Lost Creek Hollow were you there to bedevil and beguile?

merrick was pleased that he had seemingly put her off, had snuck beneath her damaged veneer and hit upon something private: a sense of weakness. it was not in him to display his own as openly as these wolves did; wearing oneself that way only led to darker things, and he wondered what stupidity had made this one trail into the mouth of a beast.
a male beast. maybe he had wanted her in the way that men pursue women, and she had rebuffed him. why, if she lost so caustically in the end? his scrutiny was momentary; he dipped his muzzle with a cultivated encouragement. "good."
ah, names. names. what was the need for them. "merrick." but he was polite, not because indra had taught her forgotten little princeling anything, but because it benefitted him to be so. "do you need help with anything, vuk?" the young wolf continued, warm, charming, affable. she was his packmate after all.