Swiftcurrent Creek [m] I wouldn't front the scene if you paid me

Mae had fled form him—no sooner had the behemoth of a man drug himself away from the scene of his crime, Akavir was keen to look her over, to see what the man had done—

—but she was gone. He tore after her, only now feeling the press of the fight—the adrenaline leaving his body, his muscles stiffening.

Blood—maybe it was just mud?—trailed to the creek. He finally caught up to her—champagne eyes intent upon her, his form swerving to cut before her, to see what had been inflicted. “Let me see,” he urged, his tone gruff as he battled between the demand of a father desperate for his child to be okay and the assumption she would resist—as she always did.