Big Salmon Lake Blood stutter

Ultimately, it was Lasher who closed the distance. Peregrine received his approach with an entirely neutral demeanor. He paid no mind to his former flame's bristling hackles, though he reassured calmly, "You are nowhere near the caldera, so I have no intent to attack you." He thought briefly of his conversation with Tonravik and Kero not so long ago, yet did nothing to act upon it now. They would only need to take that step should the problem of outright trespassers persist.

"You aren't going to like this," Peregrine prefaced his story, pausing and taking a breath before plunging right into it. "I lied to you before, when I identified the intruder that attacked Wildfire as a he. It was, in fact, a she. It was Junior," he delivered flatly. He hated saying her name anymore. "She arrived at my borders with a message of forgiveness and goodwill. I took her at her word, which was a horrific mistake. Wifi nearly paid for it with her life. I took her to meet her half-siblings. I will never forget the way she greeted them—cheerily, not at all like Junior—and that's when I knew. It was all a farce. I led the lion right to the lambs.

She went for Wildfire's throat, so my wolves and I had no choice but to go for hers. She badly injured Wildfire but we were able to pull her off and dispatch her before she could kill her." Peregrine's eyes narrowed, not at Lasher but at the memory. "Fox immediately demoted me to the bottom of the ranks for my total lack of judgment and declared our borders a red zone. She also decided that no one outside of our ranks—least of all my other children—could be trusted anywhere near our home, hence our reactions... particularly Fox's toward Saena." He still didn't understand what had compelled Saena to fight back rather than retreat but knew it was wiser not to speak of it.

Instead, he stopped there, giving Lasher a chance to react. His posture shifted only slightly, his muscles tensing as he prepared for a perhaps verbal if not physical onslaught.