Bane had resented her with every last bit of his being, then. Resented her, and then there was something else. The sincere hope that no harm would come to her, so he’d watch from his little place alone, up on the mountains. It was his place, the place in which he looked down and watched. Watched and waited. A lifetime had gone by down at his feet, and it was something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Too many ‘what if’s spun around in his head, and it made him absolutely sick. So much to be ill over, and he was shaking to the bone.

Thoughts that were, for the most part, lost to him now. He watched the girl’s face with a shaking in his bones, and a growl ripped from his chest. “I will end it.” They were harsh words on his lips, and every last fiber of Swallowbane felt the warmth of rage. It was the white heat that coursed down his spine, something that made him want to purge his system and sink his teeth into something warm and fleshy and living all at once. It was a disgusting tendency, and yet here he was, starving for vengeance. A craving resonated deep in his chest, and he was ready.

There’s a practiced elegance as he follows the young woman down to the tomb. Something grim has found its way into his posture, though he’s walking the steep face of the rocks like he owns the place. It’s in his blood, the climbing. He knows full well now that he’s going to be the one teaching it, like his grandparents had to him. How strange it was to think that Alcide and Moonglow now lived in the realm of Thunderbone and Boneclaw… it chilled the young man to the bone and made him nearly sick with the idea. The ache ran deep in his chest.

And there was the crypt. A stone sat at what he presumed was the head, and the emotions that washed over him were too much. The flat of his skull was pressed against the rose quartz at the head, and he shook. Belly to the ground, nails digging into the fertile soil, and he couldn’t help it. There was something in his chest, a dam breaking, all of the things he hadn’t allowed himself to feel suddenly letting loose. It ripped away in a howl, the kind that seems like it should break the sound barrier. Haunting, long, colored with all of the emotions that he needed to take a moment to feel.

It lasted as long as the breath in his lungs. The sound carried through his head long after it was done in his chest, and all he was left to do was speak lowly, under his breath. “I will find you vengeance, I will make sure you rest in peace, if it’s the last thing I do.” The words fall from his lips like a curse, a threat, a promise for all he would put out in order to make things right again. It would be the only way he’d ever be able to sleep at night.