Swiftcurrent Creek Debut

She twists her snout away, so that she may shade the conflict she feels from Reverie’s view. Bylaws in Lyotak had been very clear about the scandalous consequences of commingling outside their species. Wolven bloodlines were not to be diluted with the genes of inferior cousins. Coyotes were pests to be driven off the mountain. Didn’t all wolves think this way?

But this was not even a thought, it seemed, in the mind of a southern wolf who freely lays outside their class. Tauris adjusts and gives flick to a dark tipped ear as a way of shelving the thought for a different day.

She is relieved when Reverie drops the subject of the boy. She doesn’t think she can handle any prodding where he is concerned, their encounter having been so… awkward, and Tauris having presented herself as some infirm airhead instead of a northern huntress. Her leg fur pricks in shame to relive it again even if only in memory.

Then his name is spoken and a stillness settles over the two young adults. She had wanted so much for Reverie to have the happy ending with her creek boy who she had so much love for. But it was not to be. How could they not have been enough for him to stay?

How could he leave them?

She ached looking down at Blossom, in a perfect shade of early sunlight against her mother’s deeper sundown. Maybe Lestan’s role had always been to unite Reverie with Blossom. But a man who chose to leave a young mother and daughter would never be a father. He deserves neither of them.

But so quickly Lestan’s leaving is all but forgotten when it is revealed there is a woman who’s come for the child.

“What?!” A stalker? With rising alarm she scrambles to her feet to rake the trees with fretting eyes, her tail drawing jagged arcs behind her. “Why? Reverie are you in danger right now?”

Blossom was so small. So helpless.