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The wolves had been pushing up into our territory for years. They just never quit. They seemed to consider it a point of honor to expand their territory. We'd given them the steppes when I was just a young girl, but we weren't going to so easily fold in the mountains. This was our territory, and we had precious little of it left.

The pride lands were southeast of us, and the lions there were our closest allies, but they had long ago broken ties with us. They weren't aggressive, but they just weren't interested in helping us. They had their own war on with the wolves, the largest land owners by far. To them, helping us was an expenditure of resources they just didn't have, but we needed their help.

The Snow Leopards only held tenuous territory at this point. One could look at our map and say that we held a huge swath of mountain land, but the problem was that it was mountain land and that didn't leave us a lot of room for villages and towns. Our population was dwindling, and constant fighting on our borders with the wolves wasn't helping. The only thing keeping us alive was that the wolves were greedy and had wars going on multiple fronts. They couldn't dedicate a large force to taking us.

I was a Spirit Walker, an elite warrior of my people. We were female, all of us, a sect dedicated to training to defend our people. We mastered hand to hand and the long knife, and we also learned the song of the wind, our people's magic. It was the only advantage we had over the Wolves. They'd forbidden the practice of magic, considering it evil and vile. Without our connection to the magic, we would have been wiped out long ago.

The reason all Spirit Walkers were female was simply that only females could hear the song of the wind. I wasn't sure why that was, but it was long known that males were deaf to the song. There were many brave male warriors, but none of them could become elite warriors. My Leap was composed of eleven other women, and it was our job to play forward scouts. One of the wolven princes was pushing our boundary, seeking to claim land and favor with his father. Well, we weren't sure he was a prince. We really knew little of how the wolves worked their inner politics. All we knew was that occasionally someone would get it in their mind to push us further into the mountains to gain favor, and we would have to fight to get our territory back.

This fighting was becoming more urgent because Rhao-Kaan, the village of fertility, was getting closer and closer to the edge of our controlled lands. Most of our male caregivers lived there. They watched our children and kept our tales. If we had a capital, it would be Rhao-Kaan, and once it had been located in the very center of our lands. Now, however, as our lands shrank, it was nearer and nearer the edge, and we fought harder and harder to keep it.

"There is a regiment ahead." Yiv said softly "Fifty armed wolves, pikes, swords and bows." Her words broke me from my thoughts and I peered over the ridge down into the rocky valley below. They were moving towards our main road which would put them just four miles outside of Rhao-Kaan, and within an easy march.

"We should kill them now." Ina said, voice dark. She was minxed, born with her white and black colors inverted. It made her less capable at blending in on the snowy slopes, but she made up for it with speed and raw strength.

"They outnumber us almost four to one." I noted, peering over the ridge. I was snow-born, birthed during a terrible blizzard, and for some reason my fur was mostly white but for a few small black spots. I didn't have the beautiful rosettes that most of my kind had. My eyes were also yellow instead of blue, very unusual for one of my kind, but it seemed that a lot of the best Spirit Walkers were just a little strange.

"You're always too careful, Eve." Ina growled. "We have the element of surprise, and we're faster than they are. We can push up a flurry of snow and kill most of them before they even know what's happening.

"Caution is wise." Bet said softly. She was the oldest of us, and the one we looked to for leadership, though technically none of us outranked any other. "Normally I would agree with Eve, but this time it's different. They're at our doorstep. We have kittens playing and drinking milk just a few miles away. We can't afford caution today."

"Haha, I win!" Ina said darkly.

I sighed and pulled my knife from my belt. The blade was about the length of my forearm, just a bit longer. "How should we do this?" I asked Bet.

"We'll advance in a wave formation, pushing the wind in front of us. The snow is deep down there. They'll think it's a gust stirring up snow, but we'll follow it in quietly. Use the howl of the wind to silence your steps. Kill as many as you can in that first rush, because between that wave and the next one we summon, they're going to know we're there."

"We only need to kill four each. That isn't so bad." Ina was confident as ever.

