Rise.

~:~

When he returned to the bed, Róan was asleep, or pretending sleep, only now he was in the middle, shifting Medin to the side, and his arms were around the boy protectively. When Marik woke them for dinner, Róan was put mostly back together. Gathered around the low table, his mate was still quiet, but Medin was back to his usual bubbly self. Marik allowed this for a few minutes, chewing thoughtfully on slices of meat, before he spoke.
"What is his name, Medin?"
Medin stilled immediately.
"Who?"
"Medin, if I have to go and find out who he is, his punishment will be double. Tell me."
Medin decided immediately that discretion was the better part of valor and acquiesed.
"Walker. His name is Walker."
Marik narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
"He only has one name?"
Medin bit immediately into a piece of fruit. Marik took the rest from his hand.
"Speak."
the boy swallowed.
"I'm not sure - "
"You have only one chance, Medin."
"Walker Arestam Churi."
Marik handed the fruit back.
"His primary name is a human name?"
Medin held his tongue.
"Medin." the name was a command.
"His badi named him. His sire is an exile."
Marik stopped eating. His eyes narrowed.
"Does he have another name, Medin?"
Medin eyed the far wall.
"Melloz. His father's name is Melloz."
The room exploded into sound as Marik leapt to his feet, shouting, and Medin matched him.
"Never again, Medin! Never in my home!"
"It's my home, too, and he is not like them!"
"A damn scourge on the Empire! Honorless spawn!"
"Don't judge him for who he was born! I thought nobody cared about stuff like that! I thought we were egalitarian!"
"Medin, he is not one of us! Filth, that's all he is! Vile abomination!"
Marik was angry, pacing back and forth, thick dark tail lashing violently behind him.
"He loves me!"
At this, Marik stopped all movement, stalking towards Medin, his body tight and face incredulous.
"Love? You think he loves you? He left you, Medin, the second you were caught. Took off running with his tail between his legs. He abandoned you. He doesn't love you, he loves what you can do for him. It's a cheap trick to circumvent the rules. His kind have done it years hence, and they will do it years more. If he really loved you, he would be here now."
This effectively silenced Medin, who sat in shock for a few seconds before bursting into tears and running off to his room. Marik growled after him before sitting back down to his meal. Róan wanted to go after the boy, but feared invoking Marik's wrath and so he waited.
"Alpha -"
"Not now, Róan."
Róan swallowed and picked at his plate. Marik, feeling regret for snapping at him, reached out to touch Róan's hand. The human jumped at his touch and Marik felt remorse sting at him. He'd forgotten that quickly how fragile his human was. He had allowed his anger to make a beast of him. Cursing himself, he tried again, seeking to meet his mate's eyes.
"I'm sorry, Róan. I'm not angry at you."
Róan watched him, unblinking.
"You're angry with Medin."
"Yes. No. No, I'm not angry, I'm just - concerned."
Róan shrugged, glanced once at the door, then turned his gaze back to the window.
"You shouldn't be so mean to him."
Marik barely hid the cross look which flickered across his face.
"He's caused a lot of trouble, you know."
Róan shrugged.
"I don't know, really. I get that he did something bad, but I'm not quite sure what. I don't really know how things work around here, you know, and it's not like you're rushing to explain it to me. Whatever it is, I don't think it warrants you yelling at him like that."
"He yelled at me!"
Róan shrugged again.
"He's fourteen. You're - how old are you?"
"Thirty-four."
"-Thirty-four. There's a difference there."
Marik sighed.
"He's lied to us both, Medin has. He's lied to us and shirked his duties, left school without permission, behaved improperly with our servants, and for what? An afternoon tryst with some juvenile who hasn't even yet gained his age."
Róan listened impassively as Marik continued.
"To bring a wolfe, juvenile or not, into my home without my permission is an insult of the highest order, Róan. I cannot allow such behavior to pass, because if I allow this, then I allow every other offense he might conceive of in his adolescent mind. In addition, to bring a wolfe into his room is remarkably inappropriate, especially for a boy not even of visiting age, and even more especially for a varon of his standing."
"Visiting age?"
"The age at which juveniles - wolfe and human both - are allowed limited courting visits - private time with each other, provided there is prior establishment of an intended or possible mating."
Róan digested this and went on.
"And his standing?"
"He is our varon; we are of the leadership of this pack. His behavior reflects on you and I more strongly than on him. If he misbehaves, it makes it appear that you are unable to properly rear him and that I am unable to control him."
Marik sighed heavily.
"That's probably the second worst part. If word of this gets out - if that Walker brags on about this to his friends, not only will Medin be disgraced, but us as well. We could lose a lot of face in the pack, making me open to challenges of my position."
Róan made a face.
"Challenges of your position?"
"It's exactly what it sounds like."
"All that? Over such a small matter?"
Marik shrugged.
"It's not a small matter, Róan. I wish it were."
Róan stared down the window once more before speaking, still not turning to look at his wolfe.
"You said second worst part?"
Marik growled low in his throat.
"The absolute worst part is that Medin's juvenile lover is a Melloz."
Róan waited patiently for clarification. Now Marik was staring off into the silence with him. They passed a few moments that way before he spoke again. His voice was low and disturbed, a tone that Róan had never heard him use before.
"Melloz was a small-scale Lout leader - psychopath, really, but their history paints him differently - who sought to better the bloodline of the Lout leaders. They were weak, inbred - prone to genetic problems, disease, and base behavior - no better than hogs at a watering hole. They lived in squalor and conflict. Melloz, in a rare moment of Lout brilliance and clarity, decided that the best way to change all this would be to enrich his bloodline...with our own. We lost seventy-two soldiers to his sick experiments - he cut them open, changed their organs, implanted embryos of his own making - and all because we failed to retrieve them. Now, some twenty years later, we have near six hundred half-Lout progeny to show for it. They are simple, they are slow, they are witless and consistently criminal. They have no understanding of honor, love, justice, or what it means to carry your litter's load. They understand only the desire for power, and a driving urge to belong. It seems our pack mentality was the only thing that got through."
Marik was wringing his hands, and odd tic that Roan had never seen on a wolfe before.
"We let them into our packs every now and then, here and there - those whose mothers or fathers, badis or sires, wanted out of the Melloz way of life, wanted freedom. We let them in because they do, after all, carry our blood within their veins. But we do not let them lead and we do not ever trust them alone. And we most damn certainly do not let them mate."
Marik bit his lip thoughtfully, then released it.
"Now Walker, from what Medin tells us, has a human birther, which makes him only one half Melloz - perhaps some of the problems will be mitigated, but..."
Marik drifted off into his own thoughts, his voice sounding worried and distant.
"These Mellozians - Roan, you just don't know. They look like us, they talk like us, but they are not like us at all."
Róan stayed quiet and picked at his plate, which Marik only then seemed to notice.
"You don't like it?"
Marik's voice still sounded strange, and so Róan moved to avoid conflict.
"No, I like it."
"You're not hungry?"
Róan shrugged.
"I'm not used to this much food."
Marik nodded; apparently his mate's answer had been acceptable.
"Well, eat. You have to eat." he returned his attention to the window, chewing slowly, and it was obvious that he was thinking about Medin.