Totoka River Try to convince ourselves.

After his run-in with Rosalyn, which presumably does not end in them maiming one another, Ephraim avoided returning to Elysium. He suspected that the Rusalkan bitch would follow him and he was loathe to lead them back to his new pack. It wasn't loyalty to his new packmates; he was just afraid they would continue to terrorize him if they knew where he laid his head now.

Instead, the coywolf made his way down the coast for several days, giving Rusalka's cove the widest berth he could manage without crossing into the mountains. If Rosalyn meant to follow him then she would surely give up by now, or that was the thought. He was just following the swath of green along a rushing river's edge to the sea when he came across Firefly.

If not for the golden mane, Ephraim may not have even known he was a Rusalkan. But time had a funny way of restoring one's memories; among the enemy, he remembered there were two black-hooded dogs, the sandy beige one he had gone after, another whose features he could not recall, and this very same slash of gold on black that made him freeze in place, bristling. Unlike Rosalyn, this Rusalkan wasn't pregnant, and therefore unlikely to hesitate.