Deepwood Weald feel loneliness as a predator

His interest in the Wilds swells and ebbs like the tides he was so familiar with now. One moment he is there, ready to establish another pack on its harrowed grounds. The next, he wanders away, disinterest blowing him away with the breeze. He goes south this time, away from the encroaching chill that creeps from the north. His fur is perfectly suited to it. But it was never a transition he truly liked in feeling. Winter brings so many wonderful things to him — camoflage, disorientation, weakness, an easy trail, a jarring pale canvas for the paint he splatters upon it — but he does not like the chill. He especially doesn't like the chill when he is alone.

But he returns. Because there was always something in the Wilds going on, contrasted with the utter nothingness for leagues beyond it. It was like an island, an isle of intrigue and abundant prey and interesting people that he could never shake from his mind. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go — he had no family here, no slaves, no enemies here that knew enough about him to kill him on site. A part of him nags, urging him to break the Wilds from his heart. The Brotherhood could still be looking for him, searching for the strigoi who killed one of their own. They weren't one to give up a grudge, even after all of these years. He should keep moving as he had for his adult lifetime, dancing from one hunting ground from the next. But he doesn't.

It is the scent of blood that leads him to this place. Away from the shore that he so frequently haunts. He ignores the call of that black wolf Constantine in the Ravensblood Forest. He had no true interest in joining that pack. It was a mere triviality, to see if they would hold his interest enough for him to change the pace of his life. They hadn't. A pity.

But back to blood — that sweet, dulce, smell that he could already taste in his mouth. It is not the scent of wolven blood, lupine, but he knows that a kill will attract others. Or has already attracted others. He ventures towards the scent, quiet in his steps, gliding like a cloud of mist over the deadened grass below him. The scent grows in intensity and so does his senses — heightened with the prospect of prey, of blood.

The scene is set before him, already in play. A small scavenger, a coyote, slinks away from the kill, leaving a wolf to feast upon the remains of some freshly dead ungulate. He is hesitant. The wolf is large, coated in sand both dry and wet. He circles around the kill, watching the coyote scamper further away before approaching the wolf and the kill, clearly not his own but stolen by brute force. He makes sure that he is visible with every step he takes to the man, his body neutral, mostly uninterested in the carcass. He wants to see how this will play out.