Qeya River I'm selfish, I'm obscene

No, said Thuringwethil, and Saena's lips pulled back into an irate grimace. She didn't need to know much more about the young leader than this one word. From it alone, the alpha female inferred that the woman was arrogant beyond belief, and Saena would know because she wasn't lacking in arrogance herself. To claim land in Saena's own backyard and then impose restrictions like she owned the place! If not for her pregnancy, she would've had her pack on Thuringwethil's turf within the day to erase the mistake they'd made in allowing Thuringwethil's ilk to settle there. But she couldn't do that in her current state. Not without a good reason.

"Fine," she snorted, "if you cannot respect the freedom of these lands, you receive none in return. Your wolves may never cross this river. Not here, not further to the west, not anywhere. We will find them if they try." Saena could not control the entire north, of course, but she would threaten it and would keep vigil over anywhere the river touched and even beyond it if she had to for any sign of a Dragon wolf, in the same manner she had hunted Redhawks in the north so long ago. "And if I see or smell a single fur from one of your wolves on my side of the water, we'll hunt you down and end you all."

Black and white. That was how she supposed the wolf across the river operated, and that was how Saena would learn to operate if needed. Whoever Thuringwethil thought she was, whatever influence she thought she had, wasn't flying with the Phoenix leader. Not this Phoenix leader, the one who had founded them.