Noctisardor Bypass i am blood and blood and replay

she did not flinch at his snarl.

she had expected it—deserved it, even.

the boy she had carried beneath her ribs now stood before her as a young warrior, carved by another man’s teachings, another man’s laws, another man’s wrath. he had his father’s fire in him; she saw it in the stiff line of his shoulders, the violence trembling beneath his skin.

but he also had hers.

the starbright shape of his eyes told her that.

morwenna’s lifted paw trembled, then slowly lowered. she sank to the snow—purposefully, carefully—her belly brushing the cold earth, her head bowed in a gesture so rarely offered it hurt her bones to give it.

submission.

a mother’s plea, not a wolf’s defeat. a simple teaching she'd learned from her husband, that she would guessed passed to the angry boy before her.

her voice was small, soft, a sound she had never made for any creature but her children.

another quiet bark.

gentle. coaxing. the shape of his name wrapped in breath.