Perhaps a bit unintentional, Béatrix had managed to make the wolf feel confused and awkward. Hell, she had saved his life and then tried to kill him all in one day, she couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. After she told her story, he seemed bewildered, and even frustrated with Francis for his dangerous choices, and then he realized why she had gotten angry.

[i]”You thought it could have been me who tore his heart out of his chest,”[/i]  Tholo said as it all clicked to place in his mind. Trixy simply looked down, staring into the cup of black coffee as if it had all of the answers in the universe. [i]”I won’t deny I had an extreme hatred toward your kind due to one of yours taking my beloved Chloe away.”[/i]  Tholo paused for a moment, with a look of pain on his face. [i]”I wouldn’t do that, not after Gévaudan.”[/i]  He continued and then proceeded to stare at the floor guiltily. 

“We all have our ghosts.” Béatrix said before reaching her hand out and placing it on top of his comfortingly. Whether it was the shock of what she had just done, or the unfamiliar burning warmth of his skin, Trixy flinched her hand back to its place on the table beside her coffee cup. Maybe he didn’t notice.

Bartholomew’s next offer shocked her even more. Trixy’s eyes widened a little. “You would help me kill one of your own, just for the sake of my own closure?” she asked incredulously. But, he seemed genuinely serious about it. Béatrix couldn’t quite tell how she felt about that… After all these years, she was probably as close to finding her late husband and sire’s murderer as she’d ever been, and yet, she didn’t jump on the opportunity. Maybe she had already achieved closure? Or maybe the legion of ghosts from her past haunted her too much to wrap someone else into a life that she was trying so hard to leave behind.

“Thank you. Maybe someday, Bartholomew, but not today. You wanted to have a tension free day, remember?” she flashed him a brilliant smile before calmly sipping the hot coffee. “Hmm, not bad, for an Englishman, that is.”