The walk back toward our quarters was anything but quiet. The streets of the pack still buzzed with life after the day's contests, and Isla and I carried the heat of attention wherever we went.
Stares followed us—some curious, some openly respectful, others dripping with disdain or jealousy. Whispers rose and fell like waves. I could almost taste the bitterness in some voices, men muttering about how I'd stolen victories that belonged to the males they supported, women muttering about how I dared to walk as if I owned the place.
Chauvinistic fools.
Isla kept her chin lifted, her arm brushing mine as though shielding me, though she had no need. I was used to these kinds of gazes; I had been stared at all my life, whether for being too small, too strange, too stubborn, too useless. Now they looked at me because I had done what they thought I shouldn't have been able to.
