Kirastasia knew her brother was cursing at her because she could feel the anger in each frustrated, thrashing motion he made, despite the fact her eyes were drinking in the wonderful sight of Arcadian. SPIDERS! Kavik shouted, and she knew he was shouting because of the harsh thump his forepaws made when he signed the word savagely into the dirt. BUGS! BEETLES! STUPIDHEAD! Each silent scream only served to tire the white-faced prince, however; soon the striped boy was laying in a subdued, sizzling sulk underneath the weight of his more cheerful sibling, a half-hearted growl rumbling distantly in his chest. Kira patted his head absently with one dainty forepaw. “There, there,” she soothed. Then, to her White Knight, “He’s just excited for the hunt, is all.”

Increasingly curious about all the new faces around her—because Kira had seen none of them while confined to her birth den—the Malignant faeling allowed her maple honey gaze to roam freely about the gathering. She liked what she saw. Everyone in the pack was so mysterious. The subtle hints of violence and passion contained within each wolf seemed to her like carvings of living fire; she wanted to be close to them, a fascinated moth desiring to uncover their secrets no matter the cost. They were family. They were hers, hers and Kavik’s, and that thought gave her a pleasing sense of ownership and security. Why had Queens ever attempted to stow her away like a captive princess? Surely the Alphess didn’t for a second believe this stunning, cunning bandits of hers would harm even a whisker on her newest litter?

Queens . . .

An unwelcome pang throbbed somewhere in Kirastasia’s heart. It shoved roughly up her chest until she nearly choked, emotion scraping her throat raw. Kavik was not the only pup harboring terrors that Queens had abandoned them. For a heart-wrenching, horrifying instant, Kira wondered if their mother had expected herself and Kavik to survive alone in that awful den, shielded from the world and surviving only on the scraps that appeared by dubious generosity now and again. Perhaps the Empress had realized her mistake in birthing them, and had disappeared to hide her shame. Perhaps she thought that leaving them behind was the more merciful option, rather than simply killing the pups directly.

That notion should have had the children snarling back in defiance, refusing to acknowledge such foolishness. At the very least, Kirastasia should have been ecstatic for the chance to explore the world free of the loving tyranny of Queens. Alas, the pups were still stark individuals; though they both carried equal parts of their father’s frigid ice and their mother’s dangerous fire, Kavik and Kira had yet to outwardly portray any sign that they were indeed an Abendrot and Malignant litter. Judging by some of the vaguely puzzled glances the cubs received, some packmembers were beginning to catch onto that fact. But that didn’t matter—mere minutes had passed until the very creature the royal litter pined for finally made her grand and long awaited entrance.

Kirastasia—wordsmith and extrovert extraordinaire—was struck as mute as her sibling. Every hair on her alabaster pelt glistened as it stood to attention, casting a pale halo about her lanky form. She registered Arcadian’s slow, deep voice caressing her auds, yet no meaning attached itself to his words; the snowy princess couldn’t even whimper when a black brute, a russet splash across his throat like a gush of gore, walked up to Queens and ran his body along the length of her royal frame. Kavik, on the other hand . . . could not have felt more alienated. The espresso-colored monster understood at once that this brute was one of the half siblings he and Kira shared: a full Malignant heir, born of and in this territory. He and his sister were merely pawns, insurance against a greater threat, with blood that did not belong. The bone-masked beast did not realize this completely, of course; yet he was intelligent, startlingly so, and his cunning glare burned beneath a shield of guarded anger. It wounded him deeply to see his mother at last, only to witness a barrier he’d never known was there. Kavik went completely limp.

Not Kira. With a sound suspiciously like a sob, the fishnet-clad fairy launched herself off Kavik’s ivory-barred back and toward Queens. She buried her pretty little muzzle in the Alphess’s rich, fragrant fur, pressing as if she could meld her heart with her mother’s if only she tried hard enough. Her brindle haunches wagged to compensate for the frantic waving of her fluffy banner.