Blackfeather Woods night shift

potema spoke, and vuk fought the terror that threatened to climb in waves that closed over her head. surely they would not simply take seff and turn herself and terich away? that she could not abide -- she could not lose her boy a second time. even to know that he was here and not wandering about was something vuk would not suffer, and she sought terich's eyes for a moment, attempting to draw strength from her mate's presence before searching for the words to answer the question asked of her.
the patchwork woman could think of nothing that she could call a skill, and trembled beneath the cruel jibes of her mind. giving birth to dead children; you have been blessed in that way, it whispered. perhaps it was raas; perhaps it was vuk herself. giving yourself to men who will not have you, her psyche added again, until at last she could take no more and lifted her head to take in the gazes of the blackfeather wolves.
"i h-have n-nothing," vuk whispered. "i am n-nothing. only h-his m-mother. seff is the r-reason i d-draw b-breath. i h-have n-nothing to offer y-your p-pack, b-but i c-can l-learn. i w-will b-be w-whatever y-you w-want m-me t-to be. p-please do n-not separate me f-from m-my s-son. i w-will l-live even on y-your b-borders if it m-means i c-can be c-close to h-him." she did not mean to weep before them; her sides heaved with the shuddering breaths of effort to hold back her tears, and she fixed her eyes upon the woman who had stared only at her, the obsidian demonness who held vuk's life now in her grasp.