Chapter 123: Like Father, Like Daughter

ELRETH

Elreth pulled her head back. "What is it?"

"You are already almost exactly like your father, Elreth," Lhern chuckled.

"What?"

What followed was a good-natured story about her father and his temper in the first years of his rule—especially, they said, around the issue of mates and the pressure he was under to take one immediately.

At one point, Huncer was almost in tears with laughter. "…he threw all of us, the entire women's council, out of his cave. All we were doing was trying to show him a list of females that might be a good fit!"

Elreth laughed herself. "Are you serious?"

"Why do you think the people ended up calling the Rite of Survival. At the rate he was going he would have remained unmated past the age of fertility."