The Tangle she told him to take care of me

He wasn’t meeting her gaze - not that it was challenging, anyway - but Raleska has always been a wolf who felt validated by an eye’s fixture on her - be it out of annoyance or fondness. Yet this was different - she suddenly felt as if he was thinking everything around him was fascinating save her. 

She didn’t like that. It didn’t make her hate him, but it made her unhappy with herself, as if she wasn’t good enough to earn his attention. Insecurity was a strange daemon, the way it could shore up in your mind, the quiet dog sitting in the corner, eyes sleepy, almost disarming.. and then when you forgot about it, it raised its head and struck —

But why did she care what some wolf from the cliff thought of her? She reminded herself of Svalinn, who would have handled this in that roughly charismatic way that men admired and women swooned over. And here she was, just fumbling. 

His question made her brow furrow, because it seemed to imply he was mad at her or her family for living. She couldn’t rein in her tongue before retorting Why did you have to take Rosalyn? 

Her tone might have been heated, but there was hurt there too. Raleska didn’t understand what her mother had done to earn Drageda’s wrathful eye, and on impulse she added: I was born there. Why do you guys care?