She'd almost left anyway.

Callista woke with a start in the dark room, feeling the warm heavy weight of a man's arm across her chest. It couldn't have been far past midnight; faded squares of starlight patched the coverlet, but murky shadows hid the edges of the room. She tensed quietly, annoyed with herself. She hadn't meant to fall asleep. Not if she wanted to slip out of the inn before dawn, and it would be much harder with Aren holding her like that.

He'd said this wasn't about whether she stayed or went...

His slow breaths warmed her shoulder. Turning her head against the pillow, her gaze lingered for a moment on his tousled hair and the way sleep had smoothed the strain from his usually taut features. A soft, heavy wave of exhaustion rolled over her. It would be so much easier to stay.

But the path of least resistance, in this case, led through Felwood. Was it truly worth it?

Holding her breath, Callista shifted carefully out from under his arm towards the edge of the mattress, wincing at every crunch of the straw within. Fortunately, Aren never stirred, even when his hand dropped from her chest to the blanket beneath.

The flagstones were cold against her bare feet as she padded to the crumpled pile of fabric near the door and pulled on the rest of her clothes. She picked up her boots in one hand, shivering in the night air, and couldn't stop herself from looking back at the rumpled blankets and the sleeping man beneath them. Guilt pricked at her. This wasn't the first time she'd crept out of a strange room well before dawn, but it was the first time she suspected she might feel bad about it later. Aren wasn't just some nameless stranger from The Slaughtered Lamb, after all. He deserved better.

Callista's eyes narrowed against the shadows. But then, she deserved better than to be muscled into some scatterbrained quest she wanted no part of. Whoever really got what they deserved anyway? She'd made him no promises.

Creeping to the door, she pulled it open only the sliver she needed to slip out and closed it silently behind her.

The corridor beyond was dim, only every other lantern glowing on its hook. The room she shared with Wynda was one door down from Aren's, and, much to her discomfort, bars of light winked from the gaps in the frame. Callista made a face. Leaning against the wall, she pulled on her boots by hopping awkwardly on one leg. She'd been hoping the dwarf was already asleep, but it appeared she wasn't going to be that lucky. Well, maybe the other woman had simply forgotten to douse the lantern.

Callista opened the door, and Wynda raised her head from the small table near the window and quirked an auburn brow at her. Her gaze was surprisingly clear, given the sharp smell of booze that wafted from the room. Much to Callista's amusement, she was clad only in her undyed cotton underthings, freckled arms crossed on the tabletop. "Back already, lass?"

Callista wrinkled her nose in feigned ignorance. "'Already'? It's got to be close to dawn." She peered more closely at Wynda. "What happened to your clothes? Don't tell me Ander talked you into one of his drinking games."

Wynda laughed and waved a hand at the scattered articles flung across her bed. "I spilled a glass o' whiskey and the smell was makin' my head spin."

Callista snorted good-naturedly. Wynda really was drunk. Her words were deceptively unslurred, but her Ironforge brogue had noticeably thickened. "Yes, I'm sure it was only the smell making you sick."

"Ach, don't you give me that tone! They haven't yet brewed the drink that'll turn a dwarf's stomach." She chuckled. "Though that's more than I can say for the twins. Vorthaal had to carry one out under each arm like sleepy baby lambs." Her grin shifted into a sagely approving expression. "Now there's a man of the Light who can hold his liquor." She muttered something under her breath that Callista couldn't quite catch, but sounded suspiciously like "Pity about the hooves."

Callista gave a whoop of laughter and plopped onto her bed, pulling off her boots with a grin. "Oh, really? Well, if the worst you can say is you don't like his feet…"

Wynda clucked her tongue at her. "You know what I meant!"

"Uh-huh."

There was a brief companionable silence. Wynda's voice, when she spoke again, was gentle. "So, what are you doin' up, lass? Not plannin' on just vanishin', I hope. I think we've all at least earned a proper goodbye."

That startled her, but Callista was too practiced a liar to let it show. "Vanish?" She arched a brow in confusion. "Wrong kind of arcanist..."

