Redsand Canyon We didn’t bleed back then

A black she-wolf suddenly appeared, spooking him. Atreus stared at her as she demanded him to retreat to the borders. He didn’t understand the command. He was pretty sure he hadn’t crossed any borders. He wasn’t an idiot.

Nonetheless, he backed up a few steps in the hope of appeasing her and demonstrating that he wasn’t a threat. Atreus paused, realizing she must have come up out of the canyon. He glanced past her shoulder to the rim, where he’d first detected scent markers, then looked back at her while carefully avoiding meeting her eyes.

He replayed her words in his mind, though he couldn’t make much more sense of her latter statement than he could her accusation. Why would he want an audience with “a jaw”? He had the feeling it was a saying of some kind, though he couldn’t place it.

In any case, I didn’t realize there was another pack living in the canyon. Mereo used to be here. Atreus was about to mention his former residence here when a thought struck him out of the blue and he blurted, Do you realize you’re surrounded? There’s a new pack at the lake, then Epoch that way and Paleo that way, he said, indicating each with a point of a paw, and Swiftcurrent Creek just over there.