Stone Circle And I end the story that we didn’t even get to start

It was not her scent that led him to her but the sound of her voice, muffled as it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, ears swiveling atop his head as he determined from where the sound came. Once he had his answer, Alexander was walking in her direction—then stopping again, body growing rigid. For in the air there hung a scent he was all too familiar with, intertwined with her own. Dropping down on his haunches, he let the hare fall from his mouth to the ground, before righting himself and retreating several steps.

“Laurel?” he called out. “I brought you a rabbit.” It was meant to be an offering, a way to show he was trying. But what he discovered that day by doing so made him feel uneasy, uncertain; he refrained from approaching, maintaining a decent distance between himself and where she hid. “Do you want me to go away?” he had to ask, pulling his ears back as he did so. He didn’t want to leave—he wanted to stay, he wanted to be close to her—but Xan, in the back of his head, knew better. He knew better than to allow himself to be his own destroyer; he knew he didn’t have to be that way, he’d known all along but, in the past, it was always easier to give in to instinct. Now, though… now he knew the trouble that, that caused, the pain it inflicted. Now, he wanted to show her he was better, that he really had changed.