The twelve of us formed up, and on Bet's signal we jumped the ridge and streamed down. The wind wasn't easy to move. It seemed like it shouldn't take much effort, but there was a lot of mass to be pushed. Moving a small, compact amount very quickly wasn't too hard, but moving enough to create the blow we needed was something else entirely. Still, we were well trained, and the snow rose up before us in a wall. A few feet down the bank and I could hear the wolves below yelling a warning to each other to cover up. Their covering would provide us with just a little more time to kill.

Just because we could control the wind, didn't mean we could see through the wall of white we'd risen. I wasn't sure we'd reached the enemy line until I almost ran into the first wolf. I shoved my knife up under his chin before he noticed I was there, killing him cleanly and quickly. I hoped the others were doing so as well. I found my second target in the wall of white and did the same. Somewhere out beyond me I heard a loud male scream and a gurgle.

"We're under attack!" Someone yelled, and then chaos exploded. The snow wave died down and we were exposed. We drew up the next wave, but by the time it was on us we were in full conflict with the wolves. Their swords versus our knives.

"Kill the damn cats!" Someone yelled nearby and pivoted and pulled a knife from another man's throat. The fight only went on a few more minutes, but when the battle cleared and the snow finally settled again, it was time to take stock.

There were only eleven of us standing. I looked around, trying to count faces, but it was easy enough to tell who was missing. She was the most vocal of all of us. "Ina?" I asked.

Across from me Rei shook her head and pointed a few feet away. I stepped over and saw Ina laying atop a wolf. He'd run his sword up through her stomach and into her ribcage after she'd struck him too low to kill him instantly. It hurt to see her dead. We'd never gotten along well, but she was still a sister in my Leap. I knelt at her side.

"Spirits take you home, sister." I said, laying my hand on her head.

"We're missing one." Bet said, and I could see her counting the wolves again. She nodded as she finished. "One got away. We need to find him and kill him."

"I'll take him." Nit snarled, slashing her knife through the air. "Damned dogs killed one of ours. I'm going to kill him slow."

Bet shook her head. "No, Eve, you go. Track him carefully. Kill him fast."

"Bet, no! I want this kill!" Nit hissed, coming forward to stand toe to toe with her elder. "Let me have the mongrel!"

"You forget yourself, Nit! We are Spirit Walkers, we cross people from life to death with honor and grace. We defend our people. We do not use violence while under the sway of rage, and we do not prolong suffering. Eve will take this. She is level headed, and I trust her to be swift with the knife." Bet looked at me.

I nodded back, though I was angry too. I wasn't so angry I'd let it break my oath to never act out of cruelty. "I will end him and report back when I'm done." I said, and then I began to search for a trail. It didn't take me too long. The wolf had been injured. He was bleeding, and in the snow that meant he was very easy to trace. I slipped off into the woods after him, knife at the ready.

At first the blood trail was obvious. He was bleeding from a good sized wound, and I suspected he'd be weak when I came upon him. Then the blood trail vanished, and shortly after his tracks. I had to track him by scent. He was heading down the mountain toward lower, warmer places. I went surprisingly long without seeing him at all, and then I came to a cliff ledge he'd followed along and looked out from it to the lake beyond. It was big enough and warm enough here that it wasn't frozen over, and there was the wolf.

He'd taken or torn off his shirt and seemed to be rinsing his chest with obvious pain and difficulty. He was all white. He let out soft whimpers as he worked, and he shivered badly, from shock or cold or both.

I continued down the ridge slowly. I could see him from the top of ridge but not as I descended into the trees and headed for the lake. I could hear him very well though, the bowl in which the lake sat working like some kind of amplifier for all sound within it.

"H-have to freeze it again, or I'll bleed to death." He teeth chattered as he spoke to himself. "Stupid choice, die by blood loss or die by cold." He was quiet a moment. "Or die by leopard I guess, hope they gave up chasing me when I covered my tracks. It wasn't enough though, not enough, need to get m-moving again." He sounded fairly young, and a bit scared, though all things considered he was holding himself together fairly well.

