Horizon Ridge pride comes before the fall

He entered, momentarily blocking out the light, his shadow draping over her broken body like a soft, dark cloak. Her eyes lifted and her breath hitched in her throat at the image of the Alpha—who so resembled her attacker, the dread blackfish—silhouetted in her doorway. Already shriveled and shrunken, she somehow managed to make herself smaller, tucking herself into a misshapen and agonized ball of dappled fur.

"A blackfish attacked me," Pied replied to his question, "on the beach." She winced, both at the memory and the pain that even now throbbed throughout her entire body, namely in her broken ribs and paw. On the beach, where I was walking, contemplating running away from here, she thought, though she said nothing as a thought suddenly entered her mind: maybe the blackfish had been sent as divine intervention and the leader's resemblance to the great fish was symbolic.