"Law?"
"You're a Rogue, boy. I should be trying to rip your head off right now, but I've given you hospitality. Every Were-kin, Dryad, Druid, Faerie, Pixie, Sylph, Nymph, Gnome, and Centaur in the West is hunting for you. I'm shocked you made it this far without running into someone."
"How did Triana get here before we did? Is she still here?" he asked.
"She didn't come here, boy. Triana is a Druid, and Druids can send messages to other Druids. I'm nowhere near Triana's ability, but I know enough Druidic magic to be able to receive messages. Every Druidic adept in the West is hunting for you."
"I'm not surprised," he said with a grunt and a sigh. "Everyone else certainly seems to be after me. Why not the Druids too?"
"I am surprised at you, boy. Do you have any idea how many people you killed in Den Gauche? You wiped out nearly half the city!"
"So?" he asked in a grim, blunt voice.
Haley paled and stared at him in a bit of shock, then he cleared his voice. He gave Dolanna a desperate look, but her own expression was just as calm, even cold, as his. "Dolanna, you are my friend, but I just cannot allow him to go out and-"
"You do not understand the situation, Haley," she said calmly. "What happened in Den Gauche was entirely the fault of your Were-cat, Triana. She pushed him into a corner, and he fought back in the only way he had available to him."
"He's feral, Dolanna! Almost as feral as Mist! Maybe even more so! He's not insane, but insanity would be better than this!"
"Surprising that you can make that conclusion so quickly," she chided him. "I will be the first to admit that he has developed feral tendencies, but given the tremendous amount of stress that has been placed on him, it is no surprise. He is not truly feral, Haley. Not yet."
Tarrin looked down at the Were-wolf calmly, his green eyes boring into him, and the impulse to strike first, strike now, crossed his mind more than once. This Haley wasn't coming across as someone that was going to be very helpful, and he had the power to bring the Druids down on him like a hammer. He was hovering very close to being an enemy in Tarrin's eyes, and that was a very unhealthy position for someone standing within his paw's reach. Haley looked up at him with his dark eyes, and he showed no fear. No fear-smell flashed through his scent. He was not afraid of Tarrin. That may be a bad mistake.
"Don't look at me like prey, boy," Haley warned him in a dangerous tone. "I know how to fight Were-cats." He turned his back on Tarrin deliberately, a clear indication that he had no fear, then walked to the door and opened it. Then he turned and gave Dolanna a penetrating stare. "I've given you hospitality, and that means that I won't raise my hand against you. But I want you and him out of my inn tomorrow, Dolanna. I won't harbor a Rogue for any more than I absolutely have to. And after you leave, I suggest you make sure I don't find you. If I do, then I'll have my duty to perform, and I fear it won't go over very well with you."
"As you wish, Haley," Dolanna said calmly, and then he closed the door.
Tarrin gave Dolanna a calm look, but she dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "Do not worry about him, Tarrin. Haley is a very old friend. I will talk to him this evening, and hopefully we can reach accommodations."
"You came here on purpose," he realized.
"Yes," she admitted. "Haley is a Druid. I knew that, and I knew that he would know where you stand among his society. That was information I needed to know. But he also gives us a way to present a defense for you to them. If I allow him to observe you, and let him understand why things have happened as they have, then hopefully he can convince the others that you are not as much a threat as they believe."
"I guess," he said as Faalken and Azakar came out of their room.
"I heard what was going on, Dolanna, but we decided not to barge in and mess things up," he told her. "I doubt that two Were-kin on edge would be very receptive to party crashers."
"Wise as always, old friend," she told him with a straight face. "And I will tell you now. Haley's condition is among one of the best kept secrets in Dayise. That secret will not be revealed by us. Is that understood?"
"Aye," Azakar said as Faalken nodded.
"Is that clear, your Highness?" Dolanna called in a raised voice.
From behind the door of the room she chose for herself, there was an angry stamp of a foot.
"I am glad that that is settled," Dolanna said calmly. "Now, our dinner has arrived. Let us get to it before it gets cold. Tarrin, fetch the others, if you please."
The meal was spectacular, and the long rides living on sea rations made it that much more heavenly. Tarrin found himself competing with Azakar over who would get the largest portions, even though there was more food on the table than the entire group could possibly eat. Tarrin had forgotten what meat tasted like without a cup of salt on it to keep it from spoiling, and it had been since the Stormhavens since he'd had goose or venison.
After the meal, Tarrin lounged on the couch lazily as Dolanna and Faalken went downstairs to speak with Haley. The others said their goodnights and wandered to their own rooms, to partake of beds larger than rowcots that didn't sway with a ship. Tarrin missed the swinging of the deck, in a curious way. Such motion wasn't all that bad when one wanted to be lulled to sleep, but then again, he'd rarely slept in his bed in humanoid form. His cat form was much more comfortable for sleeping in cramped conditions. Now that he was thinking of it, he'd spent the last two months in cat form more than in his humanoid form. He found it hard to believe that there had been a time that he didn't know how to shapeshift. It was second nature to him now, something he didn't even have to think about anymore.
He worried about Haley. The Were-wolf was in a position to do some serious damage. He could call on the others, and they could come, or at the very least try to get here before they left. Tarrin wasn't all that worried about a fight with him, he looked rather scrawny and easy to overwhelm, but that possibility wasn't lost on him either. He'd rather avoid fighting with him, if only because he was a friend of Dolanna. That gave him a little respect in Tarrin's eyes. Not much, but some.
He wondered what it would be like to be something other than a cat. Wolves were fairly large animals, and he rather doubted that there were any wild ones on the city-islands. How did Haley stand it? Surrounded by humans all the time, unable to express the other side of himself. At least Tarrin could move about in his other form at will, being lost among the other domesticated animals. But Haley was a large predator, an animal that organized into packs that cooperated with each other. How did he translate that into living on the small island, surrounded by humans and Wikuni? For that matter, why was he here in the first place? A Were-wolf would have no business in such a place. Maybe he did change form and go out. Not to hunt people, or even animals, just to go out and walk around in his wolf form, pretending to be someone's pet. A pet that would turn heads, but a pet nonetheless. At least Tarrin didn't attract attention. He was just another cat.
Cat. He had to find a cat to replace him on the ship. He owed Kern that much for everything the grizzled old sea captain had done for them. With everyone in bed and Dolanna downstairs, he figured it was the perfect time to go ahead and do just that. It was dark, and that meant that the cats were out, searching for their nightly meals. It wouldn't be that hard to track down a stray black cat and offer it a permanent home.
Besides, after two months cooped up with the others, he wanted a little time by himself.
Getting out of the inn was as easy as going downstairs and padding through the crowded common room, then out the open door. Nobody noticed him in the bustle of serving girls and raucous patrons. After slipping out, he was loose on the streets of Dayise. They were crowded streets, filled with many Wikuni and sailors of every nation on the planet, and it was still well represented by merchants and other business men. The other business of the night was prostitution, and he only had to walk a few blocks before returning to the areas where hard currency girls plied their trade. But his business that night had nothing to do with harlots or merchants. The scents of other cats weren't easy to find, and he realized that the island nation didn't have a very large population of land-based animals common to mainland cities. There were wild cats about, but they were very spread out and not easy to find.