The very thing that I love's killing me and I can't conquer it

The Alpha responded viciously to Ptarmigan's outright, unspoken challenge. But the Endore had made her decision to stand this day against a severely disadvantaged Alpha female, to stake her own claim in Jinx's stead. She had unknowingly met a few of the wolves who inhabited this pack, but it was not the wolves here that spurred her feet. It was the very idea of being a leader, the blossoming of the seed that Viggo had planted in her mind, that made her throw her life away.

Or so she thought, when the pallid wolf snapped at her. But, despite being the furthest thing from a warrior there was, Ptarmigan agilely danced around the Alpha's attempt at harming her. The ground was slick with Jinx's saliva, yet she kept her footing long enough to fall upon the very spot she had targeted. The Alpha's body jerked madly beneath her, sending guilt through Ptarmigan like waves, but the bitch didn't relent.

Using all the strength she could muster, which would have been underwhelming had Jinx not been so terminal, she shoved the Alpha's face forward, sinking the other's nose and snout right into the river she lay alongside.