Emberwood There's no such thing as time to kill, nor time to throw away

Even through his speech, he continued to take flowers from Reverie. If votive offerings upon an altar built in his name was a love language, it was his. And if it wasn't, he didn't have one. Not right then, anyway.

But he still smiled, warm and genuine, when she told him he could always come back to them. It meant something, even if he felt that the wolves in this region gave such blessings away very easily. Same as how he was still so touched to have been introduced to the kids, even though they were wandering around for everyone to see and play with, now. These things meant nothing to wolves, he thought. He was annoyed that it still meant so much to him.

And he was annoyed with Tybault. Still. Always.

"We'll just have to see about that," he said, and his features took on a look of indignant wrath that was still so very Dusty, but not an expression that Reverie would have seen on his face before. But he rolled his gaze toward her, shaking it off into nothing more than a rueful furrow of his brow. "The one of them came to threaten me a while back." His eyes blazed blue, and now mischief shined through when he said, mournfully, "He was mean to me."