"I know what you are." There was no malice in the statement or her gaze, but it still made Callista want to fidget uncomfortably. She had the same knowing, direct look Tun always had when he'd caught her out at something and wasn't letting her get away with it. The thought of her friend caused her another unpleasant twinge. She suspected he wouldn't exactly approve of what she was planning to do.

"You're a pretty liar, but it's clear you're no mercenary. Aren told me why you're here."

Callista grimaced. So much for sneaking off without a scene. "Then you know why I'm leaving."

"Aye, I know why you say you are – but I think it's a poor excuse."

Callista leaned forward aggressively, curling her short nails into the quilt she sat on. "Why? Doesn't it worry you that your whole mission may be based on lies?"

Wynda snorted. "If that were true, I'd wager a few falsehoods would worry you a great deal less than me."

Callista narrowed her eyes at the jab, but made no retort; she supposed she deserved that.

"At its heart, it's a matter of trust," Wynda continued. "Our High Command are good, competent men and women. So is Sir Aren. I don't believe they'd deliberately send us wrong, or that they're the Light-addled fools you seem to think they are – and don't me give that look, lass, you've made it very clear what you think o' our faith. Whatever you did to make someone cast your name in where it didn't belong, doesn't mean the whole mission is corrupt. Muradin's beard, maybe even that was just a mistake. Not every misfortune is black conspiracy. Hang around with fiends too much and eventually you start to think like them."

Callista scowled. She was willing to take her knocks where she'd earned them, but there was only one person on Azeroth who got to lecture her that way, and it was not a drunk (albeit impressively lucid) dwarf in her underwear. "If you think I sound like a fiend, then you've never really met one. Though you will, if you insist on strolling through Felwood. Spare me your Argent fairytales."

"Peace, lass," Wynda said, holding up her hands placatingly. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Oh, no? Then what did you mean?"

Wynda sighed and looked at her frankly. "I think you're a sharp-tongued piece of work, for one thing," she grumbled. "But more than that, I think you're leaving because you're angry. You think someone's wronged you, and you want to punish them. I think you should reconsider. Even if you're right, isn't runnin' back to Stormwind full o' fury and felfire exactly what whoever did this would expect you to do?"

Possible, but unlikely. "Unless they never expected me to make it back at all."

Wynda chuckled briefly. "Are there really that many people out to kill you?"

Callista scrunched up her nose, made to retort, then actually thought about it. If she were honest, then no, she supposed there weren't. Given what she was, her reputation (as far as she knew) was fairly benign. "Even so. Why should I go with you? It's risky, and there's nothing at all I could possibly gain."

"Are you so certain of that?"

Callista cocked her head coolly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Wynda twitched the corner of her mouth, unimpressed. "Say whatever you like. Just think it over. You're right that it's likely to be dangerous. But the danger will be much less with someone who knows how to deal with those creatures. Whether you want to hear it or not, we need you."

Callista shifted defensively. Your needs are not my responsibility, was what she wanted to sneer. But the words stuck to her tongue even as she began to speak, and somewhere along the way she'd become too fond of the other woman to want to be that cruel. Instead she groaned and rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Twisting Nether, it was too late and she was far too tired to deal with this. She actually missed treating with her "fiends" as Wynda called them; say what you would about demons, at least their conversations were never overburdened with feelings.

"I need to sleep," she muttered, crawling into bed without bothering to undress. The idea of hauling herself and all her things across the damp Auberdine night to another tavern had become too harrowing to seriously consider. And if the Last Haven had closed, she'd need to sleep outside, which would be even worse. She could leave in the morning. Waking before the others wouldn't be difficult, if their general level of sobriety was anything like Wynda's.

Flopping facedown onto the mattress, she pulled the pillow over her head, hoping Wynda would take the hint.

She didn't.

"One last thing, lass."

She paused until Callista capitulated, rolling onto her side and shifting the pillow to peer at her crankily out of one eye.

"I don't know what you and Aren think you're up to, and I daresay he's a grown man who can look after himself. I will say if either o' you are after more than a quick roll, you're both knuckleheaded fools, and I won't hold it against either o' you when it all falls apart. But ," - for the first time in the conversation, she looked truly stern – "be any crueler than you need to be, and I'll box your ears so hard your ancestors will hear the ringin'."

