The newest of their number, the girl (if you could call her such a thing) was one of the strangest creatures the Huntsman had come across in his years. A shapeshifter who bared her teeth at the hint of a slight against her position, he could not say he might have chosen her to replace the comrade who had fallen before her, but neither could he say that the decision had been his to make. He led the ones he was given and expected only that they fall into line and held to the rules of the Pack.

He did not know her age but suspected she stood years beyond what she appeared. As with her gender, the question of her age mattered little to him. Whether she could move swift and quiet, kill quick and clean, and be brought under control before he had to take a sword to her to back his word, those were what concerned the Huntsman.

"No tricks this time," he told her, lifting a finger as he looked at her. Although his voice brokered no room for argument in that statement, it was finality and not anger that held him. "No swords glued into scabbards."