Wheeling Gull Isle a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied

When Dakarai spoke, Coelacanth’s attention was immediately, almost vehemently, piqued. Her tufted ears, which had already been twisting and swiveling upon her head like two tiny, petal-shaped satellite dishes, popped in alarm. She had forgiven him that day on the beach and had resigned herself to a certain degree of cohabitation, but she was not a creature for forgetting. The idea that he might one day be able to tell her what to do and where to go — to command her — was downright terrifying. It was true that she could not yet speak of the horrors he had, by association, brought upon her. It was truer still that even when she figured out how to work her mouth around the rest of the alphabet, she would continue to keep those things to herself. There was a heavy measure of shame associated with that time of her life.

Komodo, Axolotl, and Ixchel especially must never find out about what happened to her — what would they think of her then? It was bad enough that she had been a bad dog and lashed out at the Leviathan and the Earthstalker. What would Ixchel say — beautiful, strong, intelligent Ixchel! — if she knew about the days in the cave and the ugliness that still writhed, some nights, beneath Seelie’s skin? Worse still, Cascada and King had met the little Groenendael as that skulking, loathsome creature — and they would never be able to forget that, never! Overwhelmed with her memories and the filthy, stinking fear they engendered, Coelacanth skirted around @Stockholm so that his heavily-built frame now stood solidly between her shrinking musculature and Dakarai’s bold entreaty. Her ears flattened against her skull and her muzzle wrinkled; a soft growl ticked within the column of her throat, but it was so hushed and minute that even the Gampr would be hard-pressed to hear or feel it.