With the morning came an unbearable light; the hybrid woman woke with the sunrise today, the sun's first rays sliding gracefully across her face, rousing her from a night's sleep. For a brief moment, there was peace in Kaena's head, her first-morning grogginess keeping her memory from resurfacing. She blinked her single golden eye, and in an instant everything flew back into her skull like a horrible nightmare she had just remembered, but it wasn't a dream. No, reality was far more cruel than that, and Kaena bit her lip again, the soreness rushing into her limbs again, the faintest trace of that goddamn smell still clinging to her pelt. Snarling soundlessly, the hybrid rose up from beside the pale-coated ghost of the past, Misery, and flew once more to the sea. There was vague comfort in her rage; the waves crashed against the shore, the water flowing over the hybrid's legs and arms. She clutched at the sand and salty water and brought handfuls of it against her skin, drawing her hand up and down the flesh of her arms and legs, eradicating the last of that awful smell from her fur.



    This time there was no one to interrupt her scrubbing, and by the time Kaena had finished scrubbing the old knot on her shoulder, reopened by the very same wolf who'd caused the original wound, had once more split wide, blood leaking across her pallid chest, staining her chaos star a more brilliant shade of red. If a familiar scent hadn't flooded the hybrid's nose, she might have remained there until she was raw and skinless, just flesh and blood and muscle left on the beach—it was fitting for how she felt. Stripped, shucked, eviscerated, hollowed—any of the above applied quite well. A part of Kaena had been destroyed the night prior; the silvery hybrid had never wished to experience the same brutality as Kairo had bestowed on her. Yet in a way, it hadn't been the same, it hadn't been the same at all. After all, Kairo had never made her come.



    That thought brought a fresh snarl to the hybrid's face, and in an instant the coyote only wanted to go home—and it happened that the scent drifting to her nose was one that owed her a favor, or so she saw it. Years ago (or at least, it felt that way to Kaena, so distanced was she from the present moment) the coyote had escorted Hanna across Inferni's lands, providing the Aniwayan with an easy, albeit temporary, pass to the northern territories. Now, here she was, aunt of the monster who'd put Kaena in her present sorry state. Ironic, if the hybrid could think such thoughts beyond going home and collapsing in her empty cave. Kaena did not want to pass by Dahlia de Mai alone again. Standing, the hybrid started off in the direction of the raven-furred woman, each step sending a stabbing reminder through her nether regions that she might as well fucking belong to Haku Soul. He'd taken her against his will, overpowered her, dominated her, defeated her more thoroughly than she had him—after all, she'd been the one to fail in killing him.