It wasn’t long before Tieran and his pack retreated back away from the mouth of our den. With my last remaining ounce of rationality, I brought the pack back into our den and got them all to resume their resting or nesting position. I forced myself to ignore my heaving chest, the sounds of scraping, screeching, and excitement from outside of our den. Even as I forced myself to try to focus, my emotions continued to only very nearly be held in check.

It felt like an eternity before I could calm myself enough to stop seriously considering running back out there and throwing myself at the coward. Even longer still before I could stop myself from actively planning how to assassinate him while asleep or otherwise unaware. And try as I might, I couldn’t calm myself enough to sleep until long after every other spawnling in the den had gone silent.

The rage initially only directed at Viilor bubbled constantly below the surface, but now, I had another, closer, more achievable target for my need to vent my frustration. Tieran would regret his actions. And, given that my evolution was only three kills away, it wouldn’t be long. I continued to muse over the possibilities of how to enact my vengeance most painfully and satisfyingly. Eventually, I did sleep, and I dreamed of nothing in particular, yet I woke frequently with surging adrenaline, and it took me a while each time to calm myself enough to sleep. It was infuriating, but I needed to rest. Regardless of the maturity of my mind (inhibited though it was), my body was only barely no longer an infant, five days into sixty to reach maturity.

Without caring for my attempted rational approach to why I needed to sleep, it was a pretty restless night. The night passed both quickly as well as if it were full days before the rest of the brood roused themselves. Of course, the brood began to wake just as soon as I began to feel like I was resting well. Before long, the den was filled with unhappy grumbles of hunger, screeches of challenge, and scuffles of minor altercations.

As the rest of the pack began to stretch themselves and go to exit the den, I spoke up.

“Eat… everything. Leave… none.”

Took, Treel, Foire, and Vefir didn’t need to be told twice, and began to tuck in. The sight of four keelish ripping into an inert body would have turned my stomach a week ago, but now it seemed just as natural as the Viertaali tribe sitting around the dining tables in my previous life. I was shaken from my musings on my past by Oncli.

“Why… hurry?”

“What?”

“Why… hurry… eat?”

I understood. “Others… might… take. Too… many.”

Oncli nodded, his bearing severe and respectful. He too took to ripping into the body of the Toothy Bullfrog we had slain the day before. I joined my pack, and soon we all were chewing on the bones, all of us still a little hungry. Of course, we were growing and I knew that, but it was a little surprising that across just two and half days since our first time eating a Toothy Bullfrog, we had gone from barely able to finish the whole thing to eating one in one sitting and still being hungry afterwards.

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The crunching of bones and slurping of marrow was interrupted, again. This time, Tieran’s female advisor wasn’t poking her nose into our business. Instead, Tieran’s voice carried into the den, booming and echoing through the small den.

“Come out… Now.”

Gritting my fangs, I forced myself to exit the den, flanked by the rest of my pack. Outside, I could see the beginnings of four other dens being excavated. None were much more than small dents into the walls, but I figured that by the end of the day, there would be five sub-dens in this spawnling area. Regardless of any progress made in the dens, that wasn’t what was important. Instead, it was Tieran’s somehow smug face, the tilt of his head, the relaxation in his jaw, that made me want to rush forward again, tempted to think that this time would be different. But no… if my thoughts were correct, I would be able to evolve after today’s hunt.

“What?”

“Give us… your food. We need… it more… than you.” I could tell that the rest of his pack was being elevated by him, some able to mumble words beyond guttural and animalistic noises. They spread behind him, cronies to his bully as I bristled at the mere thought of giving in. I did notice that the female that he had looked to yesterday for approval was now slightly further back in the group, seemingly edged out by the other female advisor, who stood fawning just to Tieran’s side.

I began to feel the warning of the triggering of [Bloodlust]. This worthless wannabe–

No, it was fine. I couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle, made by clicking my tongue along the base of my mouth.

“Took… get… it.”

She cocked her head at me, confused. Of course she couldn’t understand.

“Oncli?”

He, understanding my request, flared his frills in assent as he turned back into the den to bring back our “leftovers”, his own tongue communicating that he understood that this was going to be funny.

It wasn’t long before the self-satisfied tilt of Tieran’s head was replaced by the beginnings of anger as Oncli brought back a wholly fleshless ribcage and pelvis.

“What is this?”

“We… ate… today.”

It took a moment as the idea was processed in Tieran’s mind. I could see behind him, the out-of-favor female immediately understood. After one, two, three moments, Tieran exploded as he finally understood what I couldn’t concisely communicate with my stilted speech.

“I need… more food! We are… too many!”

“All… gone.” I punctuated my words with a clack of my jaws, the snap of my fangs together cutting through the ambient noise of the den.

Tieran actually shuddered with rage as he learned that he wouldn’t be getting a free meal from my pack. Then, with a roar of frustration, Tieran whipped around and stalked back to his little corner, the rest of his pack following closely behind as I continued to click my tongue in amusement. No, he wasn’t going to get anything from me, other than some snark, and, eventually, his own blood spilled. I felt myself shiver with the anticipation of spilling his lifeblood across the dirt of the den, in front of those who had watched him humiliate me the day before. Listening to him screech about the unfairness of it all was music to my ears.

Tieran’s temper tantrum was interrupted as an adult keelish, neither Wisterl nor Rulac, poked his head in. He was obviously less well-developed than the other two, and his stilted speech showed that he definitely wasn’t as fully developed as they were. Beyond that, his words proved my suspicions correct about what was going to change today:

“Spawnlings! From today… you hunt for… yourselves. Let us… guide you… where to go.”