Tim

I looked at Nexus, watching as his eyebrows pull low over his eyes, giving him that severe edge that he always seemed to have. I could count the number of times he genuinely smiled on one hand. He just... I didn't know how to explain it properly other than he was broken. Nexus had a hard life, much harder than my own, and unlike me he had only been in Altia for less than a year. It wasn't long enough to put himself back together after everyone had done their best to tear him apart.

"Was what she said true?" Tara asked it slowly as she sat down at the rickety table with us, setting her beer down in front of her.

Nexus' frown deepened and he rubbed at the back of his neck. "Pretty much." I scowled at the words and at the reminder of that crazy female who had wandered into the bar. She had started talking and refused to stop, every little secret we seemed to want to keep she had put out into the open without a care in the world.

"Does it matter, Tara?" I narrowed my eyes at her and she shrugged slightly, taking a deep swig of her beer before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Don't see why it doesn't." At the words there was the ever familiar sounds of Tulip thunking her whiskey glass down along with her bottle of whiskey and the clattering of her glass ash tray tossed it down beside them both. The scent of acrid tobacco smoke slowly entered my nose and I looked at the ragged looking female as she took a heavy drag of her cigarette and plunked herself down in the chair, no grace to her movements, just a brutal and blunt motion that was so much like her. She pulled her cigarette from her mouth and wiped her nose as the smoke from her inhale exited her mouth through her scarred lip. "Female was right, crazy as she is, Mene decided to speak to her and she said what she did for a reason." She jabbed the hand with the cigarette in my direction before she took a swig of her whiskey.

"She's crazy. Doubt anything she says matters." I scoffed lightly and grasped my own drink, pulling it closer. The female was insane, driven that way by a male if Ambris was to be believed and that female rarely stated an untruth.

Tulip's hand connected with the back of my head with a crack, jolting me forward and when I glowered at her in response she pointed her cigarette in my direction, the cherry glowing in the dim light of the bar. "We don't speak like that, Tim. That female is important, mark my words." Even her blind eye seemed to glower at me before she took another heavy drink of her whiskey. "The reason people come to Altia isn't to hide from what they have done but to acknowledge it and heal as best as they can underneath the gaze of the goddess." She scowled at me before pointing at Nexus.

"You allowed the brutalization of a female, a priestess at that, because you saw her as a means to an end and nothing more. No matter how far you run from your pack, no matter how often you talk to your brother and pretend that what you did was for the best, that action and that mindset will haunt you until you acknowledge what you did to that female." Tulip's voice lowered to a heavy and almost gravelly tone, I winced along side Nexus at her reprimanding words.

"Lay off him, Tulip." I curled my lip up at her, flashing her my teeth to show my dislike of her reprimanding him and she slowly tapped her ash from her cigarette, those cold eyes meeting mine.

"My bar, my rules, Tim. It needs to be said, it's why that female said it." The words were icy as she said them and her eyes narrowed further. "He allowed and encouraged the destruction of an innocent life for his own gain. That act needs to be acknowledged and he needs to realize and understand what he allowed to be taken from the world with what he did." She took another heavy drag of the cigarette and burned it down to the filter before she stubbed it out into the ashtray. She turned to Nexus and blew the smoke out, encasing him in a cloud of the acrid smelling poison she used non-stop.

A growl escaped me before I could stop it. Nexus and I did not have a bond, we were incapable of having one that wasn't forced but my wolf and I had claimed him as ours all the same. "Tulip." The word came out clipped and Nexus waved me off.

"No use being upset at her, Tim. She's right. I fucked it up." He rubbed his face, his scowl deepening as his hands fell to his lap and I clenched my hands into fists to prevent myself from reaching over the marked table top to take his hand in my own to comfort him. "Maggie was a pawn that I used to kill Malak, I didn't view her as anything other than that. In fact I hated her at points because of how Malak treated Arlo because of her." He stared off towards the bar, his eyebrows low over his eyes as his hair slowly slid into his face. "She wasn't a person, a human being, she was an object I could use and I used her. She didn't deserve that end she got, that I allowed to happen. I could have stopped him at any time, could have forced him to stop what he was doing, I didn't. That is on me." He slowly shifted in his seat, staring down at his hands.

