It wasn't much of a growl.
It was high and scratchy, and it cracked halfway through.
Ren's heart jumped into her throat.
"Oreo?"
Nothing.
Then a small head poked over the lip of the hollow. Black ears. A white muzzle smudged with black stripes. And a pair of red-and-gold eyes, glaring down at all three of them.
Ren clapped both hands over her mouth.
'He's alive. Oh, thank god. He's alive.'
"Hey, buddy," she called up, as softly as she could and still be heard. "It's me. It's Ren. I'm the one who named you, remember?"
The cub's ears flicked forward.
Then his gaze slid past her to Kael, and every hair on his body stood up. He hissed, thin and furious, and vanished back into the hole.
Kael didn't move. "That is a cub."
"Yep."
"In a tree."
"Altair put him there." Ren tipped her head back and squinted at the hollow. It had to be four times Kael's height off the ground. "Of course he did. Bird logic. Where's the safest place in the world? Up."
