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| It was true that Ragnar did not hate all the Isle wolves. He could not combine them in with the sins of their leaders, though, since their leaders were representations of them it was an easy grudge to hold over all of them. As it was, Beric and Mees were both valuable parts of Stavanger Bay and they had both once belonged to the Isle. Ragnar was weary of Beric's good treatment of Claire but he did not interfere unless it became too posh. After all, she was their prisoner and as far as Ragnar cared deserved her punishment. She had committed a serious crime when she had crossed into his borders and she was lucky that she was still breathing. The scarred Scandinavian offered the girl a short, amused snort. She had ventured out of the Isle to get away and had ended up as Ragnar's captive. He would have joked that she had a bad luck streak if he was feeling in a jesting mood, but he wasn't and so he didn't — not to mention it had nothing to do with her luck. She had crossed into his borders, as to which Ragnar knew were potent because he and several others marked them daily. Aside from soaking the ground in urine until it never dried Ragnar was at a loss as to what to do. His borders were clearly marked and he had an extremely hard time accepting the 'I didn't notice' line.
"A better life? With not one but two incompetent leaders? The first who sold out his entire pack for his adultress, planted his seed within her and then abandoned everyone; and the second who can't even control her own wolves, who when I met her didn't know her own borders, who thinks me and my family," Meaning Stavanger Bay as a whole. "Are the villains because they parked right on our doorstep, because I told them if they were found on our long established hunting grounds that they would be chased off. She acts like she has a right to be offended but she has none." The Viking nearly hissed at the girl. He wanted her to know why he held this grudge against the Isle wolves: the whole ugly truth of it. He was sure Ypres had spun wild tales of him, of the heathen that ran the Bay. She hadn't even begun to see the heathen in him.
"I believed that if we moved they would let us alone and that we, In turn, would let them alone. The animosity might have always stayed but it would have been as close to peace as I can come. Obviously, that isn't the case." And Ragnar understood he would have to rectify that as soon as possible. Whether Ypres listened to him, or took him with the severity he should have been taken was a whole other matter and a bridge he would cross when he came to it. |