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Niccolo. Hurry up, or I swear I shall rip your entrails from your abdomen and eat them with my dinner.
The low, harsh voice spoke in the closest it could get to a whisper, but it still echoed slightly in the dark air. Linquilea winced a bit and screwed her golden eyes closed for a moment, but the enormous woman could not allow herself to get too frustrated with the stumbling servant. Sorry, mother, he whispered, much less conspicuous than she, and hurried his pace slightly. The chocolate boy was still limping slightly - the dark Queen had him on all sorts of errands for her lately, and he'd been enormously unsuccessful in his one, key task - finding Shandom Qi'Vaex.
They knew the white male was here, but neither one was particularly sure of his exact whereabouts. Shandom, it seemed, kept a low profile. It was understandable, of course. The former Alpha would not be so arrogant so as to assume that Linquilea would not come find him, eventually. He'd always been the consummate survivor, pulling through things that he simply shouldn't have, and it was becoming enormously frustrating for the blood crazed Empress. The marks of her work were obvious to those who sought it - small prey animals, uneaten, with their hearts brutally removed and left carelessly near the body; ruined faces ripped apart in fits of madness and rage. Linquilea could not maintain the aura of stability for as long as she might desire, and she often let the darkness consume her.
Niccolo knew she wanted Shandom's blood. It frightened him.
The two stayed in the north, where they'd heard rumors of a pack that lived naturally, without the taint of the Luperci. Linquilea was nearly certain it was there she would find her long hated brother, but she did not want to begin executing her plan until she was incredibly sure. She wasn't even aware of the name of the pack, and the map shed' gotten from the golden and irritating dog was less than useful. She had no time or patience for those sorts of things, and she was not a natural born Luperci. She was happier to stick to her instincts.
D'you want to stop for tonight, Mother? Niccolo asked softly. He was tired, and she had not eaten in far too long. The black woman groaned slightly, but sighed in resignation. I do hate it when you're right, she admonished. Shift into your bipedal form and fix me a fire. I would like to be warm tonight. He nodded and began the process without complaint, and Linquilea did the same. Once the arduous, time consuming, and generally unpleasant process was over, the now massive woman retrieved the pack that was often carried on Niccolo's pack and removed a small book and began to read. As much as she thought it was a strange and nearly useless skill to have, she did enjoy poetry.
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