A jolt went through his body as her words reached him, falling like whip lashes over his tensed shoulders. For a moment he froze in place, feeling his hackles rise in response to the cold comments she dealt out so readily, even though she knew nothing of what she was talking about. Dark lips parted in a low snarl, but he did not turn, did not offer her the pleasure of a reaction. Anger boiled in his stomach though, making his every hair stand, electric in the cold mountain air. Who was she? How dared she take that name in her mouth and use it to speak filth without basis? Drestig shook himself, claws digging into the snow, but he kept facing forwards, remained silent while he recovered from the worst of his shock. Any hint of desire was gone now, flushed from his body by the red-hot rancor.

After a few moments, he forced himself to continue, keeping to his stiff trot, pointedly ignoring the witch and her attempts at sowing doubt. What she failed to realize, what she probably hadn't bothered to learn or forgotten in her pissy state, was that Drestig was himself in an all too similar situation. He wouldn't one moment admit that @Jessie was a second choice, a trade for what he had lost. But he had no high ground to stand on, to doubt her motives was to doubt his own. So he didn't, he couldn't. And there was no reason, she was all he had now, as he was to her; Their past losses had brought them together, and that was not something to recent.

Shifting into a lope, the silver-dusted ebony wolf continued his decent, suddenly eager to reunite with his partner in the woods below.

Word count: 295

"Speech" Thoughts