In one fluid motion, she snatched the pup from the bassinet, dropped him onto the floor from a low height, then threw herself down beside him, curling over the infant and wailing as if the world were ending.
The pup's screams tangled with hers, filling the room. The tiny thing reeked of milk and new wool and a faint ghost of pine, Fenris Greyfang's blood crying out from a body too small to understand what had just happened to it.
I stood there clutching my stomach, my body locked in place. I couldn't process what I'd just witnessed.
Corvina had hurt her own pup.
He'd just been born, and she'd thrown him on the ground without a second thought. No wolf, no matter how broken, no matter how far fallen, did that. Even rogues guarded their young. Even the mad ones. The instinct was older than language, older than pack law, older than the Moon Goddess herself.
And Corvina had snuffed it out like a candle flame between her fingers, because footsteps were coming and she needed a story to tell.
"I'm sorry, Seraphina. I was wrong. I wouldn't dare dream of mating with Theron anymore. I'll take the pup and go far away. Please, I'm begging you, just stop hurting us, okay?"