Tiff doesn’t want a mate, she wants to hide in the woods, but a peacock in need appeals to her and she agrees to help him regain something lost. Tiffany has lived with a traumatic past and a family that puts her squarely in charge. She is ordered to the Crossroads and decides that if she has to leave home, she will have a holiday. Alone in the forest, she spends her time running in her fox form and enjoying the wilderness. She sees a peacock in horrible shape. His feathers are dull and his shoulders are stooped. Tiff sees the trauma in him that matches her own, and she offers to help him get part of himself back. Davus was one of the harvested shifters being held by the lions. He was healed in body but the pain of a year in a cage went far beyond skin deep. Tiffany sees his pain and doesn’t dismiss it or pity him. She offers to help him regain the mind-body connection, and he takes her up on it.