Silver Creek And when white moths were on the wing

Someone must have given us away, said Spring, and Saena felt her heart deflate. How could this have happened? Spring though that someone within their own pack had betrayed two innocent pups to a man who had abandoned them before they were even born. Saena had always believed that any within the Silver Creek pack would side with her and would understand that her reasons for casting Reek out were not purely selfish. The survival of her pups had hinged on it as far as she was concerned. Had his fling with Tavi resulted in a litter, they would've been competing with Saena's for resources. As alpha male, Reek would have forbidden her from killing them to spare her pups the struggle. Of that she was positive.

The pack would've hated her if she'd insisted on their deaths, too, had she let Reek and Tavi stay and had their tryst produced anything. Reek was able to sway others to see him differently than he truly was. Even now she was willing to bet that those who followed him adored him, but she knew the sort of wolf he was, now. She'd known long ago, back when he'd cut ties with one mate to become hers. She was reminded of it now, and her face twisted into a sour grimace.

"That thieving son of a bitch," she swore, rising to her paws with a flick of her shoulders and hips as agitation crawled up her spine. "I should have killed him when I caught him with that whore," and that was the least of it. She wasn't yet mature enough to know that dwelling on the past was more destructive than anything, and so she dwelled in her flaring anger. Killing Reek would have solved every problem, although she didn't remember all of the problems. But if Reek had died, Larksong would never have existed and they would never have had to leave to get away from him. Her daughters would still be here, and not in the grasp of a psychopath.

"You truly think Laika and Casmir can get them back?" Upon uttering their names, she was able to dredge up a fuzzy memory of them. Casmir was family from Lasher, and Laika was a member of the pack that Saena had only just begun to truly get to know prior to whatever had happened. She had faith in them as Spring had faith in them, and yet she was also nearly ready to take off on her own two feet and bring an end to Reek's reign of terror upon her life. But she was too tired now, and needed rest, and that brought up another issue that Saena wanted to discuss: "what happened to me?"

Perhaps Spring knew what Saena didn't, or perhaps not. She shared what little she did know: "One minute I was scouting and the next I was waking up somewhere totally different, really far away from here. I don't remember any of it."