Thunder bursts and the sky weeps.

Angry tones of rain play heavily against the windowpanes.

You are not a betrayal

The Savage's words still echo in the channel of my ear.

You are not a betrayal, I am.

Looking around he's already up, quietly making the first meal of the day. Somethings sizzling in the pan on the stove, but all I can smell is him. His scent still lingers on my flesh, close to my mouth.

'You're up." The Savage's greens find mine.

I can't look away.

You're not a betrayal, another whisper of his tone lingers its breath around my neck with loose tendrils of wispy sound.

When he takes the pan off the stove, he takes a plate with a flower painted on the upper right-hand corner before it's been fired in the kiln.

Placing the food on, he also pours me a hot tea in a cup with the same flower design. Dishes made for our house, to have our food on and drinks in.

He brings the beat of his heart to me, the closer he gets the more my beat turns irregular and jumpy.

"It's time to eat at the table." His hand goes to my closed fist, pulling gently but firmly on the wrist, so I stand up.

"I'm not ready to eat at the table yet." A crack of lightning zigzags in the temperamental sky another grumble of thunder shakes the structure of the house.

The Savage pulls the chair.

"Sit, I won't sit, I won't eat at the table until you're ready to have me sit with you." He takes his plate away, to lean against the kitchen counter.

Beginning the meal with my head down, looking at him at times.

"I've made hangers for your dresses." The tone of him shifts - sways within the small shell of the house. I look away but feel his sight still heating my neck where he's looking.

"They're called Silks, they are my Silks." My voice holds the respect they deserve.

"I've made hangers for your Silks." He says Silk precisely the way I've just spoken it with reverence.

He sets his plate down, washing his hands before going opening up the drawer to get a handful of hangers made from wood that has been sanded smooth and polished to bring out the grain of the wood.

"What did you use for this?" Feeling one of them with the pad of my fingers.

"Cedar, it will keep your Silks safe."

To my horror the Savage goes to my trunk lifting it up, to bring to the table.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to hang up your Silks while you eat."

"I can do that."

"I know, you finish your food. I'll do it." He opens the lid to my treasures.

Taking the first silk he puts it on the hanger, he stretches to put it on the hook that held me in my place while he cut my hair. My hand goes to my hair that's almost to my shoulders. His head bows to where I'm looking the only spot below his neck that was saved for me. Just above his heart.

Our eyes connect, and I look away, putting my fork down. I can't swallow anything more down.

"This is very pretty, did you make this?" When I look up, his finger is slowly, delicately tracing the petals of a flower just beginning to bloom.

"I made that when I was seventeen. It's the first Silk that all the juvenile females make after their first shift." I can't stop watching the way he's looking at the Silk, examining it.

The thunder once again shakes the world, while the rain drowns out all the other sounds from the outside.

He picks up another Silk, hanging it up.

"What tree is this?" The tree holds an abundance of olives, the oil of my pack.

"It's an olive tree, it makes the oils we cook with and rub into our bodies at times when the heat is at its worst." Saying a little too quick, a bit too excited.

"This Silk, what's this tree?" Pride harbors in the way my shoulders straighten.

My heritage is on full display.

"It's called a Date Palm." Standing now to go over to where he's looking. He is examining every detail so closely.

My finger goes next to his, "those are dates, and they're a staple at the beginning meal of the day. When I was still with my mother and father before my first shift, she would stuff them with goat cheese and basil leaves." I can hide the way my mouth waters for them.

He pulls another Silk out, with flowers that are fully open.

"This is larger than the other Silks." He can tell there is extra fabric on this one.

"This is what I would have worn if we had a successful mating after my heat. It would let everyone understand that my Nest now holds a Future within it.

Our bodies naturally lean into the other. His breath runs from my jaw to shoulder line. The heat of him clinging, burrowing into the bones of my spine.

...thighs shake.

"Do you want to wear that Silk?"

"I have an obligation and duty to the pack to wear that Silk it's why I was brought here. So yes I'll wear it." The Savage's forehead leans against the back of my head.

"You're more than that, Bessa."

Silence...

Lightning cracks and the thunder seems to reach the pinnacle of its intensity.

"What tree is this?" He's once again tracing the picture, the way he should have outlined the image on me. If things were different. It's the way a Male would know the path to his mate's most pleasurable places. The limb of the branch goes underneath my left rib, just below my breast. The leaf is where my nipple is at, he could have traced all the veins in that leaf that's how it's supposed to be between us at first.

Touching over Silk. Exploring the pictures with fingertips. 

Slowly understanding the lines of my body...while I discover the lines of his. 

Only tracing against the Silk, never the skin until I was ready to wear my Unveiling Silk.

If he followed the branch down, he would have had a path to the middle of my thighs. The trunk is the thickest there before it roots are buried in the fertile ground.

"It's a fig tree. My mother has them in her courtyard. We eat the fruit stuffed with ground Almonds and drizzled with honey." My mouth waters now.

"Do you like honey?" His finger now presses into my hips, gripping me while his nose traces the vein of my neck.

"Yes, I like honey."

"Where we are going there will be honey hives, the sweetest honey you will ever taste. We will eat right from the hive." His mouth is behind my ear.