"Acknowledgement of wrongs done. Can't go to the goddess with arrogance in our hearts or baseless justification in our veins. She's too smart for that." The ragged female pulled out another cigarette from her beat up pack and tucked it into her mouth, flicking a match to light it. She waved it out before jerking her chin at me. "What about you? What sins did the female say you did?" At the words Nexus looked at me and I felt a sudden surge of shame and ran a hand through my hair.

"That I killed my first love for betraying me." The thought soured my stomach and I took a heavy gulp of my nearly warm beer to settle the feeling.

"And?" At the drug out word from Tara, I grimaced.

"I did it. She wasn't lying." The memories were still sharp, nearly five years later. "Name was Logan, the Beta's son, we had been secretly seeing each other for years. Then my parents found out about me being gay. They wanted to do right by the traditions and you know..." I trailed off, a large lump in my throat as I stared at the table top.

"Gotta love packs that want to burn the gay away." Tulip gave a humourless chuckle as she exhaled a large cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.

I shook my head slightly, hating how the memories made me feel. I had been terrified, not for myself but for Logan, I was scared they were going to hurt him too. "I thought that if they found out about me they found out about Logan, I went to his house to warn him and it turns out he was the one who told them." The betrayal still stung, no matter how hard I tried to tell myself that it didn't that I should have expected it, it still hurt. "I killed him, shoved him down the stairs. Didn't mean to kill him but I was just so mad, so hurt."

I shook my head slowly at the thought. "I shoved him and killed him. Nothing can change that, wish I could, I know he was probably as scared as I was, trying to save himself but what is done is done. Can't change the past. I'm alive and he's dead." I hastily drank what was left of my beer before glancing at Tara. "What about you? Why are you here? If we are sharing, we might as well all share."

"Told the Alpha's son no." She tilted her head slightly as she looked at the table top, her fingers playing with the neck of her beer bottle before she gave a choked laugh. "In my pack that was a crime punishable by death. Hunters arrived about five minutes after they set the wood on fire. Managed to get it out quick but I was still severely burned on forty-eight percent of my body." She absently rubbed at the scars that reached down her shoulder, her face twisted as if she could still feel the flames that had been set loose to consume her.

"That's fucked up." Nexus's voice was low and filled with a disgust that matched on deep inside my own stomach.

Tara gave a wan smile. "Yah, well welcome to the Old Ways." She lifted her beer and gestured to both Nexus and I. "Be glad you were born male." She slowly shook her head, her hand gripping at the scars tightly, her expression dark.

A thick silence fell and I didn't know what to say to that, how to reply I knew the Old Ways were fucked up, I had a long time to know that and understand that but it was still hard seeing and hearing abut just how horrible they were to those outside of the bubble that was the ranked positions. I had facilitated in that system, had allowed it to continue because I hadn't cared about everyone else. As long as I had gotten what I needed and wanted then I cared for little else.

Nexus cleared his throat slightly. "But that isn't something you did that you need to acknowledge. That is something that happened to you." He said it slowly and with a bit of confusion and I realized he was right as I glanced at Tara.

She shook her head. "I didn't do anything. I am here because no one else would take me and I wouldn't trust any other pack to do right by me. So I came here." She gestured to the bar and then to Tulip. "Tulip let me stay on and I figured this place was better than anywhere else because they atleast didn't hate me for being female." She gave a small shrug at that and I frowned, trying to work it out in my head.

"Here here." Tulip raised her whiskey glass in Tara's direction and drained it.

I tried to think about the many females that lived on the small territory, did they all have similar stories to Tara's? Were they only here because they would be harmed otherwise? Or were they harmed by those that were supposed to care for them and were then left with no place to go?

"What did the Hunters do to the pack?" Nexus tilted his head slightly and I watched as he shoved some of his hair back from his face and my heart squeeze slightly in my chest. I was in a bad way with him, never really felt like I did before, he seemed... I didn't know how to explain it but it was like something in him called to something in me.

