by R. Lee Smith
The wind managed to run down Nona’s back in spite of her sweater. She shivered, then shrugged angrily and helped Leila sit up. “You don’t have to hunt. Like Burgash says, everyone serves in different ways.”
“That’s what I mean. I wouldn’t mind feeding the baby.”
“Okay, sure,” Nona said, holding the cup of tea out. “But right now, let’s just focus on you.”
“Oh wow, is that your ‘she’s lost it’ voice? I like it. It’s very soothing,” Leila said. “But I’m serious. You know, if a person’s nursed long enough, she’ll make milk. That’s how breasts are built. Even a guy will lactate if you prime the pump long enough. I wouldn’t mind being a wetnurse, that’s all I’m saying. It’s something I can do…you know, lying down.”
Nona nodded, but her skepticism must have showed, because Leila laughed and said, “Someone, back me up!”
“It happens sometimes,” Ararro said. “When the bitch dies before the cub can be weaned. Especially if it is a chief’s cub.” Turning to Leila, she added, “Our young nurse until they are strong enough to run. Two years. Three, sometimes.”
“A long time for the pack to be without a hunter,” Leila said. “I could do it. It might take a little while to get me going, but I’d be happy to do it.”
“What you offer is very welcome.”
“I want to be useful.” Leila swallowed some tea, and every drop seemed to be a struggle, but she did manage. After a lengthy rest, she drank some more, and then let Nona and Burgash together lower her back down. “I want…I want…but everything’s so exhausting. Nona. Nona, will you do something for me?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
Tears pushed slowly up from the corners of Leila’s closed eyes. In that same weary, emotionless voice, she said, “I need you to cut my arm off.”
Nona hadn’t realized how many lycan were listening until they all went silent at once.
“I don’t want you to. I need you to. I can feel this stupid poison creeping up my arm. It’s dead already…it’s dead and I’m afraid it’s going to take me with it.”
“Leila, you don’t—”
Heather jumped up suddenly, scattering the pieces of her crude gameboard. She ran into the woods, breathing in loud, whistling gasps that were a hair away from tears already. Burgash got up and went after her, showing his sharp teeth to those of the Fringes who had stirred themselves. Nona watched them go, her heart racing and bleeding inside of her.
“I know, I know.” Leila shook her head, sighing. “If you do it, I could die. But if you don’t, I know I will. And if it’s a matter of could or will, I’ll take could any day of the week and twice on Sunday, you know?” Leila tried to laugh; it turned into a sob midway through. She clamped her jaws shut as Nona stared at her in horror, and that was all for several minutes. Then, softly, she said, “Please.”
Don’t make me do this.
I can’t do this.
I won’t.
“Okay,” Nona whispered. She reached back for the support of the tree she knew was there and Sangar caught her arm. “Okay. If you need me to, I will. I will.”
“Thanks. I’m scared to ask anyone else.” Leila waved her hand at the woods, as though the trees there were filled with silent people, and for an instant, Nona thought she saw that—misty figures with sorrowing eyes filling all the spaces between the frosted tree trunks, watching and grieving. “And it’s okay if…if it doesn’t work. But I have to try. I can’t give up, you know? You risked so much to save us. I have to try to live.”
Nona nodded, numb.
After a moment, Leila opened her eyes again. “It’s not fair, is it? It was just a stupid cut, just a stupid sharp rock. How can this be happening?”
“Just the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.”
“Mmm. God, I miss cookies.”
“Yeah, me too.” She’d never felt less like eating in her life. Pulling away from Sangar, Nona knelt and caught Leila’s good hand (soon to be her only hand) in her own. She squeezed it and felt tendons, bones, the pulse of blood—all the inner workings in a delicate balance that miraculously made a hand.
“You look pretty good,” Leila said. She still had her eyes shut.
“Yeah, well…If it makes you feel better, I still feel like shit.”
“You need feeding,” a voice growled.