"Did you ever feed her honey?" Please say no, please say no, chanting to myself.

He stiffens behind me, the beat of his heart pulls away.

The tears come.

Turning around I know, he doesn't have to say anything.

"I never want honey to be brought into this house." Turning from him. He reaches the next Silk hanging it up.

The Silence wedges itself between us. 

No more asking about my Lineage as he hangs up the rest of the Silks because I refuse to answer any more of his questions.

When he gets to the most prized possession my hands go over his to stop him from touching that Silk.

The treasure trunk closes along with my dreams.

"You have no rights to touch that Silk. That's my UnVeiling Silk. You have no rights to touch it or look at it. You will never see that dress on me." I try to explain through the cracks in my voice.

"My father spent years trading and saving his money for the gold thread used in that dress. My mother went without for that dress, she sacrificed for that dress. It holds our family fortune within those threads." My jaw hurts from the way my teeth are grinding against each other.

"They are good wolves who now suffer the burden of an unfair trade because of you and your ways. This dress holds what my dreams were about and now I have to live in a nightmare that holds no place for something so beautiful." I notice the thunder has stopped because I can't talk anymore. Taking my trunk putting it by the bed.

"You have no rights to this dress. You have no right to look at it. You have no right looking inside here again. It's mine, its the only thing left. I won't share it with you." My spine is rigid without a bend, letting him understand the truth of this.

"You never paid the full price for me. I will never give you what isn't paid for. My family is suffering because of you, and I am suffering because of you." Slapping words make the Savage stand straighter.

"I told you, Bessa, the Far North's army was never up for trade." He's standing firm in his spot.

"Am I not worth an army?" Chin up, defiant.

The Savage looks like a predator, stalking towards me. The sound of him stretches out on the floorboards vibrating into the marrow of my bones.

The beat of his heart in brought to my chest.

Taking my chin in his hand, he angles it upward towards his face.

His lips are too close to my mouth.

"You are worth an army, my Luna." Violent muscles bristle the Nature within him. The greens dilating, engoring within the small space.

"There will be no bondage for the Far North. We are no pack's slaves." His voice shakes the glass of the windows, and my shoulders shift because my spine wants to bend from his tone.

He releases my chin.

"Your family will be given compensation yearly for you. Your Alpha will be paid yearly for you. But Bessa we are no one's slaves - we will never be bartered for land. They want land, let them fight themselves for it and earn it the honorable way, not on the backs of others." Teeth start to descend. His lips pull back revealing his Terror of War.

"If you take the land you don't earn, then it's easily taken away because the pack has no understanding of how to hold it. I will not send wolves into battle because an Alpha wants land but can't take it himself. He will not be there standing point, he will not be there leading. He will be sitting watching until the battle is done."

The Savage rises to his full height. The flexion of muscles coil along the musculature of who he is, Alpha.

"You have an army my Luna. You will have command of the greatest army in the world. We will stand behind you if needed, but we will not stand in front of an Alpha of another pack for his greed." There tone of him on this matter is without a bend.

Sharp

Brutal

Raw

The beat of his heart pulls closer to me, a storm now rages between the two of us.

Teeth start to descend, the Wild within tones out her words of appreciation in a long rumbling growl from deep within my chest.

There is no more space between us. He has closed the distance. His nose once again tracing the dilating vein of my neck. Hands go to his shoulders to steady my world.

My axis shifts.

His body shivers, mine tremors.

"You are worthy of the most feared army in the world, Luna."

Cheek against cheek.

"You are worthy, my Luna." His hand climbs up my spine until fingers wrap around the back of my neck.

Cheek against cheek he holds me to him.

The ribs of my chest tighten inward to protect the hard beat of my heart. 

Author's Note. 

A snippet of Elska coming once Bessa is finished. 

"Concentrate, Elska. What do you hear?"

"Feet running."

"Not that, what else underneath the sound of feet."

"The wind," the sand smells of salt from the sea that pounds against the coast. 

"Underneath all that," grandfather wolf's voice is quiet, above bellow a breath. I can hear but other's can't. 

"I can hear their hearts beating fast." 

"That's where you aim. The sound of their beating hearts. They don't need to make noise, they just have to breathe. Listen to that heart pound. Let it become stronger than their feet." A handle is put into my hand. 

"Concentrate on the sound, Elska before you throw." 

Beating. Beating. Beating.

"Throw now," he talks to me lower than we breathe. 

I aim, let it release, wait. 

...thump, the dull edge sinks in.

"Do it again." 

Listen. Aim. Throw.

Listen. Aim. Throw.

Listen. Aim. Throw. 

Doing this over and over again until I'm told to switch hands. Until my hands feel like the weapons instead of the metal hitting the running targets. 

I feel like a weapon for the first time in my life. 

When going to bed, my body aches, not from all the throwing. Something else, the inside of me is growing warmer with an ache. I touch my skin with my finger, letting the ache guide what my body wants. 

Thank you @portiapearls for the great cover of Let There Be Wolves.

This book will be the creation story of the Tribute universe. 

Nature, Moon, Wulfram.