While Aranea and Ulric had been healing well since their accident, Ulric himself still showing up to protect the pack when needed from the sabor tooth attack, their wounds were still pretty major and needed a lot more time then a few nights rest. Aranea had taken Ulric’s offer for staying in his room while they healed, the company and warmth he provided was more than satisfying for Aranea. She usually creeped out of his room and down the hall more because her lack of sleep but also the thoughts of his children running in on them as Ezra had. It may have been well noticed to some or all of them now, perhaps either Ezra had announced to his siblings. Either way, Aranea wanted to show respect to them in the dark days they shared with their father. But the last few days Aranea hadn’t been showing up to Ulric’s room. And while that may have been okay or understandable, she was making a strong tension while she was in passing or working in the green house they had built. She had been avoiding him and while she tried not to make it obvious, there were just things she couldn’t hide. She would leave when he came to his training center, or move around him while in the court yard. There was no doubt he could feel like she was starting to shut him out. As she entered the castle as dusk started to loom over the walls, her gaze happen to find itself magnetic to him as he was up on the floor of his family’s hallway. Their eyes may have met, and even if she lingered for a moment, she would go to walk over to her own room. She couldn’t help but feel bad for what she had started with him, or what she was doing now. Walk "Talk" Think

Since the last day he had worked on the green house with Aranea, he felt like he had been seeing her less and less. At first he didn't notice since she would still spend evenings in his room with him, but eventually even that stopped and her avoidance started to become more and more obvious. For a few days after he realized what was going on he tried to give her some space and started over analyzing everything that he had done, wondering if there was something he had done wrong. Occasionally he would try to cross her path as she went about her day, but every time she seemed to find a way to go in the opposite direction. Eventually he began to feel like some sort of divide was pushing them apart and he couldn't quite grasp why.

He was standing near the balcony that opened up from the landing in front of the hallway where he and his children lived when he heard someone coming up the stairs. He glanced back, spotting Aranea as she paused behind him. He had been waiting here, hoping he might catch her, but before he could speak she escaped down the hall toward her room. He frowned and sighed, looking out over the courtyard again. Part of him wanted to just go his own separate way as well since it seemed pretty clear that she didn't want to be around him, whether he knew the reason or not, and he felt like trying to get her attention would just make things worse. But a louder portion of his internal debate demanded to know why. He just wanted to know if it was something he had caused so maybe he could fix it.

After a few moments he turned and walked down the hall, following Aranea's path it'll he was standing in the doorway to her room. "Aranea?" he asked, his deep voice rumbling softly. He took a step through the door, basically ensuring that she couldn't shut him out, but still trying to not intrude on her space too much. "Is there... Did I do something? What's going on?"

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When Ulric’s voice would come to her ears, she wouldn’t be surprised. His presence was surprisingly welcome given her avoidance the last few days. Maybe a little too welcome. She had been sitting at her window overlooking the beach when he stepped in, she took a moment to think of her words, clearly unsure of what to say while called out. Her gaze only peeked at him a second before searching the ground. When she looked back up at him, it was like she couldn’t stop. A drink of desire filed her, and she had an aurora about her prominent to what she desired. At least close to the same feeling of their first night together. To her she wouldn’t doubt that Ulric would reject, but it wasn’t ideal behavior for why he came to visit her or what she had been doing to him recently. She walked up to him in the door way, her eyes in a sort of tired stance though they swirled with an attempted seduction, "Nothing is wrong, Ulric." it was a lie, given the fact that she had went from ignore to sex in the matter of seconds. But what was ailing her was thrown out the window in the moment clearly. Maybe she was uncomfortable with sharing a room beside his kids? No, she couldn’t even lie to herself. She went to push her lips onto his muzzle gently, and want to pull him into her room. But would he be naive or desperate enough to give in? Ulric seemed stronger than that to her. Walk "Talk" Think

Ulric watched Aranea as she shifted her gaze from the window she was looking toward to him, his silver gaze concerned as he waited for an answer. She didn’t answer right away and instead shifted her gaze away from his to look at the ground. His ears flicked and he took a couple more steps into the room while he remained quiet and waited for some kind of response. At first he just wished that she would say something to give him an idea of what was going on in her head, but when she looked up at him again he was just more confused than he had been when he arrived.

