Word Count :: 356
A tapered and far more feminine version of her son's face peered at her. A bright-yellow gold eye roved over the black and tan female, seeing herself reflected and filtered through this woman. Others might have found such a thing discomforting—a reminder of youth long evaporated, perhaps—but the coyote woman took only joy out of this meeting. She had heard of Talitha, of course—not only through Gabriel himself, but also through the young woman's very brother Ezekiel. The coyote had known him only briefly, but Tali had been a subject of their conversation. Ezekiel had worried for her, over her, but Kaena had reassured him, telling the gold-shaded man that blood alone was strength, and sharing hers, Gabriels, all of the Lykois was strength doubled. Seeing the younger woman here before her now, Kaena knew those words to be true; there was indeed power and energy reflected in Talitha's de le Poer eyes, but there was also a shadow. It was a cloud Kaena herself was intimately familiar with.
She knew she and Talitha shared more than blood—Gabriel had only one daughter, and this was she; this was the canine Andre had brutalized. Kaena's own son, her own granddaughter—once more the scarred, old canine was infinitely glad for Gabriel's existence and his leadership of Inferni. She did not envy the decision he had to make, and it would have been even more difficult for Kaena—to this day, the scarred woman could not say she would have done the very same thing as Gabriel. In her heart, she knew this was the best course of action, the one he should have taken and the one he took—even so, she could not say she would have done the same.
“You're Talitha?” the hybrid asked, half question, half assumption. “You look like your father,” she said, a faint smile beginning on her scarred muzzle. “We've never met, but I'm your grandmother,” the hybrid said, feeling more than awkward herself—as much as she yearned for beautiful Hallmark moments, real life so rarely panned out as it did in fantasies and romanticized fiction.
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