Dawn hadn't fully broken when John felt eyes on him again. It was the same patient weight he'd felt two days ago, and he didn't need to open them all the way to know who'd finally stopped watching from the trees.
"You're early," he said, without moving from beside the dying fire.
'I've had two days to decide I was done waiting,' the cat said, stepping into the open instead of half-hiding in the vines. 'Waiting rarely improves a decision. It only delays it.'
John kept his hands loose in his lap and mirrored the same open posture he'd used the first time they spoke.
'What decision?'
'You didn't chain her.' The cat's tail flicked toward the far side of camp, where Vaelirash slept with her head tucked beneath one healing wing. Jibril kept watch beside her, still faintly glowing with the residue of a contract barely a night old. 'She was weak enough. Most of your kind would have called that opportunity rather than temptation.'
