Okay, he had to be honest with himself: he was avoiding her. He was avoiding everything, really. Slinking around in the shadows as if he were still the unwelcome scum of the ridgelands. At first he didn't really know what it was that caused him to hole up in the very edges of the territory, but the familiar, overwhelming sense of shame and dirtiness was hard to overlook. He had touched Elettra, touched her in ways that he hadn't known existed. If he had he definitely wouldn't have done it. But she ordered him to, she had him under her spell, there was something weird about the way she smelled. Perhaps she really had bewitched him. He couldn't have refused even if he had tried. But no matter how many times he told this to himself he never felt any better.

He was still dirty.

Kiche didn't need to see her to know what the consequence of his actions had been. From time to time he caught her scent on the breeze and he could sense and recognize the subtle, ripening changes in her odor. It was just like what happened to Jaysyek that first year. Elettra was expecting now. He had done that. A normal wolf might have been overjoyed at this news, and yet to the red man it couldn't have been worse. These children were made out of wedlock. They were bastards, no matter what these... these heathens might think. They were doomed. And he? He had committed a grave sin by... touching Elettra that night. He didn't deserve to be a father to these kids. No doubt Elettra wouldn't want him to be a father anyway...

And he never got better.

He stayed away as best he could, trailing along the border of these lands he had come to know.

And just like that she appeared.

Immediately, the red man stopped in his tracks. He went through the motions. Though his tail had already been sweeping the ground, it curled upwards against his body to afford her the courtesies she was owed. His ears fell back against his skull and his body wilted like dying flower. But he did not look at her, not even at her precious black feet. Instead, his firebrand eyes rolled away and his head turned to follow his gaze out into the vast world that lay beyond the willows. Idly, he wondered how long it had been since he had seen the world that lay outside of Elettra's influence.

"You are the Second of this pack, you know...."

"I know that," he breathed neutrally.

"There is no Lead male."

It was like she was goading him with these passive aggressive statements. "I know," he said again, his voice hardening. Still his head hadn't turned to face her. What did she want from him? Why did she point all of this out? It was pointless, all of this: her vexation, her disappointment. She knew, he thought, that he wasn't good enough, that he was going to fail her just as he always had. So why was she forcing this on him? Why did she always force things on him. Usually he would have taken her abuse as gladly as he would have accepted a gift, but not today. Today he was bitter, today he was angry.

"Angier Lyall holds me in regard...."

There was a flash of red as Kiche's ear flicked up and down, his interest restrained. Lyall. The two of them knew that name very well. He remembered her mentioning it at the first meeting he had attended. Something about him leaving gifts or being a friend or something. Pft. Friend.. Regard. What did that even mean? He did not turn his head to reply, he merely sighed.

"Then why don't you fuck him instead?" The words were soft, barely above a whisper and might have been hard to pick up.

Given his history with Elettra and his understanding of her expectations, he should have known she would react in this way. Perhaps it was his own bruised ego that blinded him, though, and in being so self-absorbed he had forgotten who he was speaking with. Alright, he was being a bit of an asshole, but for some reason he just assumed she'd take whatever dish he served her, like she was just some common subordinate. He forgot. He was stupid. He was careless, and so he did not foresee her wrath. Since he was also refusing to look at her, though, he also didn't see her wrath.

The black lady hit him like a brick wall. On any other occasion this would have been put down to her well taken care of, solid, muscular body. But this time she carried with her some extra weight, and Kiche, more familiar with her body than perhaps anyone else in this whole world, could feel the difference. He crumbled underneath the force as her teeth found and embedded themselves in his cream-furred throat.

The frustration and disgust that had been damned up inside of him oozed out in gurgle of blood and a bubbling snarl. For once, he found he did not want to submit. For once, he found that he would love nothing better to hit back, to knock her down a peg. But he could feel that protruding belly of hers and the god-fearing man in him knew that he could do nothing. Those kids were bastards, sure, but they weren't guilty of anything else. They didn't deserve to be hurt. That would only make things worse for himself, anyway.

All he could do was talk.

It was a little difficult to get any words with her vice-grip on his throat, but somehow he managed. "What do you want from me?" He tried to get some more oxygen into his lungs, "What else is there.... to take.... from me?" He was running out of breath, his voice was more ragged and each word stole strength from him. "God DAMNIT.... Elettra. You have it all.... You've gotten ...everything." But this was no confession of love. It was a bitter, exasperated plea of a man who was all dried up. He had nothing left to give her. Why did she ask for more?