Now that was just uncalled for. Glaring balefully out of her visible eye, Callista spat a sharp curse in demonic at the serious braid-framed face above her.

Wholly unoffended, Wynda settled back into her chair. "I'll have to remember some of that for the fiends." Yawning, she rested her head comfortably onto her crossed arms.

Exhausted, but also more agitated than she'd felt for months, Callista stuffed the pillow back over her face and waited fruitlessly for sleep.

Aren stirred as the first faint glow of dawn cracked the sky.

He rolled over and stretched, blinking slowly awake in the colorless light that seeped through the fog-pearled window. Even through his grogginess, something seemed…off.

He yawned and propped himself up against his flattened pillow, drowsily trying to take stock. His legs were tangled in the rough sheets, his clothes lay in a heap where they'd fallen the night before…and he was alone.

Oh.

He gave a tired sigh and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, trying to stem the disappointment he felt welling up like a cold pool in his belly and berating himself for his own stupidity. What had he expected, truly? She'd never said she would stay, and Callista didn't seem the type to take a chance on what might only be a silly infatuation.

Still.

He wasn't a complete fool. And he'd always believed in saying what he meant. He'd been truthful when he told her he didn't expect her to follow him anywhere, but did she really have to sneak out like that? How little respect did she have for him?

The anger dulled the edge of the hurt, and so he held onto it. They had very far to travel today, and their warlock running out on him - them - didn't change that. The others would be waiting for him.

Pushing away the twisted blankets, he stood, shuddering at the chill stone underfoot. The water in the basin was fresh but cold, and he shaved and washed his face quickly before strapping on his armor. He murmured his morning prayers as he dressed, beseeching the Light for wisdom and forbearance and protection, and felt the familiar peace softening the edges of his agitation. He'd always liked prayer and the clarity it brought to his thoughts, even if it didn't often survive contact with the muddy chaos of the rest of his life. If he'd been born into a world less full of insistent peril, he thought sometimes that he might have joined a monastery. He suspected it would've been simpler.

The edge of the sun had almost cleared the grey horizon by the time he was ready to leave. He picked up the knapsack containing the few belongings he hadn't left with their baggage in the stables and rolled his shoulders beneath the comfortingly thick metal of his pauldrons.

He pushed open the door, and any lingering clarity vanished immediately.

Callista lounged in the hallway just outside, sitting on an overstuffed canvas pack with her back against the drab wood of the wainscoting. Most of the lanterns had burned out and not been relit, and the chains of runes on her robes glowed like embers in the shadows. A dagger hung from the belt at her waist. Altogether, she did not look at all like a women simply waiting for the next ship home.

"Wynda told me to dress for a fight," she said, glancing down at the fel enchantments on her sleeve with a dry grin. "I guess she was right, because there's a pair of Sentinels downstairs who look like they want to fight me right now."

"Er," Aren said, inadequately. Anger flared through him, swiftly quenched by confusion into a heavy core of muddled embarrassment and irritation. Was she just toying with him? That he would wake up alone and Callista would still be coming with them was not a possibility he had prepared himself for. Technically, he was still her commanding officer. He'd been more than half sure she'd leave this morning, but, if she hadn't, he'd been willing to risk the potential minor breach of protocol (she was not really part of the Dawn, after all) for the chance at something more meaningful. This, however...What exactly did you say to a woman who spent the night with you and then vanished before the clothes on the floor had time to wrinkle? Then turned up again at sunrise, prepared to, possibly, brave a forest full of demons for you?

"Sorry about this morning," she said, pulling up one side of her mouth sheepishly. "I needed time to pack."

Aren was not so naïve as to believe that that was the whole truth. Or even most of it. All the same, she didn't look entirely unrepentant, and it cooled his indignation slightly. She was still here, at least, and she wasn't pretending that nothing had happened. "Look, you can't just - I didn't think – what were you - ," he gave the sentence up as a botched job and squeezed his eyes shut briefly before starting again. "Okay. Alright. Just, alright. We can talk about this later." He hesitated, unable to completely suppress his irritation. "It's only…couldn't you at least wake me up next time?"

