Cedar's ears involuntarily flattened and he felt his fur try to rise beneath his clothes. The way this woman was touching him was unwanted. Well.. that wasn't quite it either.

Part of him was intrigued, even .. enticed.. to say he hadn't suffered pangs of impulse to find a mate would be a lie, and this woman was by far the most 'knowledgeably willing' he had ever encountered: part of him screamed to accept, however 'less than ideal' the pairing would have been-- four long years of celibacy raged in his blood like fire-- but the other part of him wanted to rip his arm away from her in disgust and outrage; to topple the table on her and escape in the confusion with his honor and dignity intact.

He was trapped somewhere in the middle, mortified and frozen with the indecision that crippled him when this happened. Her hands continued to caress his arm, and unconsciously, he likened it to having it caught in one of the mammoth steel traps those idiot loggers had put out one year... his father had been furious, and had 'destroyed' every one he could find, entombing them inside the trunks of trees he had guided to grow up through the middle of them, rendering both the trap and the tree useless to those men.  

She continued to coo and prattle at him. Something about protecting her assets.
-- He'd rather not.

Then something altogether unexpected, and his reaction to it was not altogether unlike having one of those traps snap shut on him: She had another bearman, not unlike himself, in her 'employ.' (He hoped it didn't mean what he thought it meant.) Moreover, he had been injured.

Feelings he didn't understand, but felt like... compassion, hope, even desperation, erupted down his spine like he had been hit with lightning, Involuntarily, he snatched his arm back from her and boggled in worried confusion. He had never even heard of 'others' that weren't his own blood kin before, and for some reason, this revelation both struck him as 'completely understandable and expected' and as 'world shatteringly profound, meaningful, and urgently deserving his full and undivided attention'. How could it have been that the notion that there clearly and obviously, were more humans like his dad in this world, and that subsequently, there should be more people like himself-- he was not, and should not be alone-- somehow evade him for the full eight years he had been alive!? ---AND ANOTHER *BEAR*, NO LESS!

"[color=7bcdc8]How bad were it? --He aright?![/color]" he blurted out before he could even grasp the implications, which barreled down on him like a loaded oxcart full of bricks.  This woman was in the [i]BUSINESS[/I] of 'finding' other 'beastmen.'  How many had she found!? Were they safe? What kinds were they?! How long had she had them?! So many urgent emotions cloying at him at once!

He sucked in a breath to calm himself, and shivered a moment with the effort. He could feel his blood racing, and his heart pounding deafeningly loud in his ears, and fierce in his neck.

Then another thought, slower, but ultimately the most profound.  

Was she keeping them willingly?

His thoughts turned to Jorry, now safe at the bakery in Hdur.. where before?  When he had treated her, the condition of her body had spoken [i]volumes[/i] to him. The broken-ness of her spirit even more so. 'Humans as dogs' he had thought then, and it had sickened him. Now the same thought took an even uglier turn: beastmen... as dogs. ... even a 'puppy mill.'

He about lost his liquor, but fought to keep composure. He would endure this woman until he knew more.

He NEEDED to know more.