Wapun Meadow dripping in rot

gjalla stood motionless, body locked still like a predator waiting for the opportune moment. stark, the one she’d tracked for days, was before her now. her gaze never left him. blackfell moved with her, as much a part of this as she was, drawn to the violence in her veins.

but he was not yet her kill, no, not with the fucking entourage emerging from the meadow like vultures to a carcass—strangers with scents too varied to pin down in a moment of such urgency.

a woman placed herself between stark and them, something protective stirred in her eyes. a complication. gjalla’s hackles rose. then came a child. another complication. one man, then another—oh for fuck sake! begrudgingly, against her desires, she would let them speak. their arrival would not make stark's case any better. through five wolves or twenty, none of them could stop the mission she had come to complete.

her lips twitched, but no words passed. 'crimes I did not commit.'—liar. stark was always good with words, the silver-tongue roach, twisting the truth until it was barely recognizable. and here he was again, trying to sell his lies to the ones who didn't know his treachery. 

she barely spared him a glance, her cold eyes cutting across the gathering. “that one is a liar and a traitor,” she spat pointedly, words like knives, "don't believe a word out of his mouth. he threatens a mother and her children, our home, and now intends to run away without so much as a sorry."

a sorry would not have helped him anyway.