It was a shame, really, that our peoples had to be at odds. It was sad that young people died so that ones people could claim land. Had the wolves been more reasonable, we might have shared things, but they wanted ownership, and they didn't like cats. I stirred a small breeze as I came forward, hiding the sounds of my footfalls. Moving silently was one of the things I was very good at, so it was incredibly surprising to me when my foot sank into the snow and I stepped on a twig. The branch snapped loudly beneath my foot and I froze in place, whiskers going forward as I crouched. There wasn't as much snow here and I stood out quite a bit with my extra white coat.

The wolf jumped and turned, noticing me. His lip curled up with an incoming growl, but he stopped it in his chest, a low rumbling barely audible. "You're going to kill me." He said, sounding understandably unhappy about it. "Anything I could say to change your mind?" He asked, stepping backward away from me. He was moving backward into the lake though, only the water was holding him. Across his chest over a nasty slash there was a swash of ice, red in the center where his blood was melting and freezing into the ice. It was how he'd stopped the blood trial. His eyes were a dark blue in color, and his face was very expressive, indicating all his many emotions from fear to sadness and a determination to hold on.

"I'm sorry you had to see me." I said moving slowly forward. I let go of the breeze I'd been carrying with me. "I wanted to make it quick and painless for you. You weren't even supposed to know I was here. Unless you can promise me in some way that I can trust that you'll never return home to your people, I'm afraid we're at an impasse. I can't let you live to report the details of what happened."

I noticed that the water was forming ice for him to step on as he moved backward, but those same caps made to hold him instantly started to dissolve once he'd left them behind. Swimming after him was ill advised, but then again. He could put himself into the middle of the lake and then have nowhere to go. The wolf looked down at the water. He seemed shocked for a moment, and then on his next step, already half committed, he fell and formed an ice patch underneath himself. "Oh!" He said, surprised, but his eyes instantly flashed up to me, keeping an eye on my wearabouts. "You were just going to kill me without giving me that option?" He asked shakily as he recovered enough to sit up.

"It's not a matter of an option really. Can I really trust you? What good is your word? What good is the word of any wolf? We have a paper saying that the mountains and their passes are our lands, signed by your ruler six generations gone, and that word meant nothing. Even if you swore now I couldn't trust you. Come out of the water and face your death, wolf." I wanted to ask how he was doing that trick with the ice, and I was beginning to wonder if I should find out. Were the wolves working on magic? That could take away the small advantage that we had.

He looked angered by my words. "The most of us are as trustworthy as the bulk of your own population. It's our leaders who've lost their heads, and they send out armies of people to die that they have little knowledge of." He shook his head, frustrated about the topic and this situation. "We don't kill yours when we capture them." It was strange to hear about such a disconnected people, that there was a ruling class with so little in common with the soldiers they sent out. Our people lived all together, interacting. We knew who and what we fought for. And he was right about them not killing our people that they were able to capture, but they became slaves. That wasn't at all preferable for us, but it sounded like this wolf prefered slavery to death. And his magic, what was I to make of that?

I knew my orders, but I also knew that I wasn't a cold blooded killer. If Nit had come out here, we wouldn't have a problem, but I realized that my intent to kill was falling off. I shouldn't have spoken to him. I knew that was a mistake.

"You would give me your word that you will not try to flee back to your own people?" The last of my resolution dwindled. He'd already won his life, at least to the point that he posed a threat. "You'll come with me, return to my village and talk to the elders?" What would they make of me bringing back a prisoner? We just didn't do that unless they were pregnant or under the age of adulthood, which was twenty years by our people's standards. Maybe I could get him leniency on that account. He looked like he might be less than twenty, certainly at least a couple of years younger than myself. I was twenty-two.

The wolf lowered his eyes, thinking, and he shivered hard as he did. He had a somewhat defeated look about him. "Well, I guess ... Alright." He said softly. "I promise not to try and flee." I could see that giving the promise took a lot out of him, that he hated saying it. He got up with some difficulty, stumbled, and stepped forward onto the water making himself another shelf of ice to walk on. He stared at it, then looked at me, and at the water, and took another step forward. He fell into the water.

