Blackbeak Bluff and when you wanted blood, i cut my veins

the idea of seeming familiar seemed something short of hysterical to caiaphas; she was not a wolf of particular infamy in her eyes, nor was she a wolf easily mistaken. in her opinion, there were no other wolves like her. 

her gaze raked across his powerful features again, as if to reconcile the statement against the beast; she, familiar?

did he have fantastically cruel, whiplike and chimerical monsters prowling in his family line too?

or, was she familiar for some other reason? her expression shifted from shrewd to now plainly distrusting. there were few wolves that wanted caiaphas dead — but even less wolves that had the agency or the ability to see that wish be fulfilled. she was getting older, and vercingetorix’s “powerful warriors” comment was somehow believable.. but who?
 
her most recent expulsion from redhawks had ended sourly, but surely not enough that they would send assassins after her?  if they had wanted her dead, caiaphas was convinced they would have - and should have - done the deed when she was surrounded in the plateau. that they would follow her hundreds of miles north seemed uncharacteristic and foolhardy...

what other pack, then? the wolves of dusk fire had long been vanquished, though she would argue they had been fordmiable. and the wolves of Blackfeather touted their skills, but were a feeble and selfish bunch; and what would be their motive...? she had offered them succor on more than one occasion, and had even returned when their end of the bargain had regretfully been unfulfilled —

her gaze lifted to the beast before her; was that it?

yet the last time she had been within the vicinity of the pack she had secretly tried to slip the knife into, it had been hardly more than a gaggle of easily antagonized kids. hell — they hadn’t even been able to kill lycaon and ingram .. and those two boys had been softer than a deer’s rotted belly. 

powerful warriors? she queried, her ears flicked forward in that customary and oh-so idle way of hers that signified the old cogs were churning, formulating, triaging..: are you representative of their finest? oh, she could be such a bitch — and someday it seemed it would all come back to her.