Spoiler! :
Luperca
Blood.
Death.
All she can smell.
Blood. Death. Not hers. Not hers.
Her children’s. Theirs.
-=-=-=-
They came in the morning while she was out fetching meat, fresh meat for her children, her barely-weaned children. The deer had been downed so far away, too far away to reach the den in time, too far away, too far away to save her children, but close enough to hear and smell her children die.
They came in the morning, came and killed, and in the evening, while they slept like her children had slept, she came and killed them all.
-=-=-=-
She howls to the moon, cries to Diana, to Ceres, to Gaia, to any who listen to a mother’s broken heart. She howls to the moon with all her might, with all her soul, and no one answers.
All her children are dead.
All her children. Dead.
-=-=-=-
The bird would not leave her be.
It followed her everywhere, from the river to her den, during her hunts, during her rests, watching her eat, watching her sleep, watching, watching, watching, watching.
She had had enough. She would catch the bird and eat it and end the watching.
-=-=-=-
She lies in wait, pretends to sleep, pretends to dream a violent dream of blood and death and loneliness. And when the bird hops down to take a closer look, she pounces and feels feathers between her paws, but the bird slips away.
She growls and she snaps, but this time she misses, and she expects the bird to fly away and escape.
But it doesn’t. It hops away on brittle legs, and she sees its wounded wing.
She smiles.
So begins the hunt.
-=-=-=-
She followed the bird as it hopped from olive bush to olive bush, trying to hide, failing to hide. Though she could not see the bird in the tangled overgrowth, she could still smell it, always smell it, and hear its rapid heart, beating, blood rushing just like hers, but not for long.
She could taste the blood already, warm and tart, running over her teeth and tongue and down her throat as she closed her jaws over the bird one final time. One final time.
She could still taste their blood on her tongue, hear their screams in her pointed ears, smell their fear on her fur. The bird would taste much better, sound much better, smell much better as it died, but only if she caught it.
And she would catch it.
-=-=-=-
The bird flits to another bush, its wounded wing dragging through the leaves, music to her hunter’s ears set to the rush of water from the river close by.
She follows close behind, hidden, waiting for the perfect chance to pounce again.
She sees it, pounces, traps the bird between her paws, reaches down with open jaws to claim her kill, but hears a loud cry close by.
She jumps, startled, and the bird escapes, flying off across the river, no wounded wing in sight. But she does not dwell on the bird’s trick. The cry is louder now and joined by another, and she would see their source.
The wind blows towards her and she scents no great danger, so she crawls on her belly through the scrub towards the sound, ready to run or fight and kill, and comes across two human children, barely weaned and wailing, lying on the bank of the river, the scent of their mother days old. One looks up and sees her, stops crying, reaches out to her with a smile and a wet whine.
She waits. The one crawls towards her, and before she can back away, it is on her and cooing and nuzzling for milk, and the second is on her too and pushing his brother out of the way, pulling at her fur and tail all the while.
But she does not mind. They are her children now.
I thought it was a very clever way of introducing the Romulus and Remus myth without the reader initially knowing. When I reached the ending, I was like, "Hey! I know what all this is about! 
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