Vile words spill forth from the fool that sat upon my borders. And there is not a single one of them that I believe, nor take in good faith. She is full of lies, spouting falsehoods and fabrications. Perhaps they are stories she has made up in her head, soothing the insanity that it had become evident festered between her ears. Her questions elicit no responses, no true reactions that would indicate forgiveness or consideration for that which she has said. Growls rumble forth from Kane, his vocalizations alone in this, but menacing nevertheless. She was foolish enough to speak of my parents, of their grave. Did she think it would not be the first thing my brother showed me upon my return to power? Of course I knew of it, but in what way was entombing their bodies a fair trade for their deaths? My impression of her lunacy was only confirmed as she spoke of the pack – there was no way she could have been met other than with ill distaste. She had murdered for the throne. There was no way she could ever have sat comfortably upon it. No true mountain wolf would ever allow such a thing. And that too had been proven.

But the true misstep in her attempts to apologize, to reconcile all the wrongs she had made, was in her trying to justify my parents’ deaths. For her to claim that she had any understanding of what she put me through was utter falsity. Never would she know the pain of a time when only just your family had been reunited, to have it torn apart without any hope of repair. Never would she know the strife and blame I had laid upon myself, in wishing that I could have taken the challenge in her place. She speaks of how things would have been if MoonGlow had not died. Her suggestions that I would have been soft, inexperienced, that she would have been there to challenge me in the infancy of my ruling. But she is wrong, mistaken in every way. The training I had endured in the year after the loss of my parents was only that which they had planned for me, put under duress. I would have defeated her just as I had her partner. But none of that mattered. Every chance possibility of that future had been erased with the last drops of my mother’s lifeblood. And there was only the fool that stood before me to blame for it. But I do not verbally reproach her for her misgivings.

Silently I allow Kane and Isola their rebuttals. My ears flicked back and forth between them, listening to their words drown out every apology that Purge strived to make. But my flaring eyes remained upon the usurper, she who stood alone now before us. I do not let Kane’s words of my victory bolster my pride. But I let his words about my mother feed the fire within. Isola speaks with a power she has earned, with an authority only ones born such as we could ever attain. Leadership is what we were made for, the alpha blood running thick through our veins. The two Diveenian’s speech intertwined, beating down every word that Purge attempted to speak. But in all of this I remained silent. I think that perhaps Purge knew why she was here, or she would not be floundering in words she does not know the true meaning of. Those such as forgiveness and atonement, devastation or understanding. She is clueless in this.

Isola’s final statement was one so true that it was perhaps the first thing she said that garnered a reaction from me. A small smile pulled at the corners of my maw, for once more she hit the nail precisely on the head. And what else could be expected from the Queen of the City of Angels? She who had met this cretin on the field of battle more times than any other. And as the Alphess moved to place herself directly behind Purge, blocking her only exit, my eyes remained ever locked upon the bitch who stood before me.

I spoke not, feeling that all the words in the world could not express what I needed to say to her. And Isola had the right of it – I too was tired of hearing her speak her lies, her attempts to justify all she had done wrong against us both.

“You know nothing.”

My words were laced with venom, alight with the fire of a thousand flames that burned red hot in my heart. Before I had even finished speaking them, my teeth were unsheathed at long last and I leaped forward, my head extending and jaws gaping. Her head had been bent in a slight bow, and I made to grab just behind and below her ears, where the skull and spine connected. I would sink my teeth into her flesh and then with a quick twist of my head and upper body fling her to the ground, where she belonged. I placed a single forepaw on her shoulder or ribs, depending upon how she had fallen. I drove my grip deeper, not willing to relinquish the debilitating hold I had upon her, but unsure if I had broken skin or simply managed to get a good hold on her. Snarls boiled up from within, the explosion of the storm that had been brewing within for such a long time finally released upon she who had made the first wave two years prior.