The wolf yelped and moved quickly, scrambling for shore. He might have frozen to death before he reached it in his condition, but as he scrambled upward, he ended up on a ledge of ice. He came up and shook, freezing from the cold now so that most of the water flew off of him in little ice spikes. He looked at me, half terrified, and started for shore again, this time on ice steps over the water's surface appeared again. He didn't seem to understand his own ability.

He stood, looking at me wearily, fearfully, and with a small degree of hate too. He still had his pants on, and a belt on them that contained a dagger in a sheath and basic survival tools for the mountains and forest area. He was clearly shaking too badly with cold to mount any kind of defense, and his eyes were dull, his face twisted in pain. The shaking he couldn't control in his body's quest for heat was probably doing his chest no favors.

I realized he would be dead long before we got back if we didn't do something about this. Killing him would be kinder if I didn't help.

"Take off your clothes, throw your knife in the pond." I told him, and I immediately turned and started collecting loose wood. We'd camp here tonight. I could get a roaring fire going and get him warm enough, and then the next day we'd return and report in. I pointed to a small dip in the ground next to a hill. It would provide a natural reflector for my fire and keep the heat in. "Lay there." I told him, taking off my pack and tossing it to the ground. "There is a heavy blanket in there, wrap yourself." I ordered. I'd have to take off my clothes and get under with him to restore his body temperature. I didn't relish the task. Some wolves had been known to rape cats before dispatching them by biting their neck. They had dangerous, powerful jaws.

The wolf took off his clothing with a terrible effort. Even so, he gave the dagger a forlorn look before tossing it away. Working my pack open and pulling the blanket out took even more of an effort for the frosty wolf. He seemed to concentrate very hard, but his fingers were stiff and shaking. Finally he pulled the blanket free and pulled it over himself, looking exhausted as he curled into as tight a ball as he could manage.

The biggest problem was there was no heat in him to radiate back with the blanket. He'd still freeze. I worked quickly to gather wood, using my wind magic to uncover wood. It was wet, but it would burn. I had a good fire kit. I was back inside a couple of minutes with enough wood to last us the night. I set it up and and immediately set to work lighting it. It was easy enough to get the fire going, though it took a little to get it roaring. Luckily, channeling a small amount of air under the flame helped make it burn faster and hotter. Once it was going, I stood up and began to undress. I put my things in a neat pile nearer to me than him, tucking my knife at the bottom.

"If you do anything even a little bit strange, I'll still kill you, wolf." I told him as I crawled closer to him. "Open the blanket."

He looked bewildered, but obeyed quickly. "Um, strange?" He asked tentatively.

"If you touch me inappropriately, attempt to put anything in me, or your mouth gets too near my neck, I'll kill you very quickly. I'm an adept killer, and I don't trust you. I'll err on the side of caution." I told him as I crawled into the blankets behind him and put my arms around him, pulling him back against me. I tucked my legs against him as well, which brought my sex up against his back, his tail pushing against the delicate folds that hid my entrance. We'd practiced the best position for getting warmth into someone freezing, and it involved exposing as much of our body to theirs as possible. It hadn't been as awkward with my sisters as this was. Ideally we would have laid front to front in something we called, "lover's embrace," but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. His body was very, very cold against me, and all six of my nipples were instantly hard. I was glad he could probably only feel the two on my top breasts, since my others were completely flat since I'd never had kittens.

The wolf shivered quietly, and he seemed to try and suppress the shivering even. He had more success at it as he warmed up some. Then, as he began to recover from the cold, it seemed his natural male reflexes began to stir. I could smell that he was becoming somewhat aroused, even though he made no move to turn his head or body in my direction. The scent of male pheromones was impossible to mistake, even if he was trying to be harmless. His tail too had been stiff as a board trying not to bother me in it's precarious position. "What will the council do to me?" He asked finally.

