Arrow Lake trauern

She quieted at his assurance, but she did not believe him—a beast of prey had taken her mate from her, as accidents happened. And yet how had he been in a place for it to do so? Stigmata’s prowess was what had built Diaspora—she could not believe a freak accident had been the sole reason her mate would no longer tread the mountains he had claimed.

Blowing out a breath, Ketzia gave pause as she heard a gentle rustle in the den. She paused, silence enveloping her, and she found near relief at the idea that a distraction could come to her in the form of one of her babes, awake and ready for the day.

Until she had to explain to them that this day, and those that followed, would be far different than anything they had experienced.

When no one shuffled out to meet them, and she did not hear the stir of tiny paws upon the dirt, she glanced upward, jewelled gaze attempting to hold Mahler’s own lilac, meeting his sorrow with her own. “And how will they thrive when their pack does not accept them, Mahler?” She could trust her pack mates to not harm her children—physically, perhaps. But the emotional damage was already weaving over them. The silence from her other pack mates as they were avoided. The withering glares.

Her voice, before quivering with a grief she had yet to fully understand, hardened slightly. “I will not stand for it.”