She looked at him with that look that had originally drawn him in the first night he sought her out and a small frown pulled at his lips in response. His eyes lingered on her questioningly as she approached him, listening to her lie with a doubt that only continued to deepen. He knew it would have been easy to just accept the lie, give in to her attempts at seduction, and just go back to his room when it was done, but... then what? Nothing would be solved - in fact, he was fairly certain things would only be worse. Even just addressing that thought at all made his skin crawl and made him feel sleazy. That was not the type of man he ever wanted to be.

When she leaned in to kiss him he pulled back just enough to avoid it, his eyes finding hers and searching her gaze with a furrowed brow. ”Aranea, what’s going on?” he questioned again, sitting back on his haunches to show he wasn’t going anywhere until he got an answer.

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Ulric would pull back from her before their touch and there would be nothing but devastation across her face. Hurt could barely sum up what she felt, but she had been avoiding him and giving him the same feeling after all. Tears weld in her eyes for the few seconds she kept her gaze up to his until he settled. And then she would draw back herself. Honestly she didn’t even want to look at Ulric, though mostly so he couldn’t see her in the condition she was in. Allegro had seen her in worse, but she almost felt like if she opened up in that kind of way to Ulric, it would give her a harder choice when she faced Allegro. She didn’t want to make choices, but she didn’t want to give up what Ulric was giving her. Because it wasn’t just about her seduction or the sexual desires they shared. It was more than that. It took her a moment to even want to speak, but she wouldn’t linger too long on her thoughts. "Resin." she paused, her cheek turned toward him but she wouldn’t let him look at her face from where he was, "She doesn’t think we should be doing what we are doing." but what were they even doing? Aranea may have led Ulric to believe that they were in the start of some kind of relationship, and it was what she wanted too. But she knew everything she was doing was a ticking time bomb for disaster for everyone involved. "She said it’s messed up Ezra." her voice was calm like she wasn’t crying, but it was probably obvious given the fact that she turned away from Ulric, even in any of his advances if he tried. Walk "Talk" Think

Aranea's devastated expression and the tears that glittered in her eyes nearly broke him and he had to hold himself back from reaching out to her and pulling her close. It was so difficult to be strong and hold this boundary while he waited for a reason for her sudden distance from him. He wouldn't get that answer right away, instead waiting as she turned away from him and a heavy beat of silence passed between them. When she did finally speak her answer surprised him, his mouth gaping for a moment as he struggled to find words to say - ultimately failing and closing his mouth again. Resin had spoken to her about their relationship? Although, could he even really call it that? Perhaps deep down he wanted that to be the case, but he wasn't certain that either of them had let themselves get to that point yet. He hadn't expected Resin to step in and express any kind of disapproval, but when Aranea mentioned what it had done to Ezra... That made his ears flick back and gaze shift to the ground with shame.

He had regretted how Ezra had found out about them from the very start and he wondered if there was ever going to be a way to repair that damage. He knew that his son had to be his top priority, but as he brought his eyes back up to Aranea he honestly wasn't sure if he could give her up either. It tore him in two between very different sides of his heart. A heavy sigh left him and he cast his gaze down to the floor between them. He had put them both into this situation where no matter what he did someone was going to end up hurt. He never wanted to do that to anyone involved - especially not Aranea or his children. For the most part he could care less about what any of the other wolves in the pack thought about them, but if this was causing more harm than good for the ones he cared about then where did he have to draw the line?

"What do you want?" he asked softly as he looked up toward her again, knowing that was going to be a difficult question to answer since it wasn't one he could confidently answer himself. He wanted there to be an easy way to have it all, but they weren't going to have that without a fight. He just need to know if that was a fight she was willing to endure.

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What Ulric didn’t know was that Resin had in fact not told Aranea she disapproved but she told her to be careful. It was the way she perceived it though, and it had weighed heavily on her mind since then. She wanted to please her alpha, and she didn’t want to mess up any more of Ulric’s children. God knew she was messing up her own. The two gathered their thoughts, and where Ulric considered his question to be difficult, Aranea did not. She jumped onto the answer as quickly as he asked, it would appear to be her sign of weakness. She turned around immediately to him, her eyes rained with tears, "I want you." her lip quivered as she paused, looking up to him with a sadness he may not have even known she carried. Where Allegro helped put her pieces back together, she was a much better woman for Ulric until now. Her body started to shake under the pressure, maybe the thought of Ulric rejecting her but it was much more than that. She may have found herself untangled in many men, but she didn’t... love any of them less the the other. Her own trauma becoming more apparent in front of Ulric now than it had ever been. Her eyes dropped back to the floor as she pulled into herself, though her body still facing Ulric, ”Please don’t leave me." her voice was quiet to a near whisper as she shuddered lightly. Tyranis was on her mind more than anything right now. She loved her relationships more than she loved her children. And Tyranis abandoning her had made her do what happened to Nuada. And it was a vicious cycle in her mind. Walk "Talk" Think

