It was a different way of fighting from how he typically did things since usually he was more focused on body slams and trying to knock his opponents off their feet and pinning them down than he was actually spilling blood.

As he started experimenting with it more and more he began to realize how much easier it was to take someone down with the added pain from a bite and how much more satisfying that win was when it happened. This time though he went just a little too far, whether from his own mistake or from the wolf he was fighting resisting and trying to pull away, but either way they weren't in great shape. He paced down the corridors in search of one of ladies of the place, his pale blue gaze landing on Aliana first. He hated to bother her when she was so pregnant, but what if he waited too long and the slave ended up dying before he could find someone else?

With his ears flicked back against his head he hurried over to Aliana with a dip of his head. "Um... I'm so sorry to bother you, miss Aliana... One of the slaves is hurt and I could really use some help."

Ezra Adravendi

Moving around was becoming more and more laborious with each passing day as Aliana's belly grew larger with the pups she carried within. She was larger than she had even been with her previous litter, and she'd thought she'd gotten fairly large then! No doubt many of her children would air more on the side of their father's genetics when it came to size than their mother's. Not that she minded, of course! It did make it more difficult to do anything beyond short walks to relieve herself—which was becoming much more common the further into her pregnancy she went. Otherwise, her daily life had become fairly mundane and easy, with many of her tasks falling to Dalila or Siren. She'd always be eternally thankful for those two ladies and was already thinking of ways she'd be able to repay them for all the good care they'd been giving her.

Today, however, Aliana's peaceful resting was interrupted by the sound of paws scuttling frantically down the corridor. She peered up from where she lay in her bedchambers, spotting that wolf from the Hallows—Ezra she believed his name was—go running by. A moment later, he was doubling back to come to her. She greeted him with warm eyes and a small smile, tipping her head curiously when he nervously asked for her help tending to an injured slave. "Oh dear..." she said with a sad sigh, but nodded and began to very carefully slide herself to the edge of the bed and then to her paws. "Not a problem, Ezra. Let's go make sure they're okay. Um... would you mind helping me down to the pens?" Though it was a tad embarrassing to ask, Ali could literally go nowhere beyond the estate without the assistance of someone else beside her in her ballooned state.

Pausing long enough to grab her satchel of medical supplies, she began the gradual walk as quickly as her body would allow with Ezra's escort to the slave pens on the north side of the island. "Tell me what happened," she asked, "just so I know what to expect. How bad is it? What sort of injury?"

"Aliana"

Ezra gave a relieved sigh when Aliana agreed to come with him with just a request to help her down to the pens. "Yes! Of course!" he agreed easily. He already felt bad for making her go all the way out to the pens anyway so it was really the least he could do. He walked beside her and matched his pace to hers as they started to make their way to the northern part of the island where the slaves were kept, helping her over any obstacles and making sure she made it there safely. As much as he wanted to make sure that the slave he hurt was tended to, he certainly didn't want to risk her or her pups health to do it. All the things Chimera told him about the slaves and their backstories still lingered in the back of his mind, but he didn't necessarily feel okay with letting them die because of what they had done in the past if it could be prevented.

When Aliana asked him about what happened so that she would know what to expect his ears fell back again and he glanced away from her shamefully. It was hard to admit, still feeling like he was breaking some hard coded rule that was given to him when he was a pup, but he knew he should at least tell her what kind of wounds to expect. She was going to see the damage he caused either way. "I was... um... practicing some things for fighting... I've always avoided fighting with biting before, but after talking with Chimera I felt like I should at least get more comfortable with it and... well... I think it went a little too far." He couldn't really meet her gaze as he admitted what he did, keeping his eyes to the ground to watch for things she might need help with instead.

Ezra Adravendi

Aliana noted the way Ezra's entire demeanor shifted when she asked what had happened to the slave, noticing the way he sheepishly looked away like a pup being scolded for doing something wrong. She tilted her head, but didn't have to wonder for long before he began to explain. So he'd injured the slave while practicing some fighting moves. Ali was more surprised to hear that he'd never tried to use his teeth in combat before, especially when she glimpsed them in his maw as he spoke. They looked reminiscent of Chimera's, and gods knew that man never held back with his teeth—so why was Ezra? "Oh, is that all?" she asked as they approached the pens. The stench of blood hung on the air, confirming Ezra's story, but it wasn't a smell she was unfamiliar with.

