Jade Fern Grove I could use a little Facetime, the face to face kind

Whatever Morran had planned in that thick skull of hers was undoubtedly nefarious. The bear's mouth hung open, a rope of saliva crawling toward the dark ground of the grove, as she stopped mere feet from the frozen alpha of the Phoenix pack. Those disgusting little cretins. The bear had destroyed their most precious possession—a garden, ha! like human filth—and had taken this one's tail to boot. But she wouldn't take anything else, because there was something much more sinister in these woods and it would be Morran's pleasure to watch the skull kid exact her revenge for her.

"It's coming... you", the bear rumbled with another deep chuckle.

Meanwhile, Saena was doing her best to retain control over her bladder. As embarrassing as it was for an alpha wolf to feel so cowed, she couldn't help but feel a sharp pain through her backside whenever she looked up into the deep chestnut of the malicious bear's piggish eyes. It was as acute as the day it happened. This bear had stolen her tail, what remained of it, and any semblance of wolfishness that Saena had retained. Without her tail she was only a shell of a creature, unable to communicate as effectively as anyone else with just her body, and so Morran had struck more than a painful blow that day. Saena ought to be pissed, but she was terrified instead.

Because this time, she didn't have Nochtli and Citali. Nobody would hear her howl from here, not in the deep of the grove. She was alone with Morran, and Morran seemed to have no inhibition. The bear was so close, Saena could almost smell her rank breath when she grumbled again about skulls. The alpha's eyes narrowed slightly; what the fuck was it with the skulls, anyw—

She never finished the thought, for a shriek made her jump out of her skin and a blur of silver from the background blindsided her. Caiaphas' intent was to give her time to escape, and the coywolf succeeded at that, for she'd startled Saena into a panic-stricken gallop. She had no idea it was Reek's former leader coming to her aid. She imagined a wolf with a skull for a face, rising to Morran's summons, and she'd just barely managed to escape his grasp with her life. The gratefulness she should've felt was replaced with dreadful terror, for Caiaphas' swift movement, while effective, had made her impossible for Saena to properly identify, and so she assumed that it was another murderer come for her.