• You're a faith-healer on tv
  
  You're an office park without any trees
  
  corporate and cold, gushing for gold-leave me alone.
  
  You suck so passionately
  
  You're a parasitic, psycho, filthy creature finger-bangin' my heart.
  
  You call me up drunk, does the fun ever start?
  
  — Love me Dead, by Ludo

She tore herself away from him, and he closed his head and turned away as he felt the droplets of his own blood and chunk of his own face spray his muzzle. She tore into him again, but this time with words just as sharp as her dagger teeth. He steeled himself for whatever she was going to throw at him. And she was right. He hadn't changed. Oh, to be sure he had tried, he had devoted the past two years to trying to rise above his "pathetic fool" existence. But it never worked, did it? Always he had sunk back down like this, retreating to the safe, punishing confines of his religion and taking up all his old vices. He hated that he couldn't seem to change, to move on. But this was who he was, it seemed.

Was it worth lying about anymore?

"How about some care, some respect? How about help around the pack? How about help for your Leader, your children?"

The reference to fetuses growing in her stomach was like a smack in the face, and reflexively he bared his teeth. So this was going to be a guilt trip now, was it? She had ordered him to fuck her, and now she was angry with him for not trying to help with the children when he was pretty sure she would have just rejected his help anyway. She had never wanted him around Jayse's pups, thwarting his efforts to get to the den, trying to keep him away from them as they were growing. Why would she want him with her own children, even if they were partly his.

Deep down however, he was terrified. He was terrified of these children. Just as he had tried to fix himself, he had failed to raise his angelic leader's children as good boys and girls. Theo had died. Prosper had died. Trisden was jaded beyond repair. Hocus was just fucking gone. Lettie had forced him to leave her, discarded him like she would have discarded a winter coat. He had already proved himself a worthless fucking father. What the fuck was the point of trying again? And even deeper within himself was the old parts, the old parts that always took control of him. He had wanted to steal those pups once, he had wanted to brainwash them. Who was to say he wouldn't try again?

"Why are you even here?"

"Because I was trying to make amends! I had hurt you and I wanted to fix everything! I TOLD you that. That's what I told you when I came here!" He couldn't keep the rage inside of him, he couldn't help that he was shouting at her. It was all the fear, all the frustration. He felt so caged in by all of these obligations, and it was fucking terrifying "I stay because I can't just up and leave like everyone else did. I won't do that to you!" If he ran away they would just be right back where they had started: Elettra as the injured party, Kiche as the wrongdoer. "But god damnit I haven't... I CAN'T make amends for everything. I'm always going to fuck up again. I'm never going to be good enough for you and I just don't know what to fucking do about it anymore."

I am the Patron Saint of Lost Causes

A fraction of who I once believed...

..Dismantle me down

Repair

You've dismantled me

You've dismantled me

• — Dismantle.Repair, by Anberlin

"You hurt me then and you hurt me now."

The voice of his guilt was drowned in the roar of his frustration. He would feel it later, but at the moment he had been swept up in the tide and was helpless against the waves of anger that crashed over his head. In this moment, he felt as if all he was ever going to do was hurt her. It was so pointless, all of it. Why should he stay if he could never truly make amends, if he was always filling one hole and digging another. Why would she want him to stay if it was only going to be a succession of repairing and dismantling a relationship that couldn't keep itself together.

"I'll not have you stay because of some fucking pity—

"It's not pi—" he tried to cut in, but she had not finished speaking.

"If dismissal is what you want then here is your chance. GO! I'm done with you."

Duty. He had meant to say duty. Duty to his god, duty to her was what kept him here. But if she was done with him, if this relationship of theirs had proven to be so futile and frustrating... then she was right. He needed to go. The tension left his body with a sigh, and he rolled his shoulders once as he turned to look at her. "Alright then. Alright. I'll go." It was for the best. He just had to keep telling himself that it was for the best. "It's...it's been.." He wanted to say that it had been nice knowing her, but he wasn't quite sure if that was right. It had been a lot of things, some of the things had been good and some had been bad, but nice seemed to undermine everything they had ever gone through. Nice was fake. "For good or for bad, Elettra, you've changed me. I won't forget that,"

"Goodbye," the red man whispered has he turned to leave.

He walked in the only direction he could. Towards home.