He thought she might have winced, but it could have just been a play of the hall's deep shadow across her face. Would it have killed her to look even a little bit flustered? It would've made Aren feel less like an idiot. He suspected he looked like an idiot. He suspected he might be an idiot.

"Alright," she said finally.

He stared at her, hard, but her expression was so bland he couldn't make out if she meant anything by it. Light, why couldn't she ever just speak plainly? Shaking his head in surrender, he hefted his knapsack onto his shoulder. "Come on, the others are probably waiting."

It took three days of travel before the first signs of corruption scarred the forest around them. The trees grew tall and broad as ever, bark shaggy with age, but grey mold slimed the leaves underfoot and many of the largest trunks were dead and tumorous with orange mushrooms.

"This is a great shame," Vorthaal said, touching the bark of a particularly huge deadfall gently. "Some of these trees are older than I am."

"This glade was beautiful once," Luciel said. She'd been even more taciturn than usual since they'd reached the borders of the cursed forest, mouth pressing into a harder line with each ruined vale they passed. "My people paid a high price to destroy the arch-demon, but it will be many mortal lifetimes before this land is whole."

"Depressing," Ander muttered, too quietly for anyone but Callista to hear.

She shot him a silent grimace of agreement. They'd set off from Auberdine cheerfully enough (despite the ferocious hangovers sported by half their party), but the closer they got to Felwood the blacker the pall that seemed to settle over all of them. Darkshore was aptly named. A fitful drizzle had begun to fall the evening of their first day, and any thinning of the mist only revealed massive trees with drooping limbs and broken kaldorei ruins sad as eyeless faces.

At least the rain and the subdued atmosphere had made it easy to avoid a prolonged conversation with Aren. He'd tried to catch her alone once, the first time they made camp, but then the clouds had opened and she'd sidled away with the excuse of collecting firewood before it got too wet to burn. Transparent avoidance, but she didn't care. She knew Aren wanted to discuss what had happened that night at the inn, but Callista had no interest in that particular conversation. Not until she figured out what she meant to say, anyway. What, exactly, was the most politic way to tell the leader of your scouting expedition that you'd only slept with him because you'd wholly intended to desert at the time?

"So, how long until we find a demon?" Ander asked, glancing almost hopefully into the dying underbrush.

Callista shrugged, and adjusted her hood to stave off the irregular drip of rain through the leaves. "Probably not for a while. We'd be lucky to find a mad furbolg this close to Auberdine."

They were already walking several paces behind the rest of the party, but Ander still flicked his eyes dramatically from side to side before taking a confidential step closer and whispering, "I'll give you five coppers to summon a doomguard straight into the cooking fire."

Callista laughed softly. She sympathized. Meals had become such a dismal affair a little indiscriminate violence might improve them. Partly her own fault, she supposed, but that didn't mean she was enjoying it. "Only five? You know I'd need to murder someone, right?"

"One more evening watching Luciel and Sir Aren sigh into their soup, and I'll pay you double to murder me," he muttered.

"Deal." She stuck out a hand, and Ander gave it a firm mocking shake.

"I can hear you two scheming back there!" Wynda's voice drifted back over the crunch of dead leaves and the creak of wooden wheels. Nothing in Felwood was fit to eat or drink, so they carried what they needed in a cart pulled by a hardy drafthorse. They'd all left their mounts at the last night elven outpost, and everyone but Vorthaal took turns driving.

"I do not scheme!" Ander called back in a lofty tone. "Though I occasionally negotiate hijinks."

"I schemed once!" Callista volunteered.

"Aye, I bet you did. Though I trust you'd know better than to encourage any idea of Ander's. Don't make me come back there!"

"You're not my real mom!" Ander howled.

Wynda's strident laughter made even the doleful patter of rain through the leaves seem lighter.

Vorthaal chuckled. "Ah, youthful exhuberance." He and Luciel strode on either side of the cart. The dranei's giant crystal warhammer remained strapped against his back, but his eyes never stopped roaming the decayed ferns and pitted brown trunks of the forest.

"Don't judge us all by Ander," Nathanial shouted from the front of their little caravan. "He's been eight years old since he was born."

