*When blood and death are in the air, you do not run toward it,* Kaelas said sternly.

*Della’s village!*

Using Craft, Kaelas probed the area around them. The season humans called spring had already come to other lands, but here winter still had fangs—and deep snow.

*Make a den. Stay hidden,* Kaelas ordered.

KaeAskavi snarled, but immediately rolled to a submissive posture when Kaelas stepped toward him.

*I can fight,* KaeAskavi said defiantly.

*You will hide until I call you.* Kaelas waited a moment. *What does the kitten’s den look like?*

From KaeAskavi’s mind, he received an image of a small human den, open ground, and then a thick stand of trees where KaeAskavi had waited for his friend.

*Stay here,* Kaelas said. *Make the den.*

Kaelas didn’t wait to see if KaeAskavi would obey him. Wrapping himself in a sight shield and air walking so that he left no prints in the snow, he headed for the village, his full, ground-eating stride covering the distance within minutes.

The air near the village smelled of fear and desperation as well as blood and death. His sharp ears picked up the sounds of fighting, the clash of human weapons.

He cautiously used Craft to probe the village and bared his fangs in a silent snarl as he detected a Green-Jeweled Warlord Prince. Something about that one’s scent…

Reaching a spot in the trees that looked directly on the back of the she-kitten’s den, he heard a female scream and a male’s roar. Then a window opened. A young human female climbed out the window and jumped into the snow. But when she tried to rise, she fell again, lame.

Kaelas burst out of the trees, charging toward the spot where the she-kitten lay at the same time an Eyrien Warlord came around the corner of the house. Spotting the she-kitten, the Eyrien raised his bloody weapon and moved forward for the kill.

The human male sensed no danger until eight hundred pounds of hatred slammed into him.

Kaelas bit off the arm that held the weapon while his claws tore open the belly. One blast of psychic power burned out the human’s mind, finishing the kill.

He paused to bite some clean snow. Like its psychic scent, there was something about this human that tasted like bad meat.

He shook his head, then turned toward the girl, who was staring at the dead male. *Little one,* he growled.

She pushed herself up and looked around desperately. “KaeAskavi?”

*Kaelas,* he said. With the same gentleness he used with his own kitten, he seized her by the middle and loped off with her, heading for the shelter of the trees.

She made no sound. She didn’t struggle. He approved of her courage. And now she was an orphan, as he had once been.