Vesper couldn’t help but smile stupidly at the boy’s affectionate lick; she also had to admit that she was more than a little flustered by it, too, just because her maternal feelings were so at odds with how she’d perceived herself when she was younger. It seemed that she was growing out of that “tough guy” phase bit by bit, even if it didn’t diminish her strength. Her own mother, for instance, had to have been strong to even want to raise the children forced upon her, and to die in their protection rather than flee as she’d had every right to.
His question surprised her, and she glanced at him as he faced the ocean. She guessed he was a bit more wolfish than his siblings, but she’d never really thought of him as one. He was just a coywolf, much like many others of the clan where there were precious few pure coyotes, maybe tilting a bit on the perceived “wrong” end of the spectrum.
“I am half wolf,” Vesper pointed out evenly. “My father didn’t have a drop of coyote blood in him, and yet I seem more coyote than I should. I could have easily looked more like a wolf, with dark fur and smaller ears, but I didn’t. Blood has a strange way of showing itself.” She shrugged her shoulders then smiled at him encouragingly. “But I don’t think it matters, anyway. I heard that Ezekiel’s father, Gabriel, was much more wolf than he was coyote—and he was an Aquila.”
She sighed and let her forequarters dip down, her legs stretching over the gravel and sand of the beach before one crossed over the other. “This is cheesy as shit,” she warned, some of her sharper personality coming through, “but I think what’s in your heart that matters more, and where your loyalties lie. Your loyalties lie with Inferni, and so that makes you coyote enough.”
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