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Chapter 214: The Belly of the Beast

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ELIA

She sat at the back of a V-shaped dirt area, lined by high, rock walls, and under the cover of trees that grew both from this level, and from any flat surfaces along the steep sides. Elia could only see the top of the rock wall in one spot—which meant being above them was barely useful, since the canopy of trees would hide them.

And the wolves had placed guards not only around her, but under the overhangs of the rock walls, inside small hollows in the sides, and behind her, underneath an ancient tree that grew at the back, it\'s wide branches reaching for the sky.

Even if someone did get above her, they wouldn\'t be able to see what was waiting for them.

Elia swallowed, but her mouth was so dry, it did little good.

Jak squatted a few feet to her left, chatting easily with several wolf guards who\'d been stationed around her. Her blood boiled every time she laid eyes on him.

He\'d been one of her favorites—good-natured, friendly, and always so diligent—or so she\'d thought. He\'d willingly stepped in to take shifts from other guards that were sick, or called away.

She\'d thought he liked her.

She\'d been worried about him.

And he\'d been here the whole time, plotting to kidnap her.

He looked up and caught her staring, and smiled.

She bared her teeth at him.

Her hands were tied in her lap, which was making her elbows sore. But at least her back didn\'t ache anymore.

She needed water, though. And the creeping dread and doubt that plagued her was making her heart beat so quickly she worried if she didn\'t hydrate soon, she might pass out.

Would pregnancy be hitting her already? Would her body already be weaker? Or changed somehow? She didn\'t know. All she knew was that this was bad—very bad—for her and for Elreth. And even if Reth had found them… if he tried to fight his way in here, they would kill him. Even he could fight of twenty wolves by himself. And the encampment she\'d seen walking in here was far larger than she\'d expected.

How had they not known this kind of place existed? How had the scouts or guards not come across it?

She didn\'t want to think about it, but the conviction wouldn\'t leave her: Jak couldn\'t be the only traitor. There had to be more of them, shifting attention away from what they knew was here. Perhaps even covering greater theft than had been noticed.

Reth had said they\'d been taking supplies, and even equipment. But this? Even if the Anima who were here had been contributing their own goods to get this place set up, that didn\'t account for all the resources she\'d seen as she walked in.

This place had been here for a while. And it was well supplied.

She shifted her body, rolling her shoulders as much as she could, turning her head and rolling her head on her neck.

Reth had told her during training a few days ago, how to survive being a captive. She\'d thought he was joking.

"…Do not smile, Elia," he\'d growled. "Being taken is nothing to joke about." She\'d straightened her face immediately.

"Okay, okay, sorry…. Sir."

Reth had cut her a look, but then turned to stare into the trees as he\'d talked, making her wonder what he was remembering. "Keep your body moving as much as you can. If you\'re restrained, or tied, your joints begin to ache and stiffen. When help comes, it can be difficult to move—let alone walk. So always move and twist. Keep your body as limber as you can. And loosen the bonds as well, if you\'re able. Never take them off until or unless you\'ve been left alone. You must always appear to be cowed, so submit. Don\'t allow anyone to see you fight your restraints, or loosen them. If you\'re discovered, they will make it impossible for you to move. So lower their guard by seeming weaker than you are—and more tightly held…"

The echo of his voice in her head made her eyes ache. He knew, she was sure, that she\'d been taken. She had no doubt that that was the roar she\'d heard while Jak was still carrying her.

He would be in pieces. This was his worst nightmare. Exactly what he\'d warned her about. And she\'d walked right into it like a stupid child.

She berated herself again, though she\'d spent much of the past two hours doing so already.

She understood, now, why Reth had been so angry about her slipping the guards. And why he\'d been so protective. Why he\'d wanted her to leave Anima.

His roar meant that he hadn\'t gotten to the Bears—or if he reached them, he hadn\'t stayed. She knew. She knew because if it was him, she would have had no time or attention for any other issue. She couldn\'t have simply left it in the hands of others to save him. She would have had to be there, to see for herself. To help.

