Zaraek froze.  Literally.  At the sound of the gun blast, instinctively he drew from the dark power inside that turned his blood to ice.  It made him much harder to kill.

          The bullet shrieked by his ear.

          He stared at Kaileth in expressionless shock, then turned slowly to see a hapless tender behind him, blasted in half and falling to the ground with that pathetic, betrayed look on its gnarled face that said, “But I was just doing my job…”

          Just as slowly, he turned back to face Kaileth.  She smirked, brought the smoking barrel of the gun before her lips and blew the serpentine wisp away, her eyes hard and dead.

          “That. Was. Not. Necessary.” He glared at her for a second more, then turned to Linthice.

          “I’ll take you back to Silvermoon, now,” he said softly, extending a hand to the female death knight.  Linthice shook the water from her hair quickly and her hand flashed in the gesture that clothed her in her city ensemble, then she nodded and took his hand.

          To Kaileth, he said, “I’ll see you later.”  He didn’t even look at her. His voice was like a father threatening discipline, intentionally.  He had not been able to inspire her to understand the bigger picture, and she had used his love of his people, now struggling at the edge of extinction with their beauty and culture nearly eradicated, against him, to make him act against his better judgment.  To make him something he was not, to himself and to her.  Getting her under control now was out of the question, but he simply had no patience left for her.  Her lies and manipulation had made it impossible to consider any other relationship.

          And yet it was not anger that burned up the back of his neck now.  It was shame.

          He turned with Linthice and walked up the hill, leaving Kaileth standing by the water watching them, fuming still.