Nona jumped, dropping the cup, and instantly felt herself blushing hotly at being caught out like that. The big, mean male, Vru, was standing behind her. In one huge hand, he held a bloody mass which he offered, showing his teeth and flexing his toe-claws.
When she did not immediately react, he took another step forward, leaning into it, looming over her and knowing he was looming. He wanted her to know it too. He wanted her to feel small and human, to know nothing could save her and no one stop him if he chose to pounce.
‘Nakaroth could stop him,’ Nona thought, and her face caught fire as she wondered where the hell that had come from. This was not the time to think about shit like that. She didn’t care anyway, but it really wasn’t the time. She said, “Aren’t you supposed to be hunting with Kruin and the others?”
The big male lowered his hand and flattened his ears. He thought and then said, “My chief howled for hunt. So I did,” and offered the meat again. It looked like some kind of short-limbed long necked thing, but more than that was impossible to know because he’d torn the head off and ripped it open up the middle, maybe in an effort to make it appear like there was more meat on its mangled bones than there was.
From the clearing’s rocky side, the all-white female Nona believed was this one’s mate came creeping forward, her ears down and chin high, whining under her breath. Vru ignored her, even when she touched his foot. Nona could see his thoughts moving behind his eyes like a caged beast pacing behind its bars.
There was something about him, something that made him different from all the other males in this pack. It wasn’t just his size—he, Ararro, and Laal were all big and had the same dun-yellow coat, so that was probably just a characteristic of this particular lycan breed—and it wasn’t his wolfish manners, which all of them displayed to some degree, even gentle Sangar. After a moment, she decided it had to be his nakedness. Sure, they were all naked, but for most of them, their nudity was pretty well disguised by the thick coat of fur they all grew. Vru was different. Either his coat was thinner or his genitals larger, she didn’t know, but there they were, and right now, they were at eye level. His member swelled the sheath slung low under his belly, shockingly red at the tip where, it seemed, he always protruded, always at the ready. His scrotum was also uniquely visible—huge and hard and actually shiny with strain. Vru was big, sure, and Vru was mean, but mostly she suspected Vru was six-foot-four of seething testosterone with teeth, and that was what made him different. And dangerous.
And he was here, probably not even one full minute after Burgash left.
The very ugly idea came to her then that he’d been lurking in the shadows, watching her, waiting for just this opportunity. That if he thought he could get away with it, he’d have no qualms whatsoever about throwing every last one of them down in the snow—even Leila—and raping them right on the spot. One after the other after the other.
Her eyelashes fluttered; she could feel her gaze wanting to go back to that grotesquely swollen sac, and she stood up so she wouldn’t have to imagine she could feel its heat radiating from him.
Vru showed his teeth again at her movement. Smiling was not a natural expression for him. It was as though he didn’t quite understand how to do it or why he should. He offered the bloody mess again. “To eat,” he said and licked his chops. “I have enough to share.”
There was a trap in the offer, all gleaming wire and steel teeth. None of the other females were moving. All of them stared, all of them just as wary as she.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
His lip curled into a snarl that quickly became a smile once more. “You are,” he said and reached
for her. “Come. I will feed you.”
Nona’s own hand darted down and came back up full of knife. The big lycan paused, looking at her, his hand hovering in the air. He stared for a long time before raising his eyes to hers. There was no anger in them, only a cold and savage speculation.
“Oh, you better believe I will,” she told him.
Gradually, his wolfish brows drew together, darkening his face. He turned, kicking at Ararro (who must have anticipated it, as she was already curled in a protective shell around her cub), and stalked away. The meat he threw at the firepit, and then he went for his mate. She was already on her belly, tail high, anticipating, but her compliance wasn’t good enough for him. He picked her up just to shove her down, then straddled her. He stared at Nona, ears flat to his skull, as he did his fucking—the act was too crude for any other word—snarling low under his breath.
“Jesus wept,” Nona muttered, and sat down again, holding her knife in both hands.
“Impressed yet?” Leila asked in her dry, half-dozing voice.
