Streaming golden sunlight falling through tree leaves lay a delicate and dappled lace upon the ground of the forest-clad mountainside. Braegan mac Lonáin pressed his nose to the bark of one such tree and drew in a deep breath. A pack resided upon this slope, and Braegan had determined to join up with them, through the colder months, if nothing else. Some few wolflengths away, a safe distance from the urine-marked borders, sat his tribute offering: the unspoilt form of a yearling buck. Only a rivulet of crimson from the ungulate's neck told of the nature of his fate. The creature had broken a leg staggering about while fighting a fellow stag. Braegan had interrupted their battle to seize his prey at its most vulnerable. The brown wolf had spared only a moment to watch as the then-dead stag's uninjured foe bounded across the meadow with the doe they'd been feuding over in tow, and he supposed it was ironic, given the state of his own affairs.

Yet he had told himself that such matters were in the past, and truly the only woman in his life now was his dear Mam. Braegan continued to sniff around the edges of this mountain pack's territory, seeing what he could discern from their collective group scent, while thinking nostalgic thoughts about his sweet mother. She was the only thing he missed from Loch Eoin. All the rest--his position within the warriors, his few friends, and the chieftain's beautiful but emptyheaded daughter Moire--would eventually be re-earned or forgotten. The bear-like wolf told himself to toughen up, then lifted his head in a loud and long howl, summoning whoever would come to accept his show of fealty. "A wolf called Braegan seeks shelter, and brings a gift of food," his song announced.