Dragoncrest Cliffs "With it or on it."

With all the changes, everyone is on edge, and that’s not including her own twisted turmoil over everything. She shouldn’t have been with Artaax a second time; she shouldn’t have turned around and coerced Blixen into the same thing in a weak attempt to make herself feel better. Being with Blixen was supposed to give everything, make all the pieces fit together. It was supposed to make it easier to choose Blixen, after all this time, but she finds her thoughts all too often drifting to Artaax.

As her mind is distracted, she doesn’t register the foreign scent right away. It tickles something in the back of her nose but she keeps moving, picking her way through the redwoods until she sees a sliver of brown and silver out of place.

Mallaidh stiffens, freezing her gait to watch as he passes by one tree, and then another, heading the exact opposite way he should be going. Her fur bristles, thickening her mane around her shoulders, and moving on swift, silent feet as she backtracks the way she came to intercept him where she should have earlier. He is large and his body speaks of experience but she does not have time to compare and decide in this situation when danger is afoot.

A low growl starts in her chest and increases in warning, pulling out in front of him to intercept wherever the hell he’s going.