“I couldn’t be less impressed,” Nona said, and made sure she said it loud enough for Vru to hear.
He didn’t answer, but he surged forward to bite viciously at his mate’s neck. She whined, clawing at the stone before sagging into it, breathing hard and fast, enduring it. And Vru stared, his fangs still sunk into his mate’s flesh, shaking her body with his thrusts. He didn’t blink. He didn’t speak. He just stared.
“He wants you,” Leila croaked.
“He’d want anyone.”
“Nope. Just…just you.” Leila laughed a little, groping at the blanket and Ararro came to lie beside her and quiet her. “You know what they call you? Our chief.”
“What?” That was an unpleasant surprise. She sent Sangar a sharp glance and saw confirmation in the way the lycan avoided her eyes.
“And they should,” Leila went on. “You’re the only one of us with any…with any…” Her hand waved and her eyes slid shut.
“It’s okay,” Nona said, tugging Leila’s fur up higher around her neck. “I know what you’re trying to—”
“Future,” Leila finished suddenly.
Vru snarled around the ruff of his mate’s neck and for one awful moment, Nona saw herself. Saw her future.
“I am not staying here,” she said, each word ripping itself from the bottom of her gut in something like horror.
“We’re all…staying here,” Leila mumbled, sagging backwards into her fitful sleep. “That’s just…the way the cookie crumbles. The world…is full of…gophers.”
14. Nona Draws The Line
Nakaroth and the others came back before much longer, carrying the dead fellcat and the mangled half of whatever it had been eating when they found it. Nona’s stomach immediately cramped and she looked away. If she made eye contact with the food, Kruin would want to feed her. The last thing she wanted right now was food in her stomach.
A hot, dry hand clutched at hers and she turned to look down at Leila’s stretched and shiny face. “Are you…? Are you going to…ask him?”
For what? Permission? He wouldn’t even let her make a spear. Probably because he thought she’d accidentally hurt someone with it, which still pissed her off in some distant corner of her mind where she was desperate for any distraction. She’d never hurt anyone on accident. She’d always done it deliberately. In fact, here she was, about to hack Leila’s arm off, on purpose. And if she could do that, Kruin had no damn business telling her she couldn’t make a spear.
“When?” Leila asked. She was trying to sit up. Her eyes were anxious, but their focus kept slipping. “When are you…?”
“Now,” said Nona and thought, ‘Before I lose my nerve.’
She was aware of lycan watching her as she stood up and crossed the clearing, even more distantly aware of some of them doing their best to look manly and impressive for her. The urge to slap a few was strong. That wasn’t fair. They didn’t know what was about to happen, but damn, could they not give it a rest for one day?
The clearing just wasn’t that big. Here she was at the raised rock already, looking up at Kruin looking down at her, and she still had no idea how to say this. After a long, uncomfortable silence, she turned instead to Sangar, standing close by, and said, “Can you help me?”
Kruin frowned.
“I know how it is done,” Sangar answered, avoiding her eyes. “I have seen it performed.”
“Successfully?”
“They survived the cutting. I did not stay among them long enough to know how they recovered.” Sangar glanced at Leila, her ears low. “And they were horsemen, not humans. Despite the similarity of your forms, there may be differences. And she is already very weak.”
“Explain,” Kruin commanded, still frowning.
Sangar spoke softly in their own language. It didn’t take many words. Kruin’s expression did not change as he listened and his eyes never wavered from Nona’s. She thought he’d tell her it was pointless, that Leila was already so far gone, she was likely to die from the pain alone, but when he spoke, he surprised her with a quiet, “When I was young, I knew a one-armed wolf. I remember little of him, but I know he lived many years afterwards. Lived and hunted and took mates. It can be done, and survived, even here.”
She nodded, but his quiet comfort had unhooked her the way the expected discouragement should have done. She felt tears stinging, felt panic clawing at her gut. She wanted him to say something, to refuse to allow it, to take the choice away from her. And she hated herself for the cowardice of it.