Ander stuck out his tongue at his brother (there was no way he could see it around the bulk of the cart) and winked at Callista.

She grinned back. She'd never been close to her own sister (she'd been sent away for arcane schooling when she was ten, and they'd never developed much in common), but watching the Redbranches almost, maybe, stirred some wistfulness for what never was. There was something to be said for a companion who was blood-bound to put up with you.

"We'll stop here for the night," Aren said.

They'd reached a small glade, and when Callista looked up she could see the yellowing light of late afternoon between rents in the clouds. A crumbled stone wall lay just off the trail, surrounded by low hillocks thatched with brown grasses that might've marked the remains of even older ruins. Though it was nowhere near autumn, malformed leaves drifted down from the canopy in a slow fall of decay.

"Lets pitch the tents and start a fire, if we can manage one. It'll probably be our last for a while. Double watches, now that we're near Felwood. Wynda and Vorthaal, you take first. Luciel and Nathanial, you next, and I'll take last with Callista. Ander, you're off tonight."

Ander cheered.

Callista cringed inwardly, though her expression remained bland. She scraped a boot through a thick pile of crumbling leaves, looking for wood dry enough for kindling. So much for avoiding Aren. Manipulating the watch schedule was a rather low trick, for a paladin.

Her toe hit against something hard, dislodging a large chunk of matted leaves. She stooped down to pick up what she assumed was a long dead branch, but hissed and dropped it again once the leaves fell away.

Bones.

A long femur, picked clean of flesh but stained tea-colored by water seeping through dead leaves.

The misgiving that had been pooling beneath the surface of her thoughts for three days now (studiously ignored, because she'd made her choices, however impulsive, and looking back was always such a dangerous gamble), curdled suddenly into a hard knot of dread in her belly.

This was not a pleasant stroll in the forest. Especially not now, not in this company. Felwood wasn't a place Callista would lightly enter even alone. And alone, possibly, she'd have been allowed to pass without trouble (had been allowed once, what seemed like lifetimes ago but had been less than two years); the Shadow Council did not discourage mortals from travelling to Jaedenar, provided the correct kind of magic tainted their blood. There were still other dangers though. Mad wildlife and poisoned air and water and demons who served no masters but their own lust for violence. And with a party as drenched in the Holy Light as hers, there was no chance of passing unnoticed by the Council. They could only hope any watchers would find them too well-armed to be worth the effort of destroying.

She looked around at the seven of them, the slow cart burdened with supplies, and scowled. Highly doubtful.

Twisting Nether. She wasn't ready to bolt...quite...but perhaps it was time she started considering a contingency plan.

Hours later, Callista woke to a hand on her shoulder and Nathanial's low voice.

"It's your turn."

Callista groaned sleepily before sitting up in her bedroll and digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Did you see anything?"

Nathanial's face was a dark shadow against the tent opening. "No. It's raining again though."

"Of course it is." Now that he'd said it, she could hear the wet patter against the canvas. Feeling around in the dark for her cloak, she shrugged it on before crawling out into the night.

The fire had long ago gone out, though the smell of woodsmoke lingered. Fat drops of rain slid down through the forest canopy to burst against Callista's covered head and shoulders, adding a staccato counterpoint to the endless sigh of wind through the leaves.

It was very very dark. Nathanial picked his way over to the tent he shared with Ander as Callista strained her eyes against the blackness, stepping carefully towards the ruined wall that bordered their campsite and laying a hand on top of the largest fallen stone.

Nothing to see but shadows and the black trunks of trees, smeared into near invisibility by falling rain.

The stone was drenched. Wrinkling her nose, she shut one eye to preserve her night vision and ignited her palm with a hot yellow flame, scouring the top of the stone until all the water that pooled in its worn surface had hissed away.

The sudden heat boiled the water but barely warmed the rock. She hoisted herself onto it quickly, before the rain could wet it again, and settled herself cross-legged. This watch was likely to be unpleasant for a number of reasons. No need to marinate her rear as well.

Her felhunter, drawn by the flare of magic, loped over from the stand of trees she'd ordered it to lay in and placed its horned paws on the edge of the stone, butting hopefully at her hand.