Which meant that now, instead of meeting with the Bears and potentially pulling in allies for the Anima that still followed him, Reth was here, somewhere, trying to save her.

She looked up again, scanning the one section of the cliffside above that she could see. Were they up there already? Trying to figure out how to get her out? Or had they not even found her yet—perhaps not even found the encampment.

She didn\'t know. All she knew was, he was coming.

She just prayed he was fast enough.

She\'d started rolling her ankles and changing the position of her legs when there was a sharp call and suddenly, every wolf she could see, either went to one knee, or saluted.

Elia stared at the wolf closest to her, who had dropped to one knee, his head low. "What\'s your problem?" she sneered.

"Silence, Bitch!" he hissed.

"He\'s acknowledging his true Rulers," came a hoarse voice from her right that made Elia\'s stomach go cold.

Elia turned to find Lucine—clean, though her face still gaunt—and hard, standing with her hands on her hips, staring down at her, her brother Lerrin at her shoulder.

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ELRETH

Elreth was late. If her father, the King, noticed, he would have her hide.

He was already on the stage when she arrived, the long, sleeveless vest that was practically his uniform swinging around his knees. Its heavy fur collar framed his face like the mane of the Lion within him. He always stood proud in these moments, his massive shoulders back, no shirt beneath the vest so they could see the rippled muscles that still slicked his torso, despite his increasing age. At almost fifty, he was still shameless. She teased him about it constantly.

He growled something and his voice echoed across the amphitheater, but she ignored it, grimacing as she slunk through the crowd, twisting between the people, whispering apologies, until she made it to Aaryn, her best friend. He saw her coming and edged aside so she could fit between him and Gwyn on his right. Gwyn smiled, but her lips were tight. Elreth smiled, then turned back to Aaryn, rolling her eyes. Gwyn\'s very obvious yearning for Aaryn was getting old. Elreth hoped she\'d move onto someone else soon.

Aaryn glanced at her from the side, his strong jaw tight and his ice-blue eyes piercing behind the strands of silver-white hair that always seemed to need a cut.

"What\'s going on?" she signed to him in the finger language they\'d developed when she was ten, after her father roared at them for talking during training.

"Nice to see you, too," he signed back, but the jab wasn\'t accompanied by his usual smile, or the hooked finger that meant it was a joke.

Elreth frowned and signed again. "Sorry. Hi. What\'s going on?"

"There was a fight yesterday. Snakes and horses. Must have been bad. He\'s really upset," he signed, using the clawed fingers they used to symbolize a predator Anima\'s bared teeth. "Almost as bad as you when you\'re pissy."

She drew a quick cross at the apex of her thighs—a rude gesture she\'d created specifically to imply he had no balls—but even when he snorted, she didn\'t smile back. Something icy was sliding down her spine.

The Tribes were fighting?

Elreth turned to the stage. She\'d assumed this was just another of her father\'s dramatic addresses, something he always did when he needed to bring the people on his side of whatever Kingly decision he\'d made. But Aaryn was right, the man on the stage was not her patient, good-natured father, who liked to laugh and tease, and steal kisses from her mother.

The man on that stage was the King. The angry King. The Lion. He stalked the space, shoulders back and chin down, eyes fierce and teeth bared. He was Reth, the King of Anima, and as Elreth paid attention to his booming voice echoing across the morning air, her uneasiness grew.

"…I have been patient, and your Queen has been patient, but it appears you will not be moved—your hearts will not be moved! We cannot allow this distance among the people. We cannot allow tension between the tribes—all of us have seen where that leads. We lived through the division of the tribes that took us to war and almost destroyed us. So, you leave us no choice!" he snarled, scanning the crowd.

