The acrid smell of their testosterone turned the damp jungle air rank, and she found herself shrinking back beneath the weight of the stranger's stare. Every instinct in her body demanded that she turn tail and flee into the cover of the underbrush, where she had a small chance of outrunning the angry male... but to do that might risk never seeing Annubis again, and Sonorae had to know.

Rougaru was the only stallion that she had ever come to trust after the incident on the Crossing. Even Annubis and Drogon were enough to raise the hairs on her back, despite having lived with and among them for years with neither of them offering a sideways glance. Rougaru had shown her what it was to love and be loved, and without him, she felt utterly lost and adrift. If he was really and truly gone, she didn't know what she would do.

She remained silent as they turned their attention toward her, shrinking back against the vegetation she'd crashed through under the weight of their stares. She noted the small changes in their posture: the way Annubis shifted to shield her from the interloper and the way that the dark stallion's eyes lingered on her for far longer than she was comfortable with. Sonorae might have been willfully oblivious to much of the bargaining that went on between herd stallions, but she had seen plenty of new faces traipse through Paradise and knew that not all of them were treated as gently as she had been. Mares were bartered and traded for safety all the time. Without Rougaru to protect her, who would save her from the same fate?

The bloodmarked mare swallowed hard and nodded slightly in response to the direct question she'd been asked, but said nothing else. She didn't technically belong to Annubis, nor really, to anyone at all, but it was close enough to the truth. Annubis was currently the closest she could get to Rougaru, which was where she truly belonged.

Her skin twitched as Annubis stalked closer and her breaths grew shallower as her anxiety spiked, fearing that they would soon erupt into bloodshed despite the buckskin's attempt to make peace.