She scratched the coarse fur under its jaw, listening carefully for the sound of anything approaching through the undergrowth. Not that she was worried about demons. Jhormug would sense them long before she did. Her ear was cocked in the direction of the tents.

A pungent smell pricked her nose, even over the earthy scent of wet loam, and she eyed her minion skeptically. Something like old blood mixed with damp fur and an acrid seared odor. "One day, I'm going to have to give you a bath. You're going to hate it."

Jhormug took no notice, merely twisting his head to gnaw at the rock where she'd burned it.

It wasn't long before the crackle of snapped twigs rose over the rain sounds. Jhormug stopped chewing at the stone and dropped to all fours, growling a warning.

The footsteps hesitated a moment before resuming. Callista half-turned back toward camp as Aren touched her lightly on the arm.

"Hey," he said. He didn't remove his hand, gently squeezing the back of her elbow.

"Hey," Callista replied. She didn't push his hand away but she stiffened a little in uncertainty, not sure, for once, exactly what she meant to say and annoyed that he should unbalance her at all that way. Twisting Nether, so she'd slept with him. Once. She'd slept with plenty of people once. Some of them she'd even been almost fond of, after a fashion. It didn't mean anything.

Jhormug growled again more loudly, sensing her agitation.

"Oh, go catch an imp," she muttered, glad for the interruption and the excuse to twitch away.

Aren rested his forearms against her stone, leaning over them to watch the felhunter warily. "I don't think your - Jhormug?" he corrected hesitantly. "Likes me."

Callista laughed. "He doesn't really like anything I won't let him eat. Including me, I think."

Though, like most demons, the felhunter bore an especial hatred for Light-wielders. Yet another reason this liaison was a bad idea.

She could hear the wry smile in his tone. "Ah. Well, as long as I'm in good company, then."

She quirked a lip, but made no reply. After a moment she looked away, watching the pillared shadows of the trees and listening to the mournful tapping of rain against the leaves.

Fabric rasped against rock, Aren shifting awkwardly. "Could you come down here? So we can...talk? Please?"

Knowing he couldn't see her, Callista made a face. She did not want to talk. What she wanted was - not for this never to have happened, exactly, not even for it never to happen again - but for the whole thing to have been different from the start. Somehow. This wasn't how she'd intended this to end up. Shirking the conversation could only make it worse, though.

She slid down from the rock, leaving one hand on it for balance, and turned to face him. "Aren. What do you want me to say?"

His voice, when he spoke, was low and earnest. "Say you'll marry me."

Her jaw dropped so hard she swore she heard the joint click, and she recoiled with an aggravated hiss. "What in the Twisting Nether and Great Dark Beyond is the matter with - "

He was laughing. So hard he pressed his palm against his mouth to muffle himself and not wake the others, shoulders shaking.

"Very funny," Callista said dryly, still a little annoyed. Mostly just relieved, though. Nether, what a nightmare.

"That's for leaving without waking me up." His tone was light, but with an undercurrent of sincerity. He sighed, suddenly serious, and hesitated a long moment before speaking again. "You've been avoiding me for days. Do you really regret what we did that much?"

He sounded...hurt. She winced. "Is that what you think?"

"Callista. You've barely looked me in the eye since Auberdine. What did you mean for me to think?"

Truthfully, she hadn't really considered that at all. She'd been so concerned he'd read too much into her actions - sleeping with him, and then staying on with the group, despite her vehement assertions that she wouldn't - that it hadn't occurred to her that she'd pushed his impressions so far in the other direction. She was so unused to taking people at their word. He'd never tried to edge her into any kind of commitment, but she'd assumed he meant to anyway. Maybe Wynda was right. Perhaps she really had spent too much time with demons, if she couldn't stop herself from applying liars' standards to even honorable people.

"Sorry," she said. "This isn't...how this usually goes."

"What, the part where you stay?"

The part where I believe anything that you say. "Something like that."

"Look," he said. "I'm not asking for promises. I just want to know if you think what happened was a mistake." He paused, and she could hear in his voice, more than see, the crooked smile that stole across his face. "Because I don't. In case you weren't sure."

