Blacktail Deer Plateau It's wild like the river, it's warm like the sun

HAHAHA Sausage Fest Plateau. XD <3

Peregrine gushed on, seemingly oblivious to the pain he inflicted upon his brother with each ruthless twisting of the knife he had callously planted in Atticus's chest. His heart burned and howled as if literally stabbed, toxic fingers of cold anger and hopeless desolation creeping outward from the wound. Tears of bitterness and betrayal might have stung his eyes if he had not been so preoccupied with holding back the vast thunderheads of rage he felt building within him with each word that came out of Peregrine's mouth. He prattled on and on, words raining upon him unheard and tumbling loosely away like arrows bouncing off the side of a warship. Frozen fire simmered behind pale blue eyes and his mouth was dry with the heat of his temper.

"No," he replied, his voice hollow. He felt like he was drowning. Suddenly he wanted to be alone. "Thanks, but I don't...want anybody else." Too late he realized the "else" he had let slip, but he doubted his brother was astute enough to notice the implications of that word.

Through the black tunnel of his anger, he caught on to a subtle thing – his brother had only said they were courting. He had not said they were mated. In his own words, he had only "almost bagged" the Alpha female. He held this idea close in his mind, like a child holds a firefly in his enclosed hands, close to his heart, peering in at it cautiously lest it fly out between his fingers and be lost forever.