TOO SICK TO PRAY }solstice challenge

She'd only just returned home, had only enough time to reassure her children and cuddle with them. Not nearly enough time to report to Cru, to take up the mantle of her duties as beta. Perhaps she should have taken the time, but she guarded her moments with her children jealously, clinging to them in the knowledge that she could have been without them. But now a challenge faintly caught her ear, and she knew her time was up.

She didn't tell the boys to stay put. They were only a season off from reaching their first birthday - she could not continue to shelter them from the world as much as she wished to. "Our pack is being challenged for," she murmured to them gently. "I am going to the battlefield to support our alphas. If you come... please be careful."

With that she extricated herself from her desperate cuddling and set off at a lope. Cru and Sibelle were already there, Sibelle seeming ready to answer the challenge. It was, not entirely surprisingly, the silver queen and her towering shadow who were there, and Qanik stiffened. Was this her fault? Had she led them to her pack? Her short, thick body was held with aloof dignity as she ignored them to step up beside her alpha, the young Crucifix, but her blue gaze was watchful. She lost to the silver queen once, but that would not stop her from stepping up to protect her leader from any danger to him. It was her duty to protect the leader, to protect the pack.