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When the first of them approached, Sasha had been touched.

The guy was probably in his mid-twenties, strong and dark-skinned. His teeth flashed when he smiled—which he did a lot. But the most striking thing about him was his light-green eyes.

"If you seek shelter, I would offer mine," he said, reaching for her arm as she passed at Yhet\'s side.

She\'d paused out of habit, to be polite. Someone was addressing her and that meant she should respond.

But Yhet tsked and clamped his hand on her other wrist, tugging her forward, gently but firmly. "You have to ignore them," he said, his voice so low it seemed to come from the dirt beneath their feet. "Especially the ones that approach in the beginning. They know they\'re not strong enough to hold your attention. They\'re just trying their luck."

"Trying for what? He was offering to help me. It was very thoughtful."

"He was offering to share his space with you," Yhet muttered, glancing back over his shoulder at the male. "He would seduce you if he could and keep you away from the other males. There will be a lot of competition until you declare your mate. You have to ignore it until the very end. When the two strongest males begin to display. Then you have to give them your attention. If you pay attention to the young ones, you\'ll be making yourself look weak. Know your value, Sasha."

She frowned. "What is my value?"

"Zev," Yhet said with a wink. "Anything less than that and they got a bargain."

Sasha spluttered, but Yhet didn\'t laugh. He carried both her and Zev\'s bags, the thick straps clutched in a single hand. And the weight seemed nothing to him. Zev hadn\'t been too bothered by the weight either, but Yhet was so huge, they looked like child\'s backpacks in his hand. She shook her head.

Every few minutes she would catch sight of something—a man turning into a wolf, or one time, a goat like Dunken—or Yhet himself and her brain would just… refuse to believe any of it.

Her clothing—the slick, waterproof surface of the snow jacket, and the crunch of her boots—made her feel very out of place when everyone else wore furs or woven fabrics. But when Yhet caught her fingering the front of her jacket and comparing it to the thick furs he wore, he had waved it off. "The humans all dress like you, don\'t worry about it. No one cares—except if you stink."

"Stink?"

Yhet shuddered. "Some of the human fabrics are sin… syn… sythnetics I think Zev called them. They smell," he wrinkled his huge nose that somehow managed to fit his face just right and shook his head until his hair fluttered behind him a like a flag.

"Synthetics," she said with a little laugh. "My jacket is, too."

"Well it is not an offensive one," Yhet said with a sniff. "And I am grateful for that."

He wove her back and forth around the village, peering into different shelters, but always shaking his head or muttering an apology before pulling his head out of the darkened doorway and walking on.

Sasha was fascinated. The buildings she\'d observed at the clearing were continued throughout the village—though here the trees hadn\'t been cut off and they were under the shadow of the forest canopy.

Then they pushed through some bushes, and Sasha\'s mouth fell open.

Here, as if it were now outside the village altogether, there were no more buildings leaning against trees, or built alongside bushes on the dirt. If Sasha kept her eyes low, she\'d have thought she was just walking through forest.

But here and there, scattered through the trees, always where a thick trunk branched and massive boughs splayed out, homes had been built within the trees themselves.

Sasha gaped at the strange and wonderful beauty of these homes that first reminded her of giant wasp\'s nests. The sides were rounded and unevenly textured, as if many different kinds of materials had been rolled into the clay, or whatever was used to make the structures.

"There aren\'t… wasp chimera are there?" she squeaked.

Yhet frowned at her. "No. That would be creepy." When she gave him a look he shrugged. "I suppose it\'s a fair question. It isn\'t as if the humans haven\'t made other abominations before now. But no, there are no insect Chimera."

Sasha sighed with relief, uncertain she\'d ever be able to see a human-sized insect and not scream, no matter how friendly they might be. But Yhet was already striding on.

"No, these are the nests of the birds. Owls, mainly, though there are a few hawks and one eagle family."

"Birds?"

"Yes," Yhet said, frowning up at the trees, then striding on, beckoning her to follow. "They had more females until recently, so I\'m hoping they also have some empty homes and might share one with us."

Sasha stumbled at the word, "Us." While the homes she could see were sizeable—spilling out over thick branches in wide, rounded shapes that looked like a massive football had been blown up around the trunk of the tree. Each one was about half the size of her apartment back home. None of them looked big enough to easily accommodate someone of Yhet\'s size.

Then, as if he\'d been searching for something and he found it, Yhet\'s eyes lit up and he trotted forward, the ground under Sasha\'s feet trembling with every step as he raced away from her. She was about to call him back and had just started to run, when he stopped at the base of a tree with a smaller nest home and reached up to tap on the arch that was made of a thick slab of bark that had to be its door.

As Sasha caught up to Yhet, her breathing heavy, more from fear than from keeping up with him, the door swung open, and the first female face Sasha had seen since entering this place, leaned out.

The woman looked older than Sasha—but her face was smooth, so Sasha couldn\'t tell if it was just because her hair was brown and lush, but peppered with white that aged her. She wasn\'t pretty, but had a pleasant face that made you think she laughed easily.

She looked out of the door, then down, and when her eyes landed on Yhet, her eyebrows rose and a smile broke on her face that made Sasha rethink the idea that this woman wasn\'t pretty.

"Yhet!" she chirped. "What are you doing here? I wondered what had caused the earthquake!"

She threw herself out of the door and into his arms, and he laughed and caught her, hugging her for a moment as her fingers played in his hair, then setting her on her feet.

"It\'s good to see you, Kyelle, but I\'m not here for happy reasons, I\'m afraid," he said slowly.

"What? Oh no, has something happened? Or…. Oh." She noticed Sasha then and her brows rose again.

"I\'m helping Zev," Yhet said, his face suddenly very serious. He opened a hand towards Sasha. "Kyelle, this is Sasha."

Kyelle\'s head snapped up and she stared at Yhet, her eyes flashing in despair.