I growled, frustrated at having to deal with this male. "I don't know." I answered truthfully. "We don't bring in prisoners usually. We make occasional exceptions for the young and the pregnant, but those are usually not allowed . . . " I didn't want to say "Not allowed near our most important villages," because then he'd know why we pursued him so thoroughly. ". . . not allowed near our settlements, they're kept in the woods and released back. You they will need to talk to. We need to know about your magic, and about anything else you might know that is useful." Despite my efforts to the contrary, I was feeling slightly aroused myself. His smell and the small motions of his tail against my sensitive nub were sending a tendril of pleasure through me. I'd fooled around with my sisters before, but I'd never been with a male. I'd never even really allowed myself to think about it, and now I was thinking about it and he wasn't even a leopard. My agitation was rising in time to my arousal. I hoped he couldn't smell me getting wet.

"How old are you?" I asked, deciding I'd change the subject. "Your chances are better if you're not old enough to be considered an adult amongst my people. Wolves are considered adults by their own far too young."

"It sounds to me like I'll be questioned and then killed." He said miserably. "I don't have any magic. Or a great deal of information I can think of, and even if I did, I'd be dead as soon as it left my mouth." He shifted in agitation a little, rubbing my nipples and clit unintentionally. He was quiet for a moment. "I'm 18. 19 in two weeks, if I live that long." He sighed. "I thought I was promising not to run off in return for being a slave, but now I've promised not to run off in return for death to come in a few days instead of immediately. Stupid."

"You're not an adult by my people's standards. They probably won't kill you, and we don't keep slaves." I told him, a slight growl in my voice, partially because he was being sullen, and partially because my arousal was getting to me. "I will vouch for your honor, assuming you give me a reason to, and that will be considered. The council has never ordered an execution." I added the last bit, though the truth was they'd never needed to. We'd never brought a prisoner to them before. Besides, they had other ways of dealing with unwanted guests. I was an idiot for getting myself involved in this. Quiet fell upon us, a silence I was thankful for.

The scent of his own arousal had diminished, and he went quiet. It took a while, but then his breathing evened out in sleep. It was troubled sleep, and he shifted more than he had when he was awake, making all kinds of noises, mostly distressed ones. Then his arousal began to return as he settled into a more relaxed sleep.

He was warmer now, which was nice, but his arousal, and the state of my own was not helping me to relax into my own sleep. In frustration I slid one of my hands down from him and around to my own sex, pushing my fingers through my folds to my entrance. I pushed my middle finger into my body and let out a staggered sigh as my sheath pulsed around it. I had an inappropriate urge to look at his sheath and see if his cock had slid out. I wondered what he'd look like. I'd never seen a wolf male. I'd only seen a male of my own kind once. His cock had been light pink with barbs at the tip. I'd come across one of my sisters sucking off her boyfriend and I had watched for a few seconds before they noticed and I was laughed away for staring at them.

I wondered if wolves were a lot like cats below the waist. I pushed a second finger into my sheath and began to very gently rock my hips against my hand. I had to bite my bottom lip to stop from moaning as the pressure in my sex began to build. I pictured the wolf I was holding pinning me down, his teeth on my neck as he forced his cock into my body. I pictured it light pink and barbed, the sharp little edges hurting a bit as he forced it deep into me.

I pushed my thumb against my clit and rubbed as I began to throb. The tension was building and my breathing was getting hard. I pulled my fingers out quickly and forced myself to take a few deep breaths. I'd almost climaxed. I couldn't do it silently. I would have called out, and he would have woken. That was close. The problem was, now I wanted it more than I had before. I gave a small growl in agitation. I'd told him not to do anything strange and here I was fingering myself while I held him.

The hand that had just been working my own sex moved to his hip, and then I slid it around a bit further. My arousal had gotten ahead of me, and now I couldn't make myself stop. He was my prisoner. He couldn't do anything. He'd have to do what I wanted. He was so young, though. I wasn't supposed to play with him even if he was one of my own, still a child. A child who'd been in a war. My fingers traced his inner thigh and went to lightly rub over his sheath.

