The Heartwood I'll be wearing these scars for everyone to see.

She certainly was an odd thing, though her kindness reminded him sorely of his late mother. Portia was the purest thing he'd ever known, willing to give or do anything to improve the lives of others. The wound left behind by her absence still stung, though Dacio had perfected masking how he truly felt about it. He mourned her daily, though always privately.

"Thank you," he told this stranger, looking down at the torn body of what he'd intended to be his prize and knowing that he would never even consider splitting it with a loner should he have been the victor. Blinking up at her words, he studied her features quietly and noted a rare trait of mismatched eyes, something both his littermates had inherited from their father. "I came from the coast," he answered, "have not seen many packs along this way."

There had been a sniff of something to the forest just south of the one that bled, but he and Opalia had simply skirted around it. Even the dispersal wolves had been few, and he wondered if the trembling earth had driven them further inland too. "Are you looking for one?"