Ashe
Then I’ll have to ask her why she hasn’t done it yet, if she’s so interested, I say, voice curling with a dry sort of amusement. Sometimes she's more shy than she seems. My brow quirks in return to his, and one side of my mouth lifts higher than the other—a crooked, lupine smirk that bares the faintest glint of fang.
And then the Deimos is leading the way.
He slips from the path like a shadow loosed from its anchor, long strides cutting through the snow in clean, powerful arcs. I lope after him, paws punching through the thin crust with soft, rhythmic crunches. My breath streams in steady clouds, curling and vanishing in the golden light that spills low across the tundra.
When he veers sharply into a narrow thicket, I pivot without hesitation, falling into his wake. The world narrows to the line of his powerful frame ahead, the trail of his scent on the cold air. This rhythm is muscle-deep for me—Kalt and I spent hours like this after he became a hybrid, moving as one creature, weaving through the world at speed. I’d learned to read the smallest flick of an ear, the subtlest shift in weight, and follow without thought.
Running with another wolf—even one built from hellfire and shadow—touches something I didn’t realize I’d been starving for. It’s an unexpected balm, a fleeting stitching over the frayed edges of old wounds. My heart hammers in my chest, loud as war drums. My lungs drink the cold until they burn, and my legs stretch to devour the ground, every stride blurring the white and gold of Halo into streaks of light and shadow.
And then the Deimos is leading the way.
He slips from the path like a shadow loosed from its anchor, long strides cutting through the snow in clean, powerful arcs. I lope after him, paws punching through the thin crust with soft, rhythmic crunches. My breath streams in steady clouds, curling and vanishing in the golden light that spills low across the tundra.
When he veers sharply into a narrow thicket, I pivot without hesitation, falling into his wake. The world narrows to the line of his powerful frame ahead, the trail of his scent on the cold air. This rhythm is muscle-deep for me—Kalt and I spent hours like this after he became a hybrid, moving as one creature, weaving through the world at speed. I’d learned to read the smallest flick of an ear, the subtlest shift in weight, and follow without thought.
Running with another wolf—even one built from hellfire and shadow—touches something I didn’t realize I’d been starving for. It’s an unexpected balm, a fleeting stitching over the frayed edges of old wounds. My heart hammers in my chest, loud as war drums. My lungs drink the cold until they burn, and my legs stretch to devour the ground, every stride blurring the white and gold of Halo into streaks of light and shadow.
inside my blood and bone
and their network of tendon and meat
you and i, our histories of hunting
and being the beast.
