Familiar palms graced Blue's quivering sides, pulling him in close and wrapping him up in a comforting embrace. Whether man or wolf, Eivind had the special touch needed to halt Blue's sobs. The young man wiped at his tears with dirt encrusted hands, a reminder of his recent struggle with the formerly breathing corpse. “No, he didn't know,” Blue confirmed, mucous dripping unattractively from his narrow nostrils. “He was surprised. But he didn't say what he was doing out here. He... he was trying to apologize to me. I just wanted him to go away.”<br/><br/>Eivind had wrapped himself around Blue, wet and sticky limbs encasing him. Blood stained Eivind's face, soaked into his beard and the hair on his chest, but Blue didn't mind the visual so much. The smell, however, made his stomach turn, but the young man refused to pull away from the wolf who had saved his life countless times. Colten's appearance had solidified the idea that the only truly safe place for Blue was enveloped in his lover's protective grasp. Unless Eivind was willing to move someplace far away, someplace Lofgren and his cronies would never find them...<br/><br/>“Go? Go where?” Blue's thick brows furrowed as he shifted in his lover's arms, pulling himself away only enough so that he could look into Eivind's dark eyes. “You can't sell the cabin,” he argued, shaking his head in disbelief. “You built that cabin. It's our home. It's<i>ours</i>, Vin. We can't go back to the city. You hated it there.” Blue huffed, his distress giving way to irritation. He wasn't upset with Eivind, certainly not after Eivind had come to his rescue, but running away to the city hadn't worked out so well for them the first time. He couldn't imagine it working out any better on a second try.<br/><br/>“I know, I know,” he mumbled, still punctuating his sentences with soft sniffling. Blue eased himself against his mate, allowing he older male to coddle him into a tentative calm. Though Blue's body still twitched with the remnants of fear, adrenaline still forcing his heart to race inside of him, he was settling, fingers brushing against Eivind's chest so he could feel the steady rhythm of his heart. “I don't want to feel like this anymore,” he whispered, burying his face in his mate's neck. “I just want to be with you.”<br/><br/>Stellan's nose was low to the ground when he and Sig found the couple entwined, just feet away from Colten's rotting body. Unlike Sig, Stellan didn't immediately shift back into his human form. Instead, the wolf crept up close to the bloodied body, poking his muzzle into the tear in his throat. Stellan had realized what had happened prior to intruding on Blue and Eivind simply by smell. Once he had gotten close enough, Colten's scent had overwhelmed him, along with the pungent smell of human fear and an infuriated alpha. As he dipped his muzzle into the wet hole, Stellan wondered what the fuck Colten had been doing all the way out here. He should have known better. Lofgren should have warned him that intruding on another pack's territory was opening himself up to attack. Lofgren should have forbade him from leaving altogether, assuming Lofgren knew at all what had happened to one of his younger wolves.<br/><br/>Eivind spat out that he was justified in his murder of Colten, and although the big wolf whined against Colten's lifeless body, he offered no argument. He did not growl, snarl, or challenge Eivind, knowing that despite his deep feelings of remorse, the alpha was right. Werewolf law was informal and unwritten, but it was clear. Not only had Colten aggressively traipsed into another pack's territory without making his intentions clear, he had terrified an alpha's mate. Worse yet, whether Eivind knew it for sure or not, Stellan knew what Colten had done. The crimes he had committed against Blue's body were unforgivable, no matter how much Stellan wished he could explain them away.<br/><br/>Colten was a stupid boy, but he was a product of his environment. Young, weak-willed, easily manipulated, Colten had allowed himself to be influenced by the likes of Lofgren and Alden, and Stellan hadn't been there to offer him an alternative route. Perhaps if Stellan had been there when Blue was taken, not only could he have potentially stopped Blue from having to suffer, he could have done something to keep Colten from going down such an aggressive path. But Stellan had never stayed. Even when Colten begged, Stellan had always found a reason to run off and be on his own, carrying only the slightest concern for the little wolf in his chest as he rode off on his bike.<i>I'm sorry, Colten</i>, he thought, wrapping his large jaw around the corpse's mangled throat.<br/><br/>Sig's question was met with only he slightest of head tilts. Stellan didn't know why the fuck Colten was out here, but it didn't seem to matter much to him now. Though the body was nothing more than literal dead weight, Stellan dragged it off easily, past a cluster of trees to a patch of soft dirt. The flimsy wolf body fell to the ground in a heap when Stellan released it, a gruesome collection of damaged body parts caked in blood and still stinking of the terror Colten felt as the last drops of life were squeezed out of him.<i>You hurt him. I can't make excuses for you now, Colt. You should have never touched him. </i><br/><br/>Tremendous paws and thick claws begin digging in the dirt feverishly. Certainly not as effective as perhaps a shovel would have been, but Stellan had no desire to rush off and leave Colten's body exposed, even if just for a short while. Digging a shallow grave allowed him to process what had occurred, to plan for the next steps. Even if Colten deserved the undeniably harsh punishment Eivind had bestowed upon him, there would certainly be consequences for what had happened here. Lofgren would notice quickly enough that Colten wasn't around. He'd want answers. He might even want revenge, especially if he found out that the same wolf who had killed Alden had dispatched another one of his wolves, even if it was just one of the weaker ones.<br/><br/>Stellan wasn't sure how long it would take him to dig a hole big enough to fit Colten's body, but he was willing to scrape at the earth for as long as it took, offering the foolish young wolf a quiet, solemn goodbye.