Ravensblood Forest In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.

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As Lotte’s due date looms ever closer, as she grows rounder and her ability to move about the freedom becomes more and more apparent to him, it puts Arturo on edge. Blackfeather Woods would always be a threat, of this the gangster believes. He is freshly returned from his scouting trip to Hideaway Strath, leaving the disgraced and his heir to go about their business …to prepare. The pack would move soon; but for now, regardless of how temporary, Ravensblood Forest remains their home and he protects it with a ferocity and territoriality that he has not felt in a long time. He has always been territorial but his ascension into fatherhood again, the knowledge that his children would soon come into the world has done nothing to soothe it. Instead, it is like gasoline to an open flame: consuming in it’s burn. Three small infants is enough of a worry, will slow them down. It is a risk to their lives but it is a risk that Arturo is willing to take. Olive and Dakarai have brought this risk upon their children themselves and casting them out was useless. Blackfeather Woods was a percieved threat by the Fearghal monarch and as far as the suspicious gangster cared to see Olive and Dakarai had already dragged Teaghlaigh down into their sinking ship.

Arturo turns his thoughts away from the heavy burden of worry he carries knowing that he will likely not rest nor relax until they settle in the Strath. He puts his restless energy into his patrol. He has never liked patrolling the borders, and this holds true even though his paternal instincts demand it of him (as does his title). It is his duty, a con of being the patriarch of The Family. He catches the scent of the man before he sees him but as the other comes into view, close to the borders, lingering, the gangster’s hackles bristle along his spine as he shrugs through the foliage, his side drawing against a bleeding seqouia as he makes his own presence known. He has no red herring anymore, though he assumes the role to protect Lotte. He has become her red herring, out of vow, out of love. The queen of Teaghlaigh does not necessarily need his protection for he does not doubt she can hold her own in a fight but he believes she is vulnerable with their children slumbering within her womb still.

“You are treading close to Teaghlaigh’s borders, stranger.” Ceannsach addresses him his deep, smoky timbre breaking the silence of the forest around them. Blazing, red-orange gaze takes him in with cold indifference. He is given a small measure of ease that he does not smell Blackfeather upon the stranger’s coat but it does little to ease Arturo’s natural suspicion. Not bearing a scent means little. Had Hemlock not offered to be Teaghlaigh’s mole? Unassociated with The Family to anyone who did not know that she was apart of The Family? Arturo's lips pull into a terse line as he looks at the male expectantly, silent questions in the inferno of his gaze: why are you here? What do you want?

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