Callista exhaled, half laugh, half sigh. She supposed whether this was a mistake depended entirely on your definition of the word; whether you leaned more toward the "accidental" or the "this will end poorly" side of the semantic fence. But either way, what was done was done, and sometimes it was best to let the future keep its own problems. And some things were better off unsaid.

Evading the question, she reached out a hand instead, laying it on his bicep and taking a step closer, tilting her head up invitingly.

To Aren's credit, he was much better at interpreting her touches than he often was her words. He kissed her, one hand rising to cup her jaw and the other settling against the small of her back, pulling her close against him. He smelled like woodsmoke, and when she parted her lips, catching his bottom one between them, he tasted like salt and rainwater.

She slipped a hand beneath the oiled fabric of his hood, tugging gently at the short hair at the nape of his neck and enjoying his sudden intake of breath, but after a moment she paused. "This is still a terrible idea," she murmured, close enough to feel his quickened breath against her mouth.

"I know," he said.

She laughed, softly but not unkindly. And that was the trouble, really. If he hadn't known this was wrong - he was her commanding officer, technically, and even if he hadn't been, a paladin ought to have found her casual fel magic repellant anyway - she wouldn't have found this half so interesting.

With a small mental shrug - at least she'd tried, which was more than she'd wanted to do - she pressed her mouth back to his. One hand dipped to his belt, pushing up the soft fabric of his shirt until she could lay her rain-chilled fingers against the hot skin beneath.

He gasped, burying his face against her neck and sliding a hand over hers, warming her fingers between his palm and the heat of his belly.

"I thought you were going to leave," he said. He'd grown the beginnings of a beard since they'd left Auberdine, and his cheek rasped pleasantly against her neck as he spoke.

"I was going to leave," she said, not paying particular attention to her words but breathing deliberately against his ear.

She bit gently at it and his grip tightened as he kissed her neck. "Why didn't you?"

Callista didn't care much for this line of questioning. She grasped the hand he'd been holding against hers lightly by the wrist and pushed his palm against her breast. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." He paused, drawing back from her slightly so he could look her in the eyes. His hood had slipped, and rain smoothed chunks of his sleep-mussed hair to his forehead and beaded the stubble of his new beard, the wet glimmer visible even in the dark.

Callista hesitated, unsure whether to lie, or to tell the truth - or even what would be which, this time. Too many reasons, twisted and blended together like drops of dye in water, and no one of them enough. She'd still meant to leave, after she crept out of his room that night. But then there'd been Wynda, that frustrating, too-honest conversation when she'd tried to say the cruel, useful thing, and couldn't…

She'd have found out what happened to them all, one way or another. Even if - especially if - they never came back from Kalimdor. Despite their petty rivalries, the warlocks of Stormwind talked, and one day, through the strange, illicit, half-reliable channels that brought word from Orgrimmar and Jaedenar, from Shattrath City and the Black Citadel, she'd have heard it whispered in the back of The Slaughtered Lamb. An Argent Dawn company, vanished in Felwood, and did you hear what truly became of them?

She hadn't liked the thought, and hadn't been able to banish it.

She smiled coyly at him. "Come here and I'll show you." It wasn't more than half a lie - the sex had helped. It had been an embarrassingly long time, after all. First that dreadsteed debacle; then that unsettling, rather unwisely drunk, encounter with Nerothos on the dock (she and Tun had stayed in Booty Bay for another week afterward, but he'd upset her equanimity too much for her to truly enjoy herself); then she'd been so occupied yanking imps out of nobles' bathhouses...

Aren laughed, and kissed her, slowly. This time, he didn't speak again for some while.

A/N: First of all, giant piles of thanks to anyone who's still reading this! Sorry for the insane hiatus, no excuse really but a dire combination of writer's block and real life distraction. Thanks so much to anyone who reviewed or PMed me about this story in the last couple years (or ever really), you guys rock! Future chapters should be much more timely, since I have large chunks already written.

Just as an aside, some of you may have noticed that I've upped the rating of this story to M. I don't expect the sexuality to get any more explicit than in this chapter, but starting in the next chapter there's going to be quite a bit of violence and general awfulness, and I thought the combo warranted the change. Felwood is a terrible place full of terrible people doing terrible things...