Redtail Rise drive over the arrows and get a boost in speed

As expected, Avicus picked up right where Aventus left off. Not for the first time, he ached for the relationship they once had, where they were two parts of a savage whole, sharing a brainwave, picking on the little kids of Ursus who never had a real place there.

But there was a little tension, he thought, in the way she said it. There was a little tension, he imagined, in Prophet's silence. He understood. Winter would soon rear its head and they needed all the teeth they could muster to feed the pups.

A week there, a few days to ask and look around, and a week back. It was a long time, he knew. After a long beat, he added, Ancelin and Atreus need more than I can give them. His shoulders sagged with the weight of admitting his quiet failure in hopes they would understand. He remembered his first look at his sons, the unexpected emotion that he had felt, but he did not know how to raise them with the love and care they needed. Atreus had shown him that he was both unfit and unwelcome.

They deserved better than the son of a madman who did not understand love.

They need their mother, and I cannot believe she would leave them on purpose. Perhaps she would leave him. Aventus knew he deserved it. But even if she did not want them, even if they were a mistake, even if the pregnancy had made her miserable, he could not believe she would abandon her sons.