Breath quickening, Elreth searched for her mother, the Queen, and found her standing further back on the stage, face tight, eyes on her mate, her arms folded beneath her breasts. She looked angry, and… afraid? Then she caught eyes with Elreth and something fierce entered her gaze.

But after a moment, her mother just looked back to her father, stress and worry on every line in her face. What was going on?

Her father glared and paced the front of the stage, while in a semi-circle centered on it, the rows of wide, grassy levels—each large enough for a full-grown male to lay down—rose, packed with Anima on every inch. All the tribes were there, the people of the lions, the birds, the horses, and serpents—even the few wolf packs that remained loyal to the King. There were more on the grassy tops, and gathered under the trees behind the amphitheater. With their Anima hearing, they didn\'t have to be close to know what was said.

Every Anima of age stood, riveted, as her father glared at them.

She\'d been rushing to get here and hadn\'t paid attention to the people. But now she sucked in a long, drawn-out breath and let herself scent the tension and confusion of those around her.

"Big problem," she signed to Aaryn, the hair on the back of her neck rising.

Aaryn nodded and signed back, "Never seen him like this before."

Elreth had—but only when he spoke of the days when he\'d almost lost her mother. The days when the whole Lupine wolf tribe still walked the forest of WildWood and… holy shit.

"What started the fight?" she signed quickly.

"What do you think?" Aaryn\'s face went flat as Elreth\'s darkened.

It had to be the disformed. She gave the little sign—one hand cupped around the other fist, but thumbs up, instead of curled as it would have been for the general Anima.

Aaryn just nodded, the little muscles at the back of his square jaw twitching.

The disformed were Anima who couldn\'t shift into their Beast forms. The Anima of generations past had always regarded them with suspicion. But her parents had worked hard for twenty years to begin integrating them more fully into the tribes. And they\'d had some success. Especially with the younger people. But recent months had brought drought, and struggles over resources. The growing population of disformed had become a point of contention in the tribes that had a higher percentage of them.

Aaryn, as a disformed himself—and worse, a disformed wolf—had borne the worst of Anima prejudice since his earliest days when it was clear he couldn\'t shift into beast form. Add to that, he was the son of one of the traitorous wolves that had almost ended her parent\'s rule right before Elreth was born. He\'d only been four when his father died in the battle. But now, twenty years later, the increase in the disformed population still raised resentment in some circles. And those circles were not silent.

Elreth lifted her hands to sign a question, to see if Aaryn was okay, when her father\'s voice rang out.

"The disformed will be asked to leave the Tree City, but allowed to remain in WildWood. They will be given their own tribe and encouraged to make their own way—"

As the crowd began speak, their voices rapidly becoming more insistent, Elreth froze, her heart pounding.

"No," she breathed.

Voices began to rise around her, mostly in surprise, but there were a few who showed excitement because they\'d always been against the integration of the disformed Anima into their tribes.

Elreth\'s stomach plummeted to her toes—then rose again on the flames of her anger.

Aaryn\'s scent spiked in a strange tangle of fear and rage. She could hear his heart—as familiar to her as her own—pounding.

"Did you know about this?" he breathed.

"What?! No! Of course not! You know I\'d never—"

"It is not the solution we would have chosen, but after physical conflicts yesterday between tribes, you leave us no other option!" her father snarled over the hubbub of the crowd below. Her mother\'s face lined with worry. "We will not allow another War of the Tribes!"

Dread clenched Elreth\'s stomach.

"He thinks he\'s going to make me leave?" Aaryn growled, bristling, his hands clenched. He moved to step forward, but Elreth fisted his shirt to stop him. He looked down at her, his piercing blue eyes furious.

It was instinct to fight anything—or anyone—that threatened someone she loved. Elreth didn\'t even think.

"If you will not hold to all your people, you don\'t deserve any of them!" she yelled, whirling to face the stage as the entire gathering turned to look for her with a murmur of shock.

But her father\'s eyes snapped straight to her face.

And then he bared his teeth.

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