[m] [MaMa] spilled milk tears

[Shiloh Dawnbringer]

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[/html]Most wolves with sense wouldn’t have spoken so bluntly to a demon prince, but Shiloh found herself without fear even as she stared at the shadowy form, its shape flickering just on the edge of vision. She rarely spoke her mind with those she did not trust; she allowed them instead a smooth mask or a sweet smile, a lie that distanced her from them, a pretense she’d worn for days on end. Yet the ghoul had been a part of her for long enough that she didn’t recoil from mocking him gently, from admonishing him as if he were a child late for dinner. Maybe it was suicide, but now that they had wandered so safely away from her family in Vinátta, she found herself not caring, and somehow pervertedly trusting him.

But if she was unafraid before, something cold sparked in her cerulean gaze as the specter faded from sight. She heard the heavy footsteps of the wolf she’d fought and whipped around, planting her feet in a fighter’s stance as her fingers curled neatly over the remaining shuriken—but it wasn’t needed.

An unearthly cry left the wolf, and the slender woman stepped back quickly as she watched the body contort in ways that were wrong, limbs flailing as if to fend off an attacker. The body collapsed in a heap then began to scrabble for purchase at the ground, and her eyes flew wide open as it started to lurch toward her, zombielike, bringing itself to a halt before her. She stared at its face, at eyelids sealed with crusted blood, at the other eye pulsing with a ring of ice blue.

“Haku?” Shiloh said, her voice tremulous, but rather than fear that the monster would harm her, she was afraid that the wolf would only rot away again. The crooked, sharp-toothed smile tossed her way would’ve frightened any sane wolf, but only reassured her that it was really him—no longer just a monster in the stories, the blood-letting king of her first pack, but a vividly-blue-eyed soul come back to life and touchable now.

“Haku,” the milk-and-honey she-wolf said again, more softly, and reached out to press her bloodied finger against his lips.
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