Blacktail Deer Plateau Bufferzone

Osprey had not expected Burke to go in such a length and detail in telling, how he had ended up in this valley. There was more to this man than she had thought and not all of it was either nice or pleasant. She listened to him with mixed emotions, varying from understanding and a bit of sympathy, to contempt for the "mating" competition between the two brothers that had lasted for so long, making so many women suffer. Of course, you always needed two people and both willing for the act to happen, yet there were so many stories floating around of men forcing a she-wolf to abide to their wishes and "needs", that she felt no pity for him. He attempted to make himself clean, by taking care and responsibility of all of the pack and fathered kids, he claimed to feeling broken and Osprey thought that it he had deserved so much worse than he had. That feeling depressed was not a punishment hard enough.

In a sense they were similar - they were both sinners - therefore she didn't feel like reprimanding him for his acts in the past. He had not said a single word about her carrying children, who had no father. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Yet she wanted him to know, what she thought about this. "You are a bastard, Burke," Osprey said without hostility, "but an honest one. That's a good thing." It was almost a compliment. There were no hard feelings - what had happened, had been left in the past. He seemed to be well and happy now. And she could only hope that after the storm was over for her, she would also be able to put the past behind her easily. "Was it easy to change from what you were and what you are now?" she doubted it. The memory of their first encounter in the woods was still vivid. He had been pretty much the same mannerless brute that he had described now. Madness of the heat or not.