Lair

**RUBY'S LAIR* 

The presence of Atlene's late sister who had died in his arms when he was ten years old, deeply troubled and rattled Atlene. For his was a deep family secret wrapped up in lies and buried in deceit. Atlene wished he was older back then, so he could protect Saphir over something that had never even been her fault. A situation that had been swept under the carpet by Atlene's parents, because they would have been excommunicated from the pack if anyone had found out that Saphir had been raped, impregnated, and had died giving birth to the bastard pup inside her. 

But he had not known about any of that in the moment – it had all been a secret kept even from his ten year old self. It made him feel terrible for how little he understood of the situation, but at the time, being ten years old was not anything more than a vague memory from another time and place, one that only reminded him of why he still l