I had been resting these past few days, my chest healing slowly. Most of Taviora knew I was here by now I was sure and yet everyone had been told the same thing, a hunting accident, that was how my chest had come to be wounded and nothing else. I had calmed greatly since that night, the sunlight has a way of making the world seem far clearer then it does within the darkness and while I had not, perhaps, fully anticipated the emotional swell that the death of another at my jaws would cause I had come to some acceptance of the rightness of my own actions. I had, somewhere in the night, justified that which I had done and found the sense in it. I would always feel something. When the day came that I felt nothing for my target it would be the day to give away this so called Art of mine and yet I had found some peace in that, somewhere. The next time would be easier, not because I have become so greatly skilled from one battle as to dispatch an enemy smoothly just yet- but because I got a little better. Just a little- and it is more then I had the first time. I may not ever become totally at ease with death- but I would learn to be calmer and more controlled in battle. I had vowed to it. I had been lucky the first time, my target not within his right mind and sleepy from his mushroom meal. I had learned from that. The next time I saw the battlefield- for whatever reason, I would be something more.

I had been waiting for Zelda nearby the small stream that ran through the edge of the forest, my mind had taken to considering her of late more often than it normally did. I was forced to take something of a vacation while my chest healed and in that time I had discovered several things. The forest held endless places to explore. It was prey rich, fertile and once you knew the way not all to difficult to navigate though for any who didn’t I saw well how they became lost. The pack, the land, was far more then I had anticipated it to be and I found I enjoyed it here within the shade. I shone less without the constant touch of the sun as in Diveen and yet I suppose I was willing to give away some level of hair care in return for the first aid Zelda provided. She was one of the other things I had surely discovered more about. She had surprised me, that night, she had…understood more then I had anticipated- she had been more then I perceived her capable of being and that had only affirmed my decision more, that one day, when the time was right I should like to have her for myself- as a mate. She was willing to keep my secrets and she was willing to believe that what I did had been for reasons good enough to justify it and truly she impressed me. Her lateness though did not, where was she?

The sudden call from within the forest saw my white and silver form lift rapidly upward, a hiss passing my teeth at the pull of my injured muscle before I started forward, loping rapidly along and through the winding trees and earthen pathways. I would know Zelda’s call anywhere, my form moving faster until I could smell her and somewhere else….more then one. I burst through the trees with perhaps a little more panic then I actually needed, violet gaze falling on the sight of the alpha and the saliva and foam streaming from his jaws. I knew about poisons, at least, I knew they existed. Hadrian had been my teacher after all and their were few who knew more about poisons then he did. This however, well, this I doubted was the work of my Uncle. I didn’t know the other wolf who was here, my head dipped to her in greeting all the same as I moved to help Zelda.

“Where are your healers? We need someone who knows more about poisons, I can hold him if you want, is there anything more you can do? Is there a way to make him vomit it up?”

I looked from one wolfess to the next, searching for some answer or another. This was outside my talents to understand.

“Who found him this way? Did anyone see what happened?”

I had no idea who had been first on the scene and I suppose that assassin part of myself was moving to take over more readily, asking after exactly who was to blame for this. He was her uncle, he couldn’t die……not like this. This is not the way an Alpha dies……