Her words stunned him – an action not met many times by such a hot-tempered male. His gaze swept over her, his mind racing back trying to determine at what stage of their conversation had lead them to this moment exactly. A moment he found he was surprisingly at ease with.


In answer, his muzzle bent down to brush gently against the slender curve of the dove’s nape, his teeth preening at her soft fur. Perhaps this was what Indru had felt when he had laid eyes upon Corinna – an urgent need to be at the side of such a beauty. Pulling his muzzle away from his ministrations, the regal male felt his chest swell in pride, a loose growl seeping past his lips in desire for the she-wolf who had so readily agreed to be his. Together they would build a new life.


“Come,” he murmured, shifting his pace to maneuver his footing toward Swift River. They would travel back to his brothers pack and collect Kinis and Volkan – it was time for their future now.

Plush tail slowly swaying to and fro, the shewolf leaned into his touch trustfully, savoring each sensation as butterflies fluttered in her belly. A sharp chill bolted through her body, a reminder that as chimerical as the moment was, every second was real. The last thing that she'd expected to find on her path through the winter was this, love - one to last a lifetime.

The power of their attraction felt like glue as Ruiko began to pull away, and hopefully she examined the angles of his face and the mysteries of his glare, to be solved, one by one, as the days would come and go. An endearing growl met that of her lover's, a tone just higher than his, as her cold nose probed softly beneath his chin.

A subtle nod dignified his request, and agily she took to his pace, moving as though she were floating at his side. Like a second wind, he had breathed a fire into her, taking his place in her heart; as its strings danced in rhythm with their paws, the pair moved stealthily into the heart of the wildwood.