"Killed the ones who tried to stop them from helping me and disbanded the rest." Tara took another drink of her beer before slowly setting it down with a low thunk that told of how empty the bottle was. "Ranked members were killed outright, turns out burning females at the stake for using the word no is not a very celebrated tradition by Hunter standards." The corner of her mouth turned up in an almost humorless smirk before she glanced around the table, her shoulders slight hunched.

"No, it is not." Tulip's words were clipped as she gave a heavy grimace and poured herself more whiskey.

"What about you, Tulip, what happened to bring you here?" Tara looked at the older female intently, as if wanting

"I fragged my platoon and superior officer." She capped her whiskey bottle and picked up her tumbler as she tucked her cigarette between her lips.

I glanced at Tara and Nexus but they looked just as confused as I felt at the unusual term "You what?" I watched her as she puffed out some smoke from her scarred side of her lip, leaning back in her chair as she pulled the cigarette from her mouth.

"Fragged them." She reached forward and tapped her ash into the ashtray. "It's a mundane term that the Hunters picked up. It means I killed my superior officer and a majority of my platoon." She leaned back into her chair and a rather emotionless smile crossed her face as a heavy silence fell. "If you ask me, I'll tell you." There seemed to be a rather strange anticipation in her voice that made me feel wary and when I glanced at Nexus, he glanced at me as well. I wondered if he felt the same strange wariness that I did.

"I didn't know you were with the Hunters, Tulip." Tara said it strangely easily and the older female gave a slow nod as she took a heavy drag of her smoke.

"Yup. Get some more glasses, Nex. Gunna need some hard alcohol for this story." She gestured to the bar as she exhaled a cloud of smoke and lifted her glass. Nexus stood up from the table and headed towards the bar. I looked towards Tulip, unsure of just what the female was going to say. I had lived in Altia for four years but I had never really had a candid conversation with Tulip about her history. It just seemed to never cross my mind but now I was curious.

"Is this story the same as the one where you got your scar." I gestured to her face and she held up a finger as she downed her whiskey and set the tumbler back onto the table.

"Just wait, we'll get to that." She grabbed her whiskey bottle and poured herself a large glass. Nexus returned with three more glasses and Tulip gestured for him to put them in front of her and once he did she poured three glasses of whiskey and shoved them towards each of us. Once she was sure we had our drinks she leaned back in her chair. "I was one of the first females allowed in the Enforcer division of the Hunters. They lifted their ban back in the seventies and I was one of the first to sign up, the Hunters was too soft for me." She slowly nodded her head and took a heavy drag of her cigarette, blowing the smoke towards the ceiling.

"Aren't Enforcers and Hunters the same thing?" Tara took a sip of her whiskey before setting the cup on the table, tracing the rim of it with her fingertip.

"Nah. Enforcers are a heavy militia, well were, they have eased up a lot on the militia since then. Anyway, they are the brawn behind the force, the people you send in when shit starts getting too hot. Sol warriors, illegal rogues exposing themselves to humans, red level fairy escape, that sort of shit." Tulip shook her head as she gestured with her cigarette. "They are the real meat of the Hunters. So I joined up. Except not everyone was happy they were letting females into the old boys club, some of them very not happy." Her expression tightened. "First Sergeant Mattias Nickals was one such person. He was our Platoon Sergeant and he took a dislike to me and the other three females who signed up he moment he set his eyes on us." She took a heavy drink of her shiskey before setting it down on the table with a heavy clunk.

"The other three females dropped out within the first eight months. Couldn't cut the training he put us under. He wanted to break us down, to shove us into the dirt and never let us drag ourselves out of it, get us to bow down and quit." Tulip let out a heavy sigh and stared off towards the back wall of the bar, her good eye almos glassy through the blue haze of her cigarette smoke. "I never knew when to call it quits. Call it a flaw." She tapped her ash into the ash tray before resting her elbows on the table, ignoring the creaking sound it gave.

"I finished the training, was labelled an Enforcer Private Second Class." She gave a heavy snort of laughter. "Fuck did that chap Nickals' ass. His face turned beet red and this vein in his head throbbed when he had to give me that insignia. Best day of my fucking life as I watched him nearly have a heart attack because a female made it into his platoon despite his best efforts to keep her out." She gave a wry sort of smile and shook her head slowly. "Should have quit while I was ahead." Her smile slowly fell off her face and was replaced by a stony and rather cold look.