His cock was halfway free of his sheath and partially hard. His member felt sleek, not until a cat's, except the tip wasn't right. It was smooth all the way to the pointed tip. He hummed a soft note in his sleep and shifted a little, but otherwise didn't react as his penis hardened slightly more in my hand. He was getting bigger than I would have expected a male feline to feel.

I wrapped my hand around his sheath and began to slowly, very carefully, stroke him as I pressed my sex against the base of his tail, my clit rubbing against his fur. I let out a stifled sigh of pleasure as I touched him. It felt bad to be doing this, but I was so hot, and his life was mine right now. I could have killed him. The least he could do was help me get a little relief. I deepened my stroking and began to gently rub his strange length as well.

The wolf's hips began to rock a bit in time to my tugs on his cock, making his tail rub against me in hard, deep strokes I hadn't exactly expected. He let out a very quiet moan in his sleep. My fingers were slowly getting coated in his sticky and yet slick precum.

The sensation against my sex was quite intense, and I had to bury my face in his back a bit so I didn't call out. This was going to be embarrassing if he woke, or when he woke up, since it was really only a matter of time. I began to stroke just his strange, big shaft. It was so large. I wasn't sure how I could get into me. It would hurt, knew that. The idea still sent a spark of excitement all the way to my core. My hand picked up pace on him. I wanted him to cum. I wanted to feel the throbbing of his length as he went off. My inner ears blushed red. I was enjoying this too much.

From his breathing and the way his body was moving, I thought he might be getting close. And then I felt a bulge emerge from his shaft, a balbus portion which his hips suddenly jerked hard against my hand as he cried out softly and came. His hips drew back and slammed forward again, cock throbbing in my hand and it's thick base pushing against the base of my hand.

I was more than a bit surprised by that, scared just a little, but his hard thrust, and pull back hit me in such a way that I came, calling out a bit more loudly than I meant to against his back he thrusted forward into my hand and I gripped the thick bulb at the base of his member. Gods, was that supposed to go in a woman? I was a bit horrified. Dogs really were strange and gross Though my body was still shaking in the aftermath of the orgasm this one had just given me, so it was hard to be too judgemental.

I was wondering if he was awake when he let out a soft cough as though clearing his throat. His ears were laid back, and he felt a little stiff, but he didn't say anything.

"Are you awake?" I asked, deciding it was better to address this. I felt a wave of guilt now that I'd taken my relief from him without his permission.

He was quiet a moment more. "Yes." He said finally, quietly.

"Are you . . . are you angry with me?" I could have owned him, treated him like garbage and made him feel like I'd just used him and didn't care, but I did care. I didn't want to be a bad person, and this hadn't been good. I'd abused my power over him. This wasn't the way of my people.

"Does it matter?" He asked, with very little heat to it. "I don't think I have much room to be angry anyway. I'm a bit ... embarrassed I guess. I don't know." He sounded somewhat upset but covering it up well.

"It matters. This was wrong of me. I shouldn't have taken advantage of you. My people would be ashamed of me, and I'm ashamed of myself. I've never been so close to a naked male and it . . . my own desires got the better of me." I slipped out of the blanket we were sharing and into the cold. I walked to the water and rinsed his seed from my hands before dressing. "If you swear you won't tell your people about any of this, you can go home." I told him, realizing that letting him go was dooming myself. I would be cast out of the Spirit Walkers. I'd failed in an important task and my trust was broken. I could lie and say he was dead, but that wouldn't be honorable either.

The wolf sat up, looking down at his lap with the blanket over it. His ears were back, and his expression pulled together in some kind of distress. "Won't you get in trouble?" He asked, sounding confused.

I grunted in a noncommittal way. "Trouble happens. We're at war, and when you make mistakes in war there is always trouble." I shrugged as I sat down near the fire again, on the opposite side from him. "Your clothes are almost dry. I'll make sure your wounds are well patched, then you go at first light."