Following the scent to one of the cells, Ali saw a male slave slumped across the ground, his fur matted with dark wetness and a small pool of blood beginning to form beneath his neck. Aliana entered the cell with Ezra and went straight up to the injured wolf shushing him gently when the slave began to panic and freak out upon seeing Ezra again. "Shhh, it's okay. I'm here to patch you up." The slave looked up to Ali with fright, hyperventilating out of fear, but otherwise seeming to be breathing fine. "Just relax for me, okay. Here... chew this. It'll help the pain." Aliana pulled a couple of wintergreen berries from her satchel and offered them to the slave, who began to chew them dutifully. While Aliana waited for the painkillers to take effect, she brought out a swath of cloth from her bag and held it tight to the deep lacerations on the back of the brute's neck. They were torn and ragged, similar to the injuries she had endured from Chimera.

"Oh, these don't look too bad." The queen breathed a sigh of relief, keeping pressure on the wound to sop up the blood while she retrieved her needle and thread with her other paw. "Don't look so glum, Ezra. You're still learning how to manage your teeth. Honestly, Chimera's bitten me worse in his throes of passion than you did to him!" A light, airy laugh left the smaller fae, using her paw to part the fur on the back of her neck to show off the rows of scars her mate had left behind on her skin. Once the wolf's tremors of pain began to subside and Aliana knew he wasn't going into shock, she removed the cloth and quickly set to stitching up the wounds. Though they would need sutures solely from the raggedness of them, Ezra hadn't caused any fatal or permanent damage from what she could see.

Once the wounds were stitched up, Ali fished out a salve of trillium and lavender oil, then rubbed it over the wounds to keep them clean. She wound the cloth around the wolf's neck carefully like a bandage, then examined her work. She gave the wolf some chamomile to help them rest and glanced up to Ezra. "Would you mind bringing some red meat for our patient here? The early meal will help him replenish the lost blood." Once the wolf had been fed and was resting, Ali got back up—albeit with some difficulty from her overly rotund size—and made her way back out of the cell with Ezra. "There we go. All fixed!" she proudly declared. "Nothing a few sutures and plants can't fix! I've had to be sewn up a couple of times whenever Chimera decided to get a little too rough with me."

She didn't know if perhaps she was revealing a little too much about her and the king's relationship to Ezra, but there was no doubt in her mind that he'd heard the royal couple fucking on more than one occasion by now anyway, and neither she nor Chimera were exactly the types of lovers to withhold their reactions and sounds. "Are you afraid of your teeth, Ezra?" she asked while they began the walk back to the estate, giving him a curious look. "You shouldn't be. They're a wonderful gift."

"Aliana"

Ezra glanced up at Aliana, blinking with surprise when she reacted so dismissively to what he had done. Growing up in The Hallows where spilling blood on pack lands was strictly forbidden and with his father warning him time and time again to be careful with his jagged teeth he had expected a much stronger reaction, but she seemed to act like this was nothing at all and was maybe even common place. He didn't know how to react to that kind of response and as they walked into the area with the slaves' cells he was still bewildered. He walked up to the injured slave's cell with Aliana, noticing how frightened the slave was with another hit of guilt. He tried to not feel bad for the brute, especially considering the fact that Chimera had all but welcomed him to do things like this with these criminals, but it was hard. It was a completely different way of life here in Fenmyre it seemed.

