[K, to anyone else posting in this thread, let me post the lynx and Beowulf before you post. I think Pippin and Doughnut should be the only ones I’m talking to.]

ON HER WAY back, honestly the alphess was feeling everything from butterflies to being purely ecstatic about her new mateship with Plague. That ebony male had absolutely blown her away, and she was certain he would be a fine king for Andere Seite. In fact, she had told him to go ahead … that she would catch up after a while. And this was true, and though it was odd to send a new monarch without the original at their side, she had faith that her pack members would handle it well. Especially the ones in the higher ranks … and even some in the lower. And yes, the queen took her sweet time arriving back … savoring little things and trying to build up what exactly she would say to the pack. That she left with a challenger and came back with a mate? A dark chuckle emerged from her throat … because that was exactly what had happened. Hell, that had happened with her sister and Eclipse as well. Maybe it was something about a challenge that attracted her and Nephthys.

WHITE PAWS CROSSED into the terra, and her nose began twitching immediately for two scents in particular. It was night, her favorite time of any given day. Snow was covering the floor … some areas not much because of the thick canopy, and in the openings nearly up to her knees. She smelled Plague almost right away … he was already hard at work, and it made her smile knowing she could count on him to lean on when she was not wishing to come around so much, like then. And she would return the favor, no doubt, when the time came. After sniffing a bit harder, and more decisively, she found her sister’s scent … though it came with some scents that made her not freeze as most would have, but push her muscles even harder.

AN ANGRY LYNX was nothing new to Kimani. She knew what horrid creatures they could be, especially if they had hungry babies waiting for them. There were a couple other canine scents also in that general area, though they were not the alphess’s main concern. Now she was hardly watching which way she was going, speeding across the terrain and just barely dodging trees as she cut across several paths. When she was about thirty seconds away she began to smell the heavy scent of blood. It made her run only that much faster, snow sprayed behind her as she frantically made her way to where her sister and a few others were. Among those others was a lynx.

WHEN KIMANI’S LARGE form crashed into the small, somewhat hidden clearing, the lynx was already gone. There were three wolves, two of which were very bloody and torn apart. The male, whose name she could not quite recall, was hurt worse, obviously having been fighting longer. And her sister was there, also torn up and covered in blood, though Kimani figured that some of the blood around was the lynx’s. The other wolf in the clearing was her adopted nephew, Zanzibar. He was lying towards the side, quite frightened it seemed. She attempted at a smile for him before approaching the adults. Right away she began nuzzling, and then cleaning off her sister. Her feral, yellow eyes scanned all the wounds on the other femme, and it angered her. Fucking cats needed to stay on their own territory.

Oh, Nephthys, I’m so sorry … I should have been here.

THE QUEEN FELT an immense amount of guilt for not having been here to protect her sister, who was already hurting emotionally because of Eclipse. Her eyes flashed at the male a few times, though for the most part she wanted to be sure that her sister would be ok, besides the obvious.