Enraged.

Life had been bliss up until this moment. Peyote had all but disappeared into his hidden oasis with his pretty prize, growing more and more aggressive and territorial to any of the bachelors who dared venture close. She was with him always, and he watched her sides swell and grow and felt a strange satisfaction and pride at the sight of it, and then eventually he was there when she pushed their child into the world. Peyote had seen foals, but never interacted with one so close. His own, too.

This was what Nahawi was taking him from. Peyote's need to keep Vervain his meant he didn’t utter a word of her when talking to Garmr. If he could not be here with her, he did not want her here. Suspicion and mistrust swelled inside him as he thought of his other brothers touching her. If she could not be here with him, he needed her back in her first home until he could steal her away again.

His ears twisted back. It was the only way he could trust she'd be safe. Her and their child.

He comforted himself by remembering what Garmr had requested of him when he’d told him he would be taken to the Shore. It even made a smile curve the very corner of his lips, but it looked more murderous than amusing. He looked so much like his sire at that moment.

Peyote stepped into the clearing and snorted hard at Nahawi, the sound loud and forceful in the air between them. His dark tail lashed at his hindquarters and he stomped a firm front right hoof into the ground which squelched and splashed in the shallow sandy muck.