Bearclaw Valley With the thrill of a kill, vengefully, the engine will

For a second or two, Lucas was unnerved by the bird's disappearance. How was it possible that something he held in his maw a minute prior was just gone? The first time he had thrown it up with little horizontal force, so it had gone skyward and flopped back down. This time his aim had been off, he'd kept it in his teeth just a little too long, and flung it behind him. So his blue eyes lingered on Piper in the hopes she had witnessed its flight and knew where it was.

Her exclamation brought a smile to his plump face and his tail beat with pleasure at his hocks as he waddled back toward her. "Cool!" he breathed, wishing he had seen it himself. "Yours was cooler, Pi," he assured her, for she had thrown her vole much higher than he could manage or even really fathom at his age. He met her proposal with an over-enthusiastic bobble of his head and frolicked off in the indicated direction, where the bird was tangled up in the boughs of a bush. He didn't notice it there, though, and began to search on the ground instead.