Needless to say, the last thing he expected to come across was a puppy. Cuirass wasn't really sure where he stood on the subject of puppies and litters. His father was a cold blooded killer, a vampire, as he liked to call himself. He loved the taste of blood so much that he would make multiple punctures in a victim, licking the wounds even while they lived. He didn't believe in wasting. He used to bring Cuirass with him once he was a yearly or so and could semi-defend himself if the other wolf decided to fight back. He would make the wounds then have Cuirass lick them to get a taste for the blood. It stuck. And then his mother, Seline. She was a whole different story. She enjoyed eating the flesh of her own kind. She would bring him and his brother Kronos pieces of meat and then whole limbs as they grew bigger and sharper teeth. It was always wolf meat that she brought them, and so they grew a craving for lupine flesh.

One he got older, Cuirass started hunting for himself, and so he started adapting to the fighting styles of other wolves, learning how to use their strategies against them so that he could end up causing their demise. He was quite cunning. He got that from Seline. At first, he had Kronos with him always so they could hunt together. One would charm the victim, serving as a distraction, and then the other would sneak up behind and get a surprise advantage on the attack. They learned to work together seamlessly, up until Kronos decided to go another direction. He disappeared from Cuirass' life as quickly as he had come and Cuirass had to adapt once again, this time to being on his own. And so he was most of the time as he grew up. Then he met Belhara, and so started his addiction to her. And then he met the Monster and her imprint, Tobias, and so he grew an addiction to learn about them and also to learn from them.

The pup who stumbled into him had unique markings, a half mask on his face and sapphire eyes. He apparently couldn't see very well where he was going or he was just too distracted, being young and innocent to the world as he was. He was even growling as he stumbled into Cuirass as if it were his fault that they had collided. For his part, Cuirass only shfited his weight back but he did not step back, never having been a creature who was fond of space. He learned early that others were often intimidated by not having that personal space to fall back on, to give them a safety zone, so to speak. He figured it would do the same for a pup and then maybe he would learn something of importance here. A pup was not a resevoir of useless information. They could pick up on a lot in such a short span of time and hold it all in, like a vault. Cuirass would use that to his advantage. The pup looked up at him, still growling as he sat back on his haunches and looked up at him, his eyes challenging as if he expected Cuirass to attack. He tilted his head in answer, ears pricking forward as his tail gave a gentle swish and his lips twitched in the shadow of a smirk. His blue eyes gleamed in amusement at the pup.

"WHY SO TENSE? DO I LOOK LIKE AN ALLIGATOR TO YOU?"