Redhawk Caldera [m] Kamikaze

In his hunger, Pura barely let five minutes pass after the final wolf had left the scene before coming out of hiding.

There was Junior, dead and mangled - and this time, it was for real. A younger Pura might have mourned her passing, but the monster that had grown in his place had little capacity for such things. He approached her slowly, staring silver eyes roving from the tip of her tail to the displaced head. It had landed face down. When he rolled it over with a gentle nudge of his broad paw, two half-lidded eyes stared back at him. Paired with the red, lolling tongue, she looked derpy and undignified. Pura's black lips split into a rare, spooky grin.

He snatched his sister up by one velvety ear and was about to flee the scene when his eyes strayed to her tail. Her full, beautiful tail that so modestly shielded her from indecent exposure - a tail that Saena had given to a dog.

Pura dropped his prize, cast a long look into the woods, and acted with speed. In less than three winks had snapped the bone and arranged the tail at an acute and unnatural angle. Considering Junior was missing her head, it was doubtful that anyone would notice. Pleased, he picked up the discarded head and trotted down the side of the mountain. It dribbled all over his paws and onto the ground, but Pura didn't care. But the time anyone noticed, he would be long gone.

Not far beyond the borders, Pura would settle down with his sister between his forepaws. For a long time, he would study the contours of her face - the aquiline features, two fans of dark lashes over mismatched eyes. This was his sister. This was a wolf whose life he had saved, hauling her back from the actual, literal brink of death - the sassy, cocky, belligerent upstart with the big ideas and a soaring spirit. Pura cocked his head, staring into Junior's unfocused eyes.

He liked her better this way.

Strip by strip, he would relieve her of her skin, until all that remained were two big ears and one defiant, staring eye.