Nova Peak dearly

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i love them! they are not as important as you!

he did not understand! he did not comprehend how ayovi had gone from a thriving woman in the final glimmering of pregnancy to this wretched, writhing creature stretched wide and red with a pain he would never know.

his palms were useless against her aching skin.

he looked up;

around.

agony lolled ayovi's head, and skorpa's gaze tightened until it felt as though tears might be wrenched from the vise.

we have healers! but she was the most skilled; she would have already bid him call for anyone who had the ability to help them.

his throat choked; his words would not come, garbled, hoarsened to pieces on his tongue.

men had died in his jaws! at his hand! at his command! skorpa, bearswathed man of a thousand bloodstains, felt the vomit of terror rise hot and stark in his throat, for this was a new battle, and he a greenhorn on a muddy field.

his eyes traced along her body; skorpa drew a shivering breath, took her paw between his own, bent close. "hvor?"

she asked him to kill her. how would it not be that? he did not want to taste her blood, and fought again the weeping, but the tears came all the same, silent, crazed streams of saltwater which fell in droplets upon ayovi's distended belly. "hvor."

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