She laughs at him. Laughs. Nike would have been infuriated if he wasn't so panicked and terrified for his mother's mental state of being. The boy looked down at the ground, then up from hooded, worried eyes at Aster once more. In that moment he sought to scrutinize her purpose for doing all of this - was there some shard of truth to her words? But she had only played tricks on him and made fun of him! And thus he came to hate Aster, more than he had ever despised someone other than his father before. Not only had she insulted him when she'd called him 'thin' and then gone on to blatantly laugh at his blood right claims to being a demi-god, but she'd forced him apart from his mother. And yet he could not think of anything other than to plead with her, to beg for her to let him go - and perhaps he hated her for that the most.

Nike avoided her eye contact and she tried to ask him who he was referring to. He and Everlast had lived a private life for as long as he could remember. Even those first few weeks of life in the pack lands of Diveen hadn't been spent socializing with the pack. They'd always kept to themselves. Well, except for that time Everlast had encouraged him to go to Aster's stupid party for their generation's second birthday. Yet another tick added to the quickly growing list of reasons to loathe her. The lanky boy stewed, quivering slightly as the panic attack began to subside and release its grip on his heart and lungs. So Aster managed to catch him off guard when she asked who his girlfriend was, and mentioned bringing her here as well!

"She's not my girlfriend, she's my mother!" He paused, realizing he'd already revealed too much. They would find her now, knowing that they were related. Aster would only have to order her lackeys to trace his scent back and look for something similar! "And you'll not have her!" Nike threw his snout towards the sky, showing some sign of bravery for maybe the first time in his life. He howled, loud and pitched but with a frantic message. Mother! It is a trap! Stay away! I will return to you! And then he flinched back and away from Aster, further into her pack lands, hoping to avoid whatever repercussion she had planned for his actions. Meeting her gaze with a hint of defiant triumph, he panted softly from the exertion and stress of the last few minutes. But behind that there was also resignation, for his tail had tucked as he'd backed away from her, and his ears were pressed low in submission. Now he just needed to serve his time, and get back to his mother.