Bearclaw Valley your dark splendor

For once, Evien wished he could just step back. Let things happen and just pretend he never knew these pups existed at all. But he couldn't do that, not with tiny, innocent lives at stake. He was a healer - he maintained life, god damn it, and that included the little ones growing in the raven wolf's belly.

In a moment that only lasted a brief second, but felt like it stretched on infinitely, Merrick moved to pass him. The footstep echoed in the medicine den, thunderous and earth-shaking, like the steps from the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park after it had escaped its enclosure. And Evien was the electric fence that turned on last-minute to stop its tirade.

The boy moved in front of Merrick again, shaking off the hand on his shoulder and meeting the cyclops' gaze. "I'd regret it more if I didn't," he admitted, hair raising along the back of his neck.