Aliana immediately went to work patching up the slave with an ease and calmness that reminded him a lot of Syanna and he settled back near the entrance of the cell to wait for her to be done. He was relieved to hear that the wounds weren't as bad as he had imagined. There was just so much blood he thought for sure he had caused some serious damage to the man. Of course he knew any wound could end up being fatal if left untreated, but at least Aliana didn't seem worried. What really caught him off guard though was her admitting that Chimera had bitten her even worse before, making his eyes go wide and his face flush. Between just hearing about Aliana and Chimera's sex life and from hearing how Chimera acted with her he was more than a bit uncomfortable—though he did his best to hide it. It made him think of the times that he was with Syanna and how he had avoided even holding her scruff just out of fear that he might accidentally hurt her and now Aliana was showing him all the scars that crisscrossed the back of her neck... His head was practically spinning as he took in the new information.

He was still reeling when she asked him to fetch some red meat for the slave and he nodded, hopping to his feet to go to the food stores and grab some of the requested meat, happy to have a reason to move away from them for a moment. He took the opportunity to give himself a shake before he picked up a chunk of meat, bringing it back and placing it in front of the recovering slave with an apologetic glance. Once Aliana declared everything fixed he was able to relax a bit more, but her mentioning of how she had to be sewn up a couple of times because of Chimera had him blushing again. He wasn't sure what had him more flustered—hearing about Aliana and Chimera's sex lives or the fact that it reminded him so much of his own and how much he had been purposely holding back even though Syanna seemed to want him not to.

As he began to escort her back she asked him about being afraid of his teeth and he gave her an uncertain glance, his ears flicking back. "They haven't really felt like a gift," he muttered, looking at the ground. "My father told me to never bite anyone unless it was in dire circumstances, so... it always felt like they were too dangerous to use." He was quiet for a moment before he glanced up at her again, asking hesitantly, "Do you... like that Chimera bites you like that? Doesn't it hurt?"

Ezra Adravendi

The smile on Aliana's face melted slowly into a sympathetic frown when she saw how dejected Ezra got over the topic of his teeth, and his muttered words of how his mutation hadn't felt like a gift made her heart go out for the young man. No one deserved to feel like any part of themselves wasn't wonderful in some manner, especially not when he had those unique teeth like her mate did! Aliana breathed a soft sigh and nodded her head. "Your father is right to encourage caution when using them, but he's wrong to discourage you from ever using them. Your teeth are a part of you, Ezra. They are a tool, and no tool is inherently dangerous or bad unless you use them for hurtful intentions." She was quiet for a moment while she pondered what else she could say on the subject to make him feel better about his own body. Coming from a state of normalcy, it was easy for her to talk as an outsider looking in when she didn't know the social stigma he faced within his own family.

Fortunately, Ezra gave her the perfect segway into that conversation when he asked—albeit very shyly—about her enjoying when Chimera bit her. Now it was her turn for her cheeks to warm, but sex was such a commonplace thing in Fenmyre, it didn't embarrass her the way it did Ezra. "At first, I didn't. He didn't do it kindly or with any caution to me, and it hurt like hell. It does hurt still, because it's still sharp teeth going into my skin, but there's something... I don't know how to explain it." Aliana furrowed her brow while she tried to sort through her thoughts to explain them to Ezra. "When he bites me now, it's such an intimate act. I'm putting my life entirely in his paws, trusting him wholly. And he gets off on it. He gets to fully unleash himself, satisfy those urges with me. I get to see my mate like no one else does, in this primal form, raw and powerful. It's a moment of mutual trust, respect, and love." Aliana glanced up to Ezra with a bit of a cheeky smirk on her face. "There's really no high quite like it, and even though it hurts, the pleasure that it brings is exquisite—second to none."

Aliana gave a loud exhale as she shook the memories playing back in her head, not needing herself to get all hot and bothered now when she was very pregnant and her mate was sick in quarantine. "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to make you uncomfortable," she apologized with a bashful smile, peering up at the dire wolf through snowy lashes while ears slicked to her head. "I just wanted to show you that there is a good way to use your teeth, and that you should love yourself the way you are, not be afraid of your own body. Be yourself, Ezra. You might like what you find." With her final bit of wisdom imparted to the young brute, Ali continued the rest of the trip back to the estate in relative silence. She'd done her good deeds for the day and felt accomplished with her work.

"Aliana"