Greatwater Lake Sawyer, you're going out a youngster

Wildfire's explanation about her parents came as no surprise. Peregrine had been territorial even at the plateau and Fox was a Class A bitch as far as Saena was concerned, so it wasn't shocking that they were total asshats to anyone who didn't swear fealty to them. Plus, they'd had someone slip through their ranks and attempt to commit murder, so even though she hated the pair of them and exaggerated their attitudes greatly, Saena knew that closing their borders was reasonable. But, "I wasn't an outsider." I was family once, but that wasn't true either. She'd never been family to Fox and Saena suspected that even if she had tried, the selfish wench would always have rejected her as someone else's offspring.

"My sister did a terrible thing and should never be forgiven for it," Saena agreed, "but your parents were part of it, too." You can blame them, she thought, bitter as acid. "Your parents abandoned us at about your age, left us behind at our old pack without a personal goodbye, and never came to visit. You wouldn't understand what that does to someone's psyche, to have a parent ditch them like that. You're too young to have seen it yourself. Junior was fucked up. She tried to kill herself. Then she found out about you and went off the handle.

I won't try to make excuses for her actions," Saena went on, having long since accepted that Junior's fate was sealed the moment she heard tell of Fox's offspring, "but I know she felt she had no other choice. In her eyes her father replaced her. She did a terrible, unforgivable thing but she must've felt worse to actually do it." It was hard not to be jealous, but somehow Saena wasn't, or else wasn't letting it bother her. Peregrine had ceased to be her father and she knew he was terrible at it anyway. He was bound to fuck up again and again. There was nothing to be jealous about when she thought of it that way.

"And you're right, the north is hostile. To them. Because they injured my mate for helping one of them. Because they tried to kill me because of who my sister was, not because I'd ever done anything to them." She almost snorted. "Not to you or your siblings. Not my pack anyway. And not to anyone else anymore either. I realize now that the others probably know as little as you do about it." But Peregrine and Fox, well, they would never be free to walk in the north, not as long as they lived. "I'm Saena. Saena Redtail."