Secrets seem to stretch between us even as the distance closes and we press into one another. There is a flash of temper in his eyes and inside I find a sort of answering spark, an excitement at the flash of something darker beneath the surface. It seemed that in a way I was drawn to the darkness even as I despised it. But perhaps there was a balance that was not quite skewed with Exodus. Carnifex had been my captor and then my love but sometimes I wonder if I had loved him merely out of convenience or if I just had known how desperately he had wanted me in the end - the feeling of being needed was a heady one. I was under no illusion that I was of any use to any wolf. I was small, well fed now but easily on the verge of scrawny when I wasn't being fed regularly. I had no notable skills at my disposal other than what I had been blessed with. Beauty and cunning.

I remember the first time I had spied Exodus. I remember approaching him, trying my ill used cunning on him only to be shocked by his easy desire to help me. He had required no payment in return. Yet still he got something, a piece of me, and captured my attention wholly and in a way I had not vested in another before. To feel his large figure pressed up against mine, his breath parting my fur and then inhaling it in, it gives me a sort of power that is unlike any I've had before. I have no thoughts of wielding him like a dagger, in much the way that I had latched upon Aranck, although he was an unwieldy dagger. I merely bask in the safe feeling that Exodus gives me, the wholesome knowledge that he doesn't require anything from me. Which makes me want to give it to him.

My hope hinges now on his answer to my question, his response to my veiled words, the secrets hanging heavy in the air between us. Will he press me for more? I could tell him, I suppose, but I do not wish to involve him lest this goes awry. That pup - well, adult now I reckon - was planning to lead the charge against Aranck and it was my part to make sure he was weakened enough to go out with little damage. I think I should feel a twinge at the knowledge he might not survive. Certainly that he been the intention.

Yet I feel only a feeling of anxiousness to be done with it.

The way he had looked upon my own imprint, the nasty words he had said about her... it had snapped a part within me, further driven by his bragging about his whore somewhere out here in the free lands. My imprint was something I was trying to desperately keep hidden but I felt that Aranck knew and that his words were a test that I failed. I was broken for my imprint was a female and I would forever bury that fact for my own embarrassment.

You are more than that, Malleah. I don't think I've ever heard such words spoken about me. My pink eyes flare wide at his assertion and a slow, tremulous smile crosses my face. "I plan to." These words are said with conviction and a little comfort for I can see the war on his face. He doesn't want me to go back. I don't want to go back but I've been gone for far too long as it is, a whole night. If Aranck scents the forest upon me by the time I return he might suspect my treachery. Even carrying his babes I wasn't sure he wouldn't kill me.

My smile turns into a beautiful, beaming grin at his next words, a sort of butterfly happiness in my chest chasing away the last vestiges of worry within me. Slowly I press my muzzle forward so that it slides against his in the way mates would do, a gentle claiming unlike the biting I was accustomed to. "Then when this is through I will find you again. Take heart, it won't be too long. I suppose by then I shall be a little lighter." I pull back once more with a baleful smile and glance down at my belly, my smile turning to a frown. But if things went smoothly, what then? I did not wish to raise more pups, especially reminders of Aranck, not when I could start a new life with Exodus, but I can't voice such thoughts. A mother is not supposed to feel such and besides, what would he think of me?