Ravensblood Forest the one minute. the soldier's minute

I was not expecting this to happen so soon.
[crashes in and ruins everything]

“You’re welcome to come closer, if you desire.”

A soft and beseeching voice of reason tugged insistently at the yearling — you should not, foolish girl; you should not — and its claim over her was so complete it begged a physical manifestation of her introspection. One small, triangular ear twisted like a tulip toward the sun, betraying her hesitation; this close to him, she was not nearly as confident as she should have been, for she was not the Daggerspine come to administer his last rites with sugar on her lips and venom on her fangs. She was merely Lotte, in over her head for the first time, and starry-eyed before the Ceannasach — his pretty words, his commanding air, and his knavish mischief. “I desire,” she admitted with characteristic frankness, her argent eyes boldly searching his blood orange ones, and closed the distance fully — near enough to touch before she languidly drew to a stop. She offered no welcome of her own, though if Arturo were to stretch out a proverbial hand to her, she would likely have fumblingly dropped the reins into the dust at his feet — utterly at his mercy.

She listened as he spoke of Teaghlaigh — listened for her own purposes and no one else’s — listened with her mouth closed and her mind open — and selfishly she hoarded the precious information he poured into her hands like a river of rare diamonds. The pack he described was oddly fitting for the soot-stockinged rogue, a secretive and thief-thick collection of souls bound to one another by a loyalty more sacred than blood. “Ceannasach,” she whispered when he had finished, “Teaghlaigh.” The words were foreign and roughhewn as they stumbled from her lips, and she rolled the syllables with her tongue until they were made as malleable and familiar as Arturo’s name. She did not dare touch him now, she reflected with true regret, and drew a heavy breath as she began one of the hardest tasks she had faced — with the exception of the similar guilt and shame she would feel when she came clean to Doe. “Your philosophy is to take information without giving it,” she quietly intoned, her low, rich alto a shade darker than the pyrite of Kitku’s false mezzo-soprano, “but you have given me much.”

She regretted the dip in mood as much as the shattering of her mask, but there was nothing for it now. “Arturo,” she said, addressing him by name for the first time, “I have been unkind to you.” She tilted her head to regard him with a ghost of her former coquettishness, a rueful smile shaping her black-masked muzzle. “I am not a stranger to secrecy and subterfuge,” she told him. “In my home pack I was sometimes called Hämähäkki — the Spider. I am a weaver of stories and singer of songs, but I am also muoto vaihtaja — a shape changer.” She hesitated. “Kitku is not my name,” she said. “Kitku is…” She found herself tongue-tied, unable to look the coywolf in the eyes as she floundered and soldiered on. “In the past, I have only pretended to be Kitku if killing was necessary,” she explained succinctly. “I was not ordered to kill and do not know why I chose to bring her name here. My other masks were ill-fitting.” Her tone was remorseful and miserable, but he had no reason now to believe that her emotions were genuine. “My name — my name is Lotte. Lotte Ansbjørn.”

She awaited her punishment in silence — if the leader of the ravenwood wished her life, she would fight to keep it, but she kept her closeness to him to afford him a free pass of sorts to do with her what he would.