07-10-2009, 12:25 AM
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| http://digital-bonsai.com/katew/rp/kae/kae_disorder.jpg); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat;"> The Lykoi herself was a quarter wolf, albeit red wolf. Some said that canis rufus was merely a hybrid of the gray wolf and the coyote to begin with, but others regarded it as a separate species altogether. Kaena's brain made little distinction; a red wolf was still just that—a red wolf. Her father had been mostly red wolf, with that golden-red coat that presented itself in some of her children, but still. Even his muddled coyote heritage showed through in his small muzzle and enlarged ears, though the Lykoi pack had bred only with only wolves and red wolves exclusively for a generation prior to Andre, and his siblings had become the mates of wolves—leaving all of Kaena's cousins far more wolf than they were coyote. Kairo, her half-sibling, had been nearly all wolf, just the faintest hint of coyote running through his blood. The coyote shrugged her charcoal-dusted shoulders, regarding Jael with that long golden eye again. "Maybe," the coyote said, looking mildly distressed. The thought was depressing, to say the least, but she had considered lying to her grandson and found that idea far more abhorrent than admitting to being a killer. "If I was many years younger, I would have attacked you on sight regardless of the circumstance," she said, her face hardening as she thought of those times in her life. There was little she wouldn't have tried to kill. She was reckless and stupid, and she was damn lucky she had survived it. His next question again surprised her, though she managed to mask it this time, looking away from him and into the growing shadows. The sun was on the rise, though the pre-dawn shade still lurked over the earth. Blue-gray darkness still lingered in deep pockets here and there, though Kaena could see the pale gold streaks of the sunrise beginning on the eastern horizon. "They don't all hate us," she told him, knowing this was no big revelation. For all her wariness where wolves were concerned, there were friendly ones, and there were ones she would have called friend. Ahren and Zulifer lurked clearly on her mind. She had been able to overlook his wolfishness because he had sworn to be a coyote; it was only much later she realized that was just plain crazy, and he was just as much a wolf, regardless of his beliefs. Ahren was a different story altogether. She hadn't really meant to love him, and if they'd met under different circumstances, she might have tried to kill him, too. But his eyes had reminded her so much of Zulifer's, just a shade darker than the bright red of her first dead lover. "I don't hate them all," she said, her voice softening into a raspy whisper. "If you hadn't already guessed or known, your grandfather Ahren was a full-blooded wolf, born to the alpha of Chimera and the leader of a religious cult." She had never met Thavardo, but she had stepped gingerly over her bones and smelled the decaying stench of her death, the black stains where her flesh had rotted over the red carpeting of the church, now burned to ash just as everything else in the former territory. Her voice was the same uneven, soft tone. She sounded ragged and years older. "Your great-grandfather was a wolf, too," she said, admitting her own dash of wolf. She was a least a quarter, if not more, though her mother's coyote blood sang the strongest in her features. She had never known her father's exact percentage of wolf versus coyote, though she knew that he had been predominantly wolf, perhaps just a quarter of the original coyote of his great-grandfather remaining in him. "And it was his son—a wolf—who caused me great pain when I was still a child. His mate—a wolf—killed him for protecting me. A wolf killed the father of your eldest uncle out of simple jealousy. Wolves killed the aunt and uncle you'll never know—Ikatha and Baneesh. Wolves have taken a lot from me," she said, and it seemed simple enough from her. She had been taken from, and in return she would take—randomly at times, and pointedly at others, as she had with Salvaged. Still, she spoke of the long dead with a cracking voice, especially as she mentioned her children by name. Neither had made it past their first year, and both had been mercilessly and ruthlessly slain by wolves, supposedly because they were Inferni youth and coyote children—the less of them that saw adulthood, the better for a wolf. |