"Three months with the platoon and one night they attacked me." Her good eye turned to cold flint and she took a deep drag on her cigarette, not stopping until it burned to the filter. She exhaled as she stubbed the smoke out viciously in the ash tray. "Work out stress, Nickals said. Remind the bitch where females belong, he said." She snapped out the words, her eyes narrowing. "Twelve out of the fifteen males joined in. Didn't stop till I couldn't scream anymore. Till the tears had dried up. Till I was more bruises then flesh. Till the bleeding refused to quit." She ground her teeth together and my stomach rolled.

I grabbed my glass and took a heavy gulp of the whiskey, staring into the glass as her words moved through me. "They left me in the dirt. I couldn't move and got written up for being up late, for being unable to walk the morning routines. I buried that shit deep down." There was a heavy dose of venom to her voice and I took another drink before glancing at her. She had lit another cigarette as she gestured with it. "I told myself that I wouldn't let that fucker break me, that I would still stand tall in front of him and refuse to yield. That I was more than he made me out to be, platoon whore." She shook her head and bared her teeth, her scarred lip giving her a wicked edge through the smoke.

"Refused to tell the healer where the pregnancy came from, refused to be 'that female'. I got rid of it, couldn't have it in me because I wasn't going to break down in tears because of it. I know why Lilith cut that baby out. I would have done the exact same fucking thing if the healer hadn't gotten rid of it." Her eye gleamed as she pointed between the three of us. "You don't understand what it is like to have that inside of you, to realize that their brutalization didn't end and that they were still violating you, still inside you." She slammed her fist down onto the table, making the cups jump and her ash tray clatter. "So I got rid of it. Problem fucking solved. I didn't have to think about it anymore, about what they did." She waved the hand as if shooing the words away.

She leaned back in her chair. "Except these things don't just fucking go away. Nickals wasn't going to let my defiance stand. So first mission out, Sol warriors killing smaller packs. We were sent to take care of them. The bastard gave me false info and he walked me right into their fucking camp." Her words were cold and she downed the rest of her whiskey in her glass before putting the cup down onto the table. "And the males there did what males do. Fucking animals." She scoffed low at that as she shook her head.

"Tried to I should say. I snapped, fought back, gave them tooth and claw because how fucking dare they." She grinned coldly, clicking her teeth together as her eye flashed darker with her wolf. She tapped her scar. "That's where I got this. Pretty thing." She rubbed a finger down the length of it before she leaned back into her chair again. "Killed their entire camp and stumbled back to base camp covered in blood and bruises but triumphant all the same. Everyone was asleep except for Nickals, he was reporting in that I went awol, that I snapped and took off for the Sol warriors, that he couldn't find me." She ground her teeth together again, I could hear the sound and it made me wince. "I stood in that tent door and listened to him lie about me and I realized that I wasn't over what was done and that if I could kill the Sol warriors who attempted to brutalize me that it would be really easy to kill those that actually did."

"So I fragged him. Grabbed a frag grenade from my pack and tossed it under his feet." She grinned suddenly at that. "You should have seen the look on his face when he realized what it was and that I threw it. He knew he was fucked and then he wasn't my problem anymore. Was the coroner's problem after that." She took a drag of her smoke. "Did the same to every other fucking male who participated that night. Killed them all and the only thing I regret is the fact I didn't do it sooner." She gave another chilling chuckle at that and a heavy silence fell.

I wasn't sure what to say to that, I wasn't sure what I was feeling or if I had gone numb but I couldn't look away from her, away from the scar that took on a whole knew meaning for me. I glanced at Nexus who had finished off his drink and was pouring himself another large one. Tara was staring at the tabletop, her finger tip tracing the rim of her cup over and over again.

"Why-" My voice cracked and I cleared it before glancing at Tulip. "Why has no one heard about this?" That seemed like something that should have been talked about. I could understand why the Old Way packs wouldn't discuss it in length but they would still use it as a reason why females shouldn't be allowed in those positions.

