Larksong Grotto christine

she breathed a sigh of relief when he pulled away, gathering herself into a tightness as she sat up to regard him with gratitude and trepidation. his words put her at ease, but he was incorrect about one thing. there had not been only seff -- there had been three others, and whatever else the dark alpha had said was lost in the sudden rage that blinded vuk and pinned her ears against her small skull.

"f-four!" she cried suddenly, lips trembling -- the weight of the lie terich had woven for her weighed heavily on vuk, but she could not take it back now, not when seff was in such need and would die without the protection of a pack. but her eyes were wild now, hackles bristled -- four four four! one living but three dead, because she was a failure, a horrible, sinful creature who had doomed her children to death the day she took them away from taggarik's teeth.

she had not even saved them! they had died anyway, stunted little starvelings. hoarse sobs began to thrum through her; vuk closed her eyes tightly, unable to stop them nor the hot cascade of tears along her face. she was crushed, faltering beneath the burden of the lies and the hunger, the fatigue, sleepless nights spent in terror that seff would stop breathing, the way that capriccio had looked at her and the way taggarik had told her he would kill her children.

blindly she groped for reek and lay her muzzle against his shoulder, searching for any pillar that stood firm in the waves of grief that threatened to choke her. seff stirred and this time he whined loudly for her, but vuk was lost, lost in herself, falling into a spinning salt-tinged blackness as she relaxed against reek and let go into unconsciousness.