If you like music while you read, try "My Demons" by STARSET. It's what I was listening to while writing this scene.
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~ TARKYN ~
Minutes later, Tarkyn made himself brace. Didn't allow himself to look away. Refused to shrink from the sight of the humbled warrior before them. He knew without looking that his soldiers were similarly moved—one had had to leave to throw up. Not because what they saw was so horrific, but because all of them knew that it could become their fate.
A soldier, a guard, a sentry… a male's role in defense didn't really matter. Tarkyn had brought his warriors up to understand: When you put your body between your people and an enemy, you accepted the risk that the day may come that your control was taken from you.
From the first moment he'd seen this male tied on that plinth, Tarkyn had been unable to shake the feelings of empathy. He knew it was only by the grace of the Creator that he hadn't ended up in human hands—and apparently tormented in exactly this way.
And he knew, just as he watched in this wolf-warrior, that if the day would come that he'd be forced to watch his family in the hands of an enemy—perhaps in hands of this very male—that he would have reacted in exactly the same way.
When his mate, hair tucked behind her ears and her hands shaking, had circled the plinth, unlocking his chains, the male had appeared to lose control.
First she freed one hand and arm, and he snarled, flailing, attempted to sit up, but was held down by the other arm she worked quickly to unlock.
When the second hand was free, he shoved upright in a blink, then tipped over, his blood pressure uneven from the tranquilizers, plus so long spent on his back.
He growled and snarled, grasping, desperate to fight, to free himself, but unable to do anything but wait until the moment his mate finally unlocked the last of his chains.
And then he shifted—just as Tarkyn would have done.
The instinct of his beast would have been hammering at him from the moment he woke—and likely from within the drugged sleep as well.
But as the male shifted in a massive, near-black wolf with ice-blue eyes and threw himself from the plinth, all the soldiers flinched.
The males hands and feet—his paws in wolf form—were thick and clubbed with swelling from hanging for so long, and his battle with the chains. His legs couldn't bear his weight, and he slipped the moment he hit the floor of the tree, his front legs splaying out, his claws scrabbling on the floor, but unable to find purchase as his body likely had no sensation in his paws and lower limbs.
He whined and snarled, scrambling, his back legs scraping and giving away under him, even when he propped himself on his front.
Teeth bared and eyes fixed on Elreth, the male dragged himself across the floor placing his unresponsive body between his mate and the Queen, a savage growl rolling in his broad chest.
He was, Tarkyn could see, a formidable wolf. Almost as tall at the shoulder as Tarkyn would be in his lion form, but his limbs were finer, yet steely. Massive paws and a thick tail would give him a rock-solid center of gravity, while the bulk of his ruff and thick shoulders would protect his throat in a similar manner to Tarkyn's mane.
The male was dark and massive, clearly strong and skilled.
And yet… he scrabbled and dragged himself across the floor like a broken doll. The ferocious snarling never stopped as he warned any male—none in the room doubted him—that he would take the throat of any who came near.
Both Tarkyn and Aaryn took Elreth's elbows and tugged her back when the wolf made it within feet of the bars, just in case his lame nature was an act, a tactic.
But soon enough, he made it to the bars, his body trembling with effort and pain, eyes narrowed and teeth bared, the growl rolling, rolling, puttering and rising anytime any of them moved.
Even flat on his belly, his fierceness was unquestionable… and that was what turned Tarkyn's stomach.
This wasn't a male desperate, insane with fear. This was a fighter's vow. His heart was clear: It would be death on his enemies, or death for himself.
He swung his body in whip-quick swipes when one of them moved, jerking himself bodily to meet any potential threat, then remaining in position, trembling, that growl vibrating up from the floor where he lay, broken in body, but not in spirit.
"Zev, please… please…" his mate sobbed from behind him, but was smart enough not to reach out to touch him, to startle him when his senses were on such a hair-trigger.
It took minutes for him to calm enough that his ears flickered back, searching for his mate. And minutes more before he began to pant, his teeth still bared, eyes darting between each of them standing on the other side of the bars.
Tarkyn stood, heartbroken, unwilling to submit—to submit to this male would be death—but steeped in admiration.
When the male finally calmed and his mate was able to come forward, to place a hand on his back, Tarkyn didn't miss the way his skin stuttered under her touch.
His pain extended well beyond those swollen limbs.
And yet, the male ignored his own torment, and kept his focus on the threat at the other side of the bars.
Harth wept quietly at his side, while Tarkyn's guards paled. Not in fear, but in sympathy, each of them praying, he was sure, that they would never find themselves in a place of such vulnerability.
"A Warrior's Heart," he said solemnly. "You are acknowledged." It was a soldier's commendation to another, so all the guards knew it and repeated it quietly. Tarkyn had no way of knowing if there was a similar gesture where this wolf came from, but he quickly spoke to Harth in her mind, explaining that for one warrior to offer this to another meant that while they may be enemies, they were acknowledged as fighters of honor.
'He will not be humbled again for cruelty. He has proven his spirit."
Harth's forehead crinkled, but she didn't answer.
Tarkyn returned his attention to the wolf, whose sides pumped like bellows as he fought both pain and fear in the face of this unmoving enemy.
"You will not be tortured further," Tarkyn said clearly.
Elreth's head snapped around and she glared. "That is not your call to make."
"It is exactly my call—" Tarkyn said quietly in the same moment Gar broke in.
"I second the Captain," he growled.
The fire rose in Elreth's eyes, but she'd been affected enough herself to keep her anger in check.
"This seems a good time to let our… visitors reunite and rest. I would speak with my War Chief and my Captain."
Gar grunted, and Tarkyn stepped forward, his knees trembling with weariness, though he didn't allow himself to show it.
Rika and Harth inched up behind them, but Elreth's gaze snapped to each of them. "Alone," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
Beside him, Harth tensed, and once more, Tarkyn could barely breathe for the turmoil, the battle within that suddenly seemed to tear him in two.
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