"Hunters didn't want to have that shit out. It's highly classified and all documents about it are heavily redacted so they can hide it." She finished off her cigarette and stubbed it out before shaking out another one from her pack, tucking it between her lips. "Probably would have been tossed into The Void to rot if it hadn't been for my defender at the court martial."

"The Void?" Tara's voice was small, as if she didn't really want to speak up but she couldn't help herself.

"Super max prison for supes." Tulip lit the cigarette and gave a humourless chuckle. "They were gunna use my behaviour as an example of why females weren't fit for a role in not just the Enforcers but the Hunters as a whole. My defender, Jovan Edwards was his name, stopped that shit right quick. Heard he's a Councilman now, really climbed the ranks he did." She gave a slightly impressed head nod to that. "Anyway, his defence was that if I had been male they would be asking me why I didn't do it sooner and that I acted how my nature dictated. I saw a threat and removed it. That if I was male they wouldn't be questioning me at all, a male is allowed to act violently towards a threat and so he posed the question as why the fuck couldn't I, a female, do the exact same thing?" She took a drag from her smoke, adding to the blue haze that was starting to hang around the table.

"The Hunters didn't particularly want to go down that self-reflection route so I got off with a dishonourable discharge and paid off with hush money." She leaned forward in her chair and ashed her cigarette into the ash tray. "Course no pack wants a female that was removed from service for killing her superior so I wasn't allowed to return to my pack or really allowed back into any pack structure. Wandered around as a rogue for a few years before I met up with a priestess making her pilgrimage to Altia and I decided to join her. Been here ever since." She gestured to the bar slowly.

"Probably stayed because of the all the females though." She gave a wry grin at that. "Females outnumber males three to one here, makes me feel safer. Also makes finding myself some comfort a lot easier." She gave a small chortle at that and I frowned.

"You mean... are you gay?" Tara's eye brows raised and Tulip let out a bark of laughter as she topped off her glass.

"Well I ain't fucking straight. Though I can't tell if I was gay before or was bisexual and the attack put me off males for good." She gave a lazy shrug. "Doesn't matter much to me, don't want to deal with males as it is."

Nexus shifted in his seat. "I don't get it, you don't feel safe around males?" She looked at her, tapping his fingers along the sides of his empty glass. Tulip shook her head as she took a drink of her own whiskey. "What about Tim and I?" He tilted his head and she set her

"In case you haven't noticed I am never alone with you two." She gestured between the both of us with the bottle of whiskey, the smoke dangling between her lips as she spoke.

I frowned in confusion. "You've ran bar with me before." There had been a lot of times where Tulip and I had been alone together. I wasn't entirely sure what she was saying because it wasn't the truth.

"No, the two of you. There has never been an instance where the two of you are in the bar without another female and I have been in here. I don't like being outnumbered by males so I wait until Tara shows up or a priestess before I come in." She took a long drink of her whiskey holding her smoke up slightly before tucking it back into her mouth as she set the cup down.

"But you trust us." I tapped my foot against the floor, frowning slightly.

"No, I know you. There's a difference." She didn't look at me but gestured towards me with her cigarette.

I couldn't help how my frown deepened at that. "I've lived here four years, Tulip." I would have thought that after four years there was an aspect of trust to our relationship, as strange as it was.

"And I have been dealing with what those fuckers did to me since seventy-six. I think that I'm allowed my little comforts." She gave another careless shrug, finally glancing at me, blinking her eyes lazily, the cloudy one sightlessly looking at me through the blue haze around her.

Nexus shifted in his spot. "We are gay." He said it slowly and Tulip shook her head, tapping her cigratee over the ash tray.

"My irritating as fuck PTSD doesn't care about that, Nexus. What it sees is two males and that I can't take you both down. I could take either one of you out if I needed too but not the both of you together." She gave another unbothered shrug. "Call it self-preservation."

I felt a bit insulted by her insinuation and scowled. "We wouldn't do-

"Doesn't matter, Tim." She cut me off with a wave of her hand. "As Tara said, welcome to the Old Ways. They always come with a price and that is a price that every single one of you males need to carry." She gestured between Nexus and I and his frown matched my own.