Aranea surprised him with the immediacy of her answer as she spun toward him with a tear filled gaze, telling him that he was what she wanted. He blinked with surprise, his ears folding back against his head. He felt guilty for setting any of this in to motion, for causing her any kind of upset or pain, even if he also felt something for her in return. At least in his mind he was at fault for all of it, even if she had contributed in her own way with flirting and seduction. He should have been more careful, he should have waited until he was sure... Now here he was with a woman that he cared for and it tore him apart to see her cry like this, but fully committing himself to her didn't feel right yet either. He always felt like he should be the one to be responsible and to be the one that was strong - that's how he had always had to be around his mother and sister. This time he had failed. There was also the added confusion around why she would even want him so much out of all the possible options. He just didn't think highly enough of himself to think that he was worth this sort of heartache.

When Aranea asked him not to leave he thought he might crumple under the weight of his own guilt and the desperate desire to make things right. He wanted to respond right away, vow that he wouldn't leave her, scoop her up in his arms and hold her tight... But then he thought of Azariah. He thought of his children. Could he look her in the eye and promise that he would never leave her if his heart wasn't fully committed to her? He still didn't know what he'd do if Azariah ever returned. He wanted this relationship with Aranea, but things had moved so fast that he felt like he couldn't keep up. "I don't want to," he finally admitted, feeling like that was all he could say that was actually the truth. His voice caught on the emotion that was heavy in his throat, making his already deep voice rasp with unshed tears.

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Ulric's voice would come back to her, but she had shut down. She hadn't felt this way since she announced her pregnancy to Allegro. In fact, she may have felt worse now. Ulric had felt like he failed, and Aranea did too, but it was a thought she had buried deep under all the emotions she wanted to feel towards Ulric. It wasn't simply because she was with Ulric and felt like she was messing up his relationship with his children or their hope for their mother to return. It wasn't even the thought that she was betraying Allegro while she wanted to be with Ulric. All she thought she wanted was to be a great mother to make up for her mistakes for letting Tyranis take Rain, and letting Nuada turn up the way she had. And what she was burying was the fact that she hated herself for leaving her children, for risking her relationship with them by bedding with Ulric, and overall the fact that she would have much rather been under him than with them. She knew the truth of her nature, and she chose to ignore it.  Even as the thoughts or fear and rejection and shame shut her down, she didn't want to think of what she was doing to her children in Abaven. She couldn't find the strength in her to look back up at him. Allegro had seen bad but she didn't want anyone to see her like this. Once upon a time she was extremely selfish in another sense than what she was feeling now. She wanted others to pity her, to know what a horrible life she had, to want to tell her they were sorry for what had happened to her. She didn't feel that way anymore. She was embarrased by her depression, and she didn't want especially men to know what kind of vulnerability she shed. Her eyes still to the ground she tried to move past Ulric and out the door way, she didn't know what she was after in that moment. Probably just to get his eyes off her broken state. Walk "Talk" Think

Ulric struggled to read her expression, but it was at least obvious to see how she shut down and withdrew from the entire situation. He wanted to reach out to her and fix everything, give her the world just to make her feel better, but he didn't know how. He didn't know if it was even something that he could fix even if he gave her his entire heart, dedicated himself to her, promised that they would work together to get his children on board... would that be enough? He didn't know. He got the feeling that this was more than just about him, but sometimes it seemed like getting her to tell him what was going on in her head felt more difficult than anything else they had faced thus far.

When she attempted to slip past him and head toward the door, he started to lift his paw to stop her, but ultimately let it fall back to the ground with a defeated sigh, looking toward the ground as he let her go. His chest squeezed painfully with hurt and emotion that he didn't know how to process and as he sat in the empty room with his head hanging dejectedly he felt like he was at a complete loss of what to do. Did he just cut the ties here? Go back to focusing on just his children alone? Or did he try to repair this fledgling relationship with her and follow this little desire in his heart to build something more with her?

He sat there for a few moments longer before pulling himself to his paws and forcing himself to return to his room, shutting out the world as he crawled under one of the large furs that were spread across his bed. The answer was not something he was going to find tonight and waiting for her to come back wouldn't help either of them. He laid there staring at the wall in the darkness while he struggled to find any scrap of sleep.

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