Kruin touched her shoulder, gripping once, just for a moment. His hand was warm, callused, tipped in claws.
It helped.
“You need a knife,” he said, releasing her. “Sangar will give you whatever you require.” And then he walked away, raising his voice to call the pack to him. Not just the hunters this time, but the whole pack. For privacy, she realized. Either because he expected her to get rattled and make a mistake, or he expected her to pull a Heather and run sobbing into the woods halfway through.
“Take Heather with you,” she said, and that was when she really understood that she was going to do this.
Kruin paused—she probably could have made that less of a command—and then crossed his arms. “Agreed. What other aids do you ask of me?”
She didn’t know. A hospital and someone who knew what the hell they were doing would have been nice, but it wasn’t going to happen. This was it. She wasn’t going to get what she wanted, so what did she need?
“Nakaroth,” she blurted. “I mean…someone strong. Someone to hold her down. She’ll—” Her knees tried to buckle. She stood up straight and said, “She’ll struggle.”
Kruin’s eyes shifted to a point beyond her. She heard the quiet tap and rattle of a distinctive wyvern-tooth trophy. She didn’t look, but she knew he was there and that was all she could handle right now.
“Are you prepared?” Kruin asked.
‘No! Tell me no! Tell me she’ll die! Give me a reason to get out of this! For God’s sake, I flunked Biology! I don’t even know the real name of the bone I’m going to cut! I’m a cashier at a goddamn gas station!’
But Kruin only looked down at her, his gaze steady and calm, his expression faintly touched by compassion but utterly without pity. The very first day he’d brought them here, she’d asked if the arm was coming off and been told there was no point. He wasn’t going to say it again.
Because Leila was her responsibility. She was Leila’s chief. And as one chief to another, he was backing her play.
Damn him.
Sangar appeared and held out a stone knife, long and wide-toothed and very sharp. It was a butchering knife, one made for hacking limbs off large animals. It had surely been used and it couldn’t possibly be sterile. What was she thinking? What was she doing?
“Yes,” she whispered, and took it. “I’m ready.”
Sangar kept her hand out. “I’ll need yours,” she said when Nona looked at her
. “For the burning.”
The burning. Not the cauterizing or even the closing, but the burning. It was going to smell, Nona thought faintly, and as hungry as she was, it would probably smell pretty good.
She reached into her pocket and gave Sangar her broken little knife.
Kruin touched her shoulder again, that strong, leathery grip, and went away, emptying the clearing of High Pack’s wolves. Sangar went to the fire, arranging things, preparing things. Neither of them hesitated. Daylight was finite, after all.
Everything was so finite.
And Nakaroth stayed, just watching her. Her skin prickled. The urge to throw herself at him, just to be held, bit into her like a cobra, injecting her with poisonous helplessness and fear.
She opened her mouth to ask him if he was ready and instead heard herself blurt, “I’m going to kill her, aren’t I?”
“No,” he said.
“You don’t know me. I can’t hold a job, I can’t keep an apartment, I can’t make friends…” She thought about it, thoughts like smoke—shadowed, choking, insubstantial—and laughed. “The only thing I’ve ever done right the first time was kill people!”
He ignored that. “I do not say that you will save her life, but know that you do not take it. These next moments will be terrible ones. You will be strong. You will see it through.”
She nodded, dropping her eyes.
“And I will be there when it is done.”
It would be easy to tell him, yet again, that she didn’t need him. This time, she kept it to herself.
So it happened. It took forever. Hours. Maybe eight minutes, start to finish. There was screaming and sobbing and blood hitting her face and the feel of bone grinding and cracking under the knife and hot, infected flesh squishing under her hand and Nona shut her mind away from all of it. She looked and made herself see paper, made the knife be a pencil, made herself draw that line over and over until it was done, and even though she never looked at him, she was aware of Nakaroth beside her. He was the only thing she was aware of until it was over. Not Leila, not even herself, just him…and the line she drew.