"That's not really fair." He said it low and I could hear the hurt in his words.

"Neither is using a female as a pawn to take a title by allowing her death, being set on fire for saying no, being forced to kill the person you love because you were betrayed, or collective gang raped to put in what is perceived to be your place." Her words were said carefully and she slowly stood up, grasping the whsikey bottle loosely in her fingers. "There is always a price for the Old Ways and you might not like what it is but that doesn't mean you don't have to pay it." She stubbed her smoke out and gave a heavy cough as if to clear her lungs from the smoke she had been putting into them.

"I like you boys, I do, I wouldn't allow you into my life if I didn't but you need to accept that there are things in this world you aren't entitled to, that you can't fix by simply existing within my life or anyone's life. I cannot be alone with more than one male so I don't allow myself to be. My safety, physical and mental, is more important than your feelings on the matter." With that she turned and walked away, leaving the bar in a small silence.

Tara shifted in her spot slightly. "She's not wrong, you know. You guys don't understand what the Old Ways have done to us females. You were born male and you should be thankful you never had to experience what we have at the hands of males who treat us like nothing but cattle or objects to be used." She slowly shook her head before rubbing at her scars again.

"I'm sorry they did that to you, Tara. It wasn't right." It really wasn't. A female should have the right to say no, to turn down a male. I didn't really want to live in the ways where they would burn a female for simply stating boundaries with a male.

"No it wasn't, neither was what they would have done to either of you if they found out you were gay but that doesn't change what the Old Ways are or what they do." She gave a heavy sigh, rubbing at her face before her hand once again gripped at her scars. "We all have to pay the price some day. It's just some of us have been paying it longer than most." She looked at me and gave me a small smile. "I know it's hard to see the things that happen to the people outside of your rank but sometimes it's better to just accept that this type of shit happens and to understand that not everyone heals the way you think they should." She gestured to the door where Tulip left through.

"She's carried that shit around with her since 1976. That's over forty years, Tim. I think she knows how to deal with it by now and she's right. Her well-being is more important than your feeling hurt that she can't bring herself to be around more than one male without another female to even the odds." She narrowed her eyes at me, shaking her head. "It's fucked up that I even need to explain that to you, Tim. You are hurt because she won't trust you because of the fact she was gang raped by a group of males she did trust. Do you not see how fucked up that mentality is?" Her words hurt, made me flinch underneath them but I knew she wasn't entirely wrong.

She stood up and gave a heavy sigh. "I need to get to bed, morning's going to come early." With that she headed for the stairs before she stopped, turning slightly. "You two were Alpha males and I know your packs treated you as if you were their everything but you need to realize that this world is bigger than you are." With those parting words she headed up the stairs, leaving Nexus and I alone.

Nexus let out a rather explosive sigh, his eyes wide. "Rough good night conversation." He looked at me, his eyes tracing my features and I didn't even know what to say. "Fuck, Tim, they are right. I fucking hate having to admit it but we tend to believe that the world revolves around us at times and we need to realize it doesn't and it never did." He shook his head before he too stood up, holding his hand out towards me. "Let's go to bed and talk about this in the dark cause I am not fucking drunk enough for it." the corner of his mouth lifted upwards and I matched the half smile with one of my own before I took his hand with mine and let him pull me to my feet.

I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close. "World doesn't revolve around us but my world revolves around you, you know that right?" My voice cracked slightly as I said it and for a moment he stiffened before his arms slid around me and he relaxed into me.

"Same goes for you, Tim, but I already told you I am not drunk enough for this." At the slightly muffled words I chuckled, unable to help myself as I let him go. "Let's just get to bed and try and make sense of all of this." He looked at me, a bigger smile crossing his face as he did so. I threw my arm around his shoulders, pressing my nose into his neck, nuzzling the skin affectionately.

"Sounds good. The dark is gunna help hide the gross crying mess I'll be." I let him wrap his arm around my waist as we walked towards the stairs.

Perhaps it was best that the darkest secrets came out.

Perhaps Tulip was right.

One couldn't go to the goddess with arrogance in their heart or baseless justification in their veins and secrets could hold both.