Mo Xiao moved through the undergrowth, his panther paws barely brushing the moss as he ran. His heart pounded, not from the exertion, but from the terror that had gripped him since he first smelled those scavengers near the cubs.
As a Panther Alpha, he was trained to expect the worst, but he never expected to find the tribe's future resting in the hands of the woman who had once been their greatest threat.
Bai Yue.
The image of her wouldn't leave his mind. She had been a mess, covered in riverbank silt, her knuckles raw, her eyes burning with a feral and protective energy. This was the woman who, just seasons ago, would shriek if a cub got mud on her silk-furs. This was the female who had looked at Ruì Xuě like he was a stain on her reputation.
And yet, there she had been: a wall of fragile bone and courage standing between five vultures and the children.
People don't change in two days, Mo Xiao told himself, his claws digging into the bark of a fallen log as he vaulted over it. Character is forged over seasons, not days.
But his eyes hadn't lied. If she hadn't been there, the cubs would be across the border, or worse. If Han Shan had returned from his ritual to find his son gone, there would have been no words, only a bloodbath that would have torn the tribe apart. Bai Yue hadn't just saved the children, she had saved the peace of the entire territory.
Mo Xiao reached the Elder's Clearing, where the massive Council Oak loomed like a silent guardian.
He slowed his pace, the shifting of his bones a familiar, dull ache as he transitioned back into his human form. He grabbed a loincloth from the storage hollow near the entrance, tying it swiftly as he stepped into the flickering light of the torches.
The circle was already formed.
Twenty warriors stood in a grim perimeter. In the center, three surviving vultures were bound with thick glass infused ropes. They were kneeling, their dark, oily feathers ruffled and stained with mud.
"Mo Xiao," Elder Zhào Fēng barked, his silver wolf ears flattened. "You have returned. Are the children safe?"
"They are," Mo Xiao said, his voice resonating with a growl he couldn't quite suppress. "They are back in the huts, guarded by Zhāo Yàn. Same with Bai Yue."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. The Fox Lord guarding the cursed female and the kits? That was enough to start a moon's worth of gossip, but the Elder raised a hand for silence.
"And these scavengers?" the Elder gestured to the men in the center. "They claim they were merely 'hunting' for strays. They claim they didn't know the cubs belonged to an Alpha line."
"They lie," Mo Xiao spat, stepping into the center of the ring. He looked down at the Vulture leader, the one Bai Yue had beaten into the mud. The man looked even worse in the torchlight. "They didn't stumble upon them. They targeted them. And they would have succeeded if not for the one who stood her ground."
The Elder squinted. "You mean the snake-twins?"
"No," Mo Xiao said, his voice booming. "I mean Bai Yue. The cursed female protected them. She took down three of them before I even broke through the treeline."
Shock hit the clearing like a physical wave. Men looked at each other, some scoffing in disbelief.
"The cursed female?" a bear warrior laughed harshly. "She probably tripped and fell on them! That woman wouldn't break a nail for a kit."
"She did!" Mo Xiao snapped, turning on him with bared teeth. "She stood empty-handed against stone knives to keep Ruì Xuě from being taken into the sky. She is the reason we are not currently mourning our sons."
The silence that followed was heavy. The Vulture leader looked up, his voice a pathetic whine. "We're sorry! We were just hungry! We didn't mean to start a war!"
"Who sent you?" Mo Xiao leaned down, his face inches from the scavenger's. "The Vulture Clan doesn't cross the river unless they have a buyer. Who wanted the Snow Leopard cub?"
The vulture stuttered, his beak-like nose twitching. "No one! We.…..we just saw the silver hair! Cubs, especially female cubs, fetch a high price! We just wanted to eat!"
"Death is the only meal you'll find here," a Tiger warrior growled, stepping forward with a spear.
Elder Zhào Fēng looked at the prisoners, then at the moon. His face was set in stone. "The law of the Beast-World is simple. To steal a cub is to steal the soul of the tribe. Let this be a message to the Vulture Clan. If you try to take one of our own, you die."
The sentence was passed.
As the warriors moved in to finish the grim task, Mo Xiao turned away. His mind wasn't on the execution, it was back in that hut, with the woman who was currently unconscious and the cub who had called her 'Mama.'