Big Salmon Lake I got used to living without you

It was hard for him to believe she'd allow him to speak without interrupting, or waiting long enough ti just scoff at him and tell him he was still in the wrong for the decision he'd made. And if she cane at him that way....Then maybe that'd be the final straw, and he'd be able to cut himself free from this toxic relationship. But he needed to give this one more try. See if she had any empathy at all.

"It wasn't Mom's scent. I was wrong. It was another wolf, with two little toddlers. He admitted. He'd been so sure it might've been her, but it wasn't. "Sh'd been c-. Caught. Used as bait. I th-. They made her cry for help, so I went, and th. Then I was surrounded."

There were things he couldn't say. Explaining himself made him quake with fear. His teeth clattered softly so he clenched them. "Th. Hunters. Take prisoners, then set them free. Hunt them down, attack their families. Th...Saw my scars. Asked me to join. They ask wolves with sc-scars to join. I refused."

He could feel something wild and instinctive begging him not to tell her the truth. And maybe he could hide a bit...Spare himself the misery of admitting what he'd seen and been through, and spare her feelings for knowing what they'd done. "They starve, torture...Anything. Then set you free, hunt you down, kill anyone whose path you cross. An' they don't stop."

He'd heard the screams. He'd seen a wolf become as helpless to fear as a cornered rabbit. He'd heard the sharp, piercing cry, the gurgle of breath, the excited shouts of the hunters as they closed in on their quarry. It was a sport, an obsession. And they'd been mad with bloodlust.

"I...Ran. Until I think I lost them. I don't know how long...Then kept running. I didn't recognize the mountains or lakes....I went further and further inland. They...Caught me once, but...I fought so they let me go so they could hunt me again after..." He shuddered. "I did everything I could to lose their trackers. Waited until their howls became distant. Ran and ran until...I got lost. I found my way back. And I thought...I don't know if I really lost them, but I'm far enough ahead at least, I thought, when I saw you in the water...I could talk to you. They wouldn't catch your scent and associate it with mine. I want to be home...But I can't see them do to you and Killdeer...What they did to their last bait." His voice broke into helpless sobs. He'd been completely incapable of protecting her or her two children. Or the elderly male they'd caught. Or the brothers about his age that he'd thought would have a chance- but for their loyalty to each other. The only one who seemed to slip their grasp had been an Arctic wolf who had been damn near impossible for them to really pin down anyway. And in their frustration, having lost one captive, they'd redoubled their need for satisfaction and had tortured the rest of them.