Barrier Gulch [m] Asp

Minutes passed agonizingly slow as she wept in blood. Hard, relentless, Zaahira drove fury into her ears, and then crowning words into Akavir, ripping at his face needlessly, callously!

“Stop!” she shrieks, her soul crying out, a scream jailed inside burning lungs. This was not sympathy, it was not love or kindness. This was unforgivable. Zaahira did care- about herself. About defiling a sinless wolf for being a man.

And Eset, the crime of being a woman.

“Run, Akavir,” she retches, “please. Run.” But her voice will not be heard over the snarls. Then it was the shadow stranger who seized an opportunity to charge, and Eset is at once too weakened to do anything other than lob  a fierce glare while Akavir heads him off. The medicine coy looks on wordlessly. Eset understood she would die here, but she would suffer a thousand times over what whip weals she bared to have back what was stolen this day.

Screams faded to droning, light to dark, and the last she remembered her heart was pulsing madly as Akavir lifted her upon his back.