Dusk, a cool breeze played through my hair as I knelt in the meadow. There was a sharp rock trying to separate my right kneecap from my body. I was pretty sure the two large males standing like bookends, looming over my kneeling frame, were not overly concerned with my comfort when they threw me to the ground fifteen minutes before.
The rock was sharp and absurdly painful, but I did not dare even shift my weight. The council was conferring and I did not want to draw their attention back to me any sooner than necessary.
They were supposed to be debating my guilt or innocence. The only debate so far had been over how to execute me. I had been declared guilty before we even got to the meadow where my tribe usually gathered for important events.
Like trials.
That night it was just the council and my two guards. I was silently thankful the entire tribe did not have to suffer through this miserable excuse for a trial.
My body ached but the pain was nothing compared to the agony in my soul. How could this be happening to me?
The Mejore was suddenly standing in front of me. The eldest of the council, the one to pass down the verdicts, our Shaman, our Chief.
He was in half-man form, deadly black claws sprouted from his fingers and toes. His legs were long, powerful, canine legs. His head was huge and the wolf muzzle was grey with age.
He towered over me when in human form, he positively dwarfed us all in half-man.
The muscular males had my arms, pulling me up straighter and driving the rock through to the joint, by the feel of it.
The pain managed to distract me momentarily and I thought I heard the rumble of a vehicle in the distance. I swung my head toward the road and thought I saw headlights, but it was still not full dark and was hard to be sure.
A massive, clawed hand gripped my jaw hard enough that I swore I heard the bone creak and spun my face back to stare into the amber wolf-eyes of the Mejore. He continued to squeeze painfully hard as he spoke in the clipped sounds of our people's tongue.
I felt their presence up by the road, however, and was again distracted from his words though I could not turn my face. I held his eyes while I reached down within myself and opened my gift. My empathy.
I reached out with it. Out beyond the group of shape-changers waiting to put me down. I ignored their eagerness, their excitement over the blood that was about to be shed. Pack law is brutal and unquestioned. There would be no tears shed for me.
I reached out in an ever-expanding circle until I really felt the strangers.
Humans!
The shock of it nearly threw my concentration, but I did not want to betray them to their deaths if they were just passers-by, out of their car for a stretch and a pee break. The thought almost made me laugh. Brutal pack law + my bleeding f***ing heart = me currently kneeling on my tribe's version of Death Row.
Yep, that's worked out well for me so far.
I reached out to each of them, their emotions sliding over me like a soft cloth over my skin. Both were tingling with adrenaline but devoid of fear, they were moving closer. I felt a thrill of compassion and something that felt almost like protectiveness from each in their turn and it dawned on me - they were going to try to rescue me.
I swallowed a groan when I realized from the road I must look like a damsel in distress.
I was sure this could get worse, I just wasn't sure how.