So Young Yet So Bright

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The inky brute was growing restless on the bay. He had found himself in the company of several passing wolves, and each time they traipsed through the terrain, he could feel a surge of heat rush through his body and snap his mind. Skellige had not yet claimed a land for himself; he was biding his time and hoping that if he waited long enough, he could gather followers to join him in his crusade. Should Ksenia turn her head on him after he had taken his land, she would be met with more than just his fangs. The very thought of the pale woman left a taste of bile in the back of his throat that he could not swallow no matter how he tried. Nothing bothered him more than the thought that she could have been speaking the truth to him. What if Warsaw could have been his?
 
The wraith had been forced to hold his ground against her. They had never truly trusted each other. The sea king knew that she was born and bred of lies and deceit; that her tongue lashed against him like a whip. It was not enough that his attempt on her life had been spoiled by the dark-faced Jaglon, or that their mother had always favored Ksenia. What had irked the brute most of all was that she felt as though she could persuade him to return under her wing. If the eldest Cairn was to ever trail back to the islands of his birth, it would be with her pelt draped across him like a trophy.
 
A scent touched his nares as the man waded through the waters in search of fish. His dark gaze sparked with interest as he turned his skull in the direction of the wind and noted a shape that was not too distant. Skellige believed that – should he be thinking of his siblings – they would appear. The wraith had not entirely expected to see the form that sought the ocean waves, however. With furrowed brows, he watched the raccoon-masked woman stand with her feet in the waters and the wind tossing the fur along her neck and shoulders. Ishild looked as though she belonged there, just as he did. Interested enough to pull himself away from his quest for food, the titan struck to the shore with pounding paws until the distance had been closed on the two siblings.
 
Breathing in the saline air with a ragged gasp and crooked yellow teeth, the vile beast leered at his sister with crazed vision. “Ishild…” he spoke in a rumbling voice like the crash of the waves on the shore. “What are you doing so far from home?” First it had been the pale cunt Ksenia to arrive on his step, and now it was the fel-eyed tactician. It had come to the point that Skellige would not have been surprised to find the whole brood of Cairn in the wilds.
 

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