"I ... You ..." He sighed and looked genuinely upset. He even cursed quietly to himself. "I don't want you to be in trouble for helping me. And they're just going to put me back on the front line. My father figures I'll either make an indisputable war hero of myself, or I'll be killed. Either way, I won't be a problem anymore." His ears flattened again and he sighed. "I just don't understand. I don't know what I should do, or can do about anything. I don't know why you're helping, either by letting me go or taking me to this counsel, and I don't know which way is really helpful to me. I don't know what being a slave to your kind would be like, though it sounds like it's more likely I'll be killed than enslaved since you said they don't keep slaves. But I just keep thinking I'm a prisoner. So when you ... touched me. I just assumed that it was like, ownership, you expressing a desire for me or at least a desire to dominate me. Or maybe you liked me, which was stupid to think. We don't know each other, we're enemies according to our leaders." He shook his head and clamped his jaws shut on his torrent of words.

I almost wanted to laugh. He was thoughtful for a scrubby little pup. "What I did to you was . . . it was a reaction to arousal, yours and mine. I could smell your excitement, and it spurred mine as well. I knew it was wrong, and yes, part of me did justify it by me telling myself that it was okay because you were my prisoner, but that doesn't make it right. You're a person, even if you're the enemy. My people have a very strong code of ethics. The enemy is to be killed as quickly and painlessly as possible, and killing should never be fueled by anger and hatred. That's the kind of thing that leads to cruelty. What I did is another thing that can lead to cruelty, taking advantage of someone who is helpless to resist."

I sighed and shook my head. "If you come back with me I won't let anyone hurt you. I'll claim you Fa'Tep, life-responsibility. It means that we'll be tied together. Your actions will reflect on me, and my honor will be linked to yours. If you do wrong, then I am punished first. You are protected under our law once claimed. This doesn't make you my property, but more like my child, my charge, my responsibility. If we can prove you're worthy, you become Fa'Opt, life-earned. You're your own man again, no tie to me at all. Normally this is for men and women who break our laws but that we feel deserve a second chance, but I will do this for you since I have wronged you. Perhaps this way you can find a purpose, and I can restore my honor in your eyes, and mine."

The wolf looked shocked, and his ears were up but flushed red on the inside. "You would do that for me? I mean, adopt me because you molested me? That's kind of ... weird, and extreme. Maybe you're being a bit hard on yourself, it felt good, and I was certainly aroused at the time." His eyes flashed downward into his lap again in embarrassment. "Will your people even let you do that?"

"Yes, my people will let me do that. Some of them won't be happy, but it works by our laws, and this is only extreme if you decide to betray me and ruin me, otherwise I'm just repaying a debt I owe you." I shrugged, my inner ears flushing a little because he'd said it felt good. I caught myself thinking about his strange thing again and how it might feel inside of me. "I'm part of a very elite group amongst my people, wolf. We survive on honor. If I don't have that, then I have nothing."

The wolf nodded slowly, though he still looked embarrassed and upset. "So, I'm getting this chance in exchange for the sexual, thing that we did." He said uncomfortably. He s took a deep breath. "Alright, that sounds like a plan. I'll tell your people all I know, and we'll go from there." He nodded. "I'll get to leave the war, and live, and you get to keep your position and reclaim your honor or something."

I frowned. "It's not for . . . I'm not paying you for the sexual favor, it's not like that, I'm trying to apologize for taking advantage of you." I growled a bit. "If you'd prefer I take you in and you can try your luck without me vouching for you. We don't keep slaves, and they probably won't kill you. You're underage. They'd likely release you on the northern border, into Tooth pass. There is no way back down to your people from there, at least not without going back through our villages." I didn't mention that we'd never had anyone come back up that pass either. It was pretty much a death sentence, either that or there was something very nice further down there that made people not want to come back.

"I didn't say that." The wolf snapped a little, defensive. "I don't understand your honor thing really well, but I understand being a whore, and I'm alright with that if it means I can live. I'll work on understanding the honor thing as we go." He offered. "I'm just trying to understand this enough to know what's going on. I'd be very grateful if you'd ... adopt me, for a while. And I'll do my best to do right by your honor. Please." He rose his pleading, confused eyes to mine. And I could see his eyes were a bit dazed yet. His chest was caked in blood, mostly dried but not all of it. And night was coming on.

"You're not a whore. I won't touch you sexually again." I told him, frustrated. "Settle down before you pass out. I'm going to treat your wounds and then we're going to eat and sleep. You need rest, and food rich in iron to replenish your blood. Fluids as well. There is water in my skin, you can drink what you will." I pointed him to my water skin next to my pack. "I will vouch for you. I think you're honorable enough for a dog, but we need to make sure you live through the night first."

The wolf sighed and nodded. He looked tired and miserable, but he drank from my water skin gratefully. "I'm sorry I've angered you." He said. "And that I'm so messed up I can't do much of anything." He said, sounding a bit annoyed with himself.

"Look at it this way, you're alive, and that's a far sight better than any of the other in your Leap . . . Pack? I don't know your word for your groups, but you did better than the others, and you weren't as easy to track as I thought you'd be. Of course, you might just be a coward. You ran and the others died." She shrugged. "Being alive is smarter than dying to hopeless odds." I moved in closer to him and opened my back, grabbing several items before I started in on his wounds. I packed the damaged flesh with herbs that would help him heal and set about bandaging it with clean wrappings. I tried not to look down at his sheath as I worked.

He shot me a momentary glare, but it fell away quickly. "Maybe I am a coward." He allowed. "I never wanted to be a war hero, and then I was injured, watching the people who'd quickly become my friends dying so very quickly. I could see as things were settling you were coming out on top. So I slipped away." He sighed. "At least Maz wasn't with us, but Pro is gone."

It hadn't occurred to me to think of the wolves as people with names. I knew they were, logically, but in a war situation it didn't pay to focus on it. "They died quickly, and they killed one of ours as well. She was brash and impulsive, probably tried to take more than she was able. One of my sisters wanted to kill you very badly, but I was given the task instead." I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry about your friends. You were . . . " I felt like I owed him an explanation, though I wasn't certain why. "You were very near the place where many of our children grow and play. Your people haven't found it yet, but you were close."

He nodded slowly, and was quiet for a long moment. "I'm glad we didn't find your den, but I wish it was the men who ordered us around that died instead of my friends."

"That is the way of war. The men who wage them, never fight them." I said, an adage that I guessed was probably universally accepted. I finished patching him and produced my rations for him. I gave him the dried liver I was carrying. It was exceptional for helping a person replenish lost blood.

"I know little of wolves, tell me about your family?" I asked as we ate. He and I would be together for a while. I figured it was good for us to know one another.

"My mother and father are clan leaders, they control over 12 local packs. Magic is vilified, and unfortunately, it was discovered that I have magic. Not that I can control it. Mom hated the idea, but it was all they could think of to do, sending me to war. I have five sisters and two brothers. We were born in three litters. I've been missing my twin a lot, Quay. She was writing me letters regularly but now ..." He shrugged. "Well, maybe someday I can get back to my people's lands and send her a letter. Someday. What about you, your family?" He said, clearly seeking a change in topic.

"My father helps raise kittens in Rhao-Kaan, but my mother died when I was very young, protecting our land along the southern border. Many of our women who choose the warrior's path die. I have two actual sisters, and four brothers, but I have seen very little of them. It was decided that I'd be a Spirit Walker, which meant that I spent most of my life in training." I shrugged. "I suppose I have even less than you to say about my family. We can find a way to get a letter to your littermate. We can't exactly send a courier, but I'm sure we can think of something."

The wolf smiled then, the first one I'd seen on him. It was bright and pleased, his tail waged. "Thank you, that's a relief. I'm sorry your family isn't closer, it seems to me warriors would do better knowing what they're fighting for, caring about it, and one way to foster those emotions is to be close to your family. Especially for defenders. I mean look at me, I'm not really sure what I was fighting for really, so I nearly died and abandoned the fight."

"You're probably right." I said, nodding. "You're clever for a dog." I told him, but I smiled a bit too. He wasn't so bad really.