I wasn't sure what it was that had woken me from my sleep. While it was true the group never truly slept well, that didn't account for this. I knew we were too close to the Old Way packs and we were on our own. We never slept well when we moved camps, we were rogues, never really trusted, but this was different. It was usually a sound that woke me. A rustling from a nearby bush, a stick snapping underneath a foot in the distance, a call from one of the animals that stalked the night.

It wasn't that, there was no sound that still rung in my ears. In fact it was quiet. Perhaps a bit too quiet. I slowly stood up, looking over my group to ensure that they were all there, that they were still breathing. I silently counted the sleeping bags in the thin moonlight that fell through the canopy of the trees. I relaxed when I realized they were all there.

We were a scraggly bunch but we were like a family. I was too old to fall into a pack but I took my job in ensuring the safety of my group seriously. We clung to each other because we had been taught that clinging to a pack brought no security. There was a reason a lot of us rogues went rogue. Sometimes it was preferable to being in a pack, it gave more safety.

For me it was the fact I couldn't stand by and watch the Alpha of my pack brutalize shifters in the name of tradition. I rubbed my face at the thought. Beating the weakest of the pack for simply being born different, for having the audacity of being naturally more submissive. There was only so much I could take and females being stolen from their families for the misfortune of being mated to the ranked members was my breaking point. At the reminder I froze. I slowly lowered my hand, my eyes seeking out the newest form that had come into the scope of my protection.

She wasn't there.

I stiffened before heading towards her sleeping bag quickly, not even attempting to be quiet as I realized that she was gone. Marian, who was sleeping beside her, shot up as I patted her hip. "She's gone." I said it low as I gestured to the abandoned sleeping bag. "We need to find her." She nodded, not questioning me as she shoved out of her sleeping bag to wake the others.

I moved over to the missing female's sleeping bag and inhaled her scent deeply. I was old but I was still a tracker, I could find her but touched females like her were unpredictable and I needed all the help I could get. I stood up, scenting the air, my wolf unfurled from his position, lifting his nose as he lent me his strength for the task. We caught the end of her trail and headed into the trees.

The female didn't have a name; we couldn't get one out of her. We had found her, wild haired in the forest deep in neutral territory. She had been so still, so utterly still. She hadn't spoken, hadn't moved, she barely breathed. I had known that touch, I had known what that was. It was why I had taken her in.

She must have run from an Old Way pack because I knew what had happened to her. The Rite of Submission. I nearly snarled at that, my jaw aching with my wolf's anger at the reminder. It wasn't a submission. It was a destruction. And the poor female we had found had been utterly destroyed by whatever male had tied them together. We were taking her to Altia, to give her to the land of the Goddess in the hopes they could help her. I just hadn't expected her to wander off, she had always stayed close to the group.

It worried me. She was in no position to protect herself, her mind barely held itself together on the best of days, not to mention the fact she was pregnant. She was in no condition to be wandering around at night, in a place she didn't know, with no one to watch her back.

The night breeze shifted, blowing towards me, with it I could smell blood thick in the night. It coated her scent so thickly that it nearly drowned it out. My heart pounded harshly as moved through the trees faster, we needed to get to her. My wolf flashed his teeth as I pushed myself, relying on him to guide me as we dodged around trees. We were on neutral territory but that did not stop the illegal rogues, in fact it only emboldened them more. There was a reason more and more rogues were grouping up. The illegals were getting bolder, the neutral territories were no longer safe.

I strained my hearing, trying to hear if there was a fight, a struggle, but all there was to guide me was the thick scent of blood that coated my tongue and throat with a sharp metallic tang to the point I wanted to gag. The trees ended abruptly and I stepped out into the moon light. The female sat bathed in it, her form nearly gleaming in the meadow she had found.

She had always been so still but was moving now, her hands moving almost rhythmically. I walked over quickly as another wave of fresh blood alerted me that something was seriously wrong. I got closer and saw the glint of a blade in her blood soaked hands. I took two large strides and grabbed her wrists as she pulled them from the gaping wound in her stomach. Bits of flesh hung ragged from the wound, as if she had hacked at herself with no care or thought to the result and I nearly gagged as I realized she was attempting to pull her organs out.

I grabbed the blade in her hand, yelping as the silver burned my flesh before I yanked my hand away. I wondered where she had found it, wondered how much time we had left before she bled out from the silver given wounds. My hand slipped on her wrists, blood coated everything so thickly, the scent of it was cloying. I quickly reached for the blade, needing to get it away from her. I hissed as the silver of it burned my fingers once more and I released it, unable to handle the burning. Blood continued to coat everything thickly but she didn't let the blade go.

I squeezed her wrists tightly, "Drop it!" My voice held a low command and she did as I requested, the blade falling to the mud she had created with her own blood. She instantly fell to the familiar stillness I knew. I couldn't see the damage she had caused herself, the blood was everywhere, it coated everything too thickly. My heart hammered in my throat and within an instant it stopped dead as ice ran through my veins.

An icy grip constricted me the moment I realized where she had been cutting. The swell that she had before was now gone. I stared at the gaping wound in her stomach, not truly believing what I was seeing as my hands loosened on her wrists. Her own hands flopped into her lap, making a wet slap when it contacted to the blood soaked fabric of her skirt. I blinked slowly, unable to stop staring.

It was gone.

"Are you willing to pay the price of the Old Ways?" Her voice was hollow and she slowly, oh so slowly, pointed to the ground in front of her. I didn't want to look, didn't want to see, but my eyes followed her gesture without my consent. My heart suddenly hammered in my throat and my head and my stomach churned at what she had done.

A fetus lay on the ground, too early in the pregnancy to live outside of his mother. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to find the male who had done this to her, who had shattered her mind into a billion painful pieces. I wanted to find him and ask him if it was worth it before I tore his throat out for what he had done. I couldn't blame her, a female so tortured that all the sanity she had would be a feral wolf, if she still had one at all. A female pushed to the brink before being shoved over it. She had no true sanity in her, not anymore.

"I have willingly given my pound of flesh." There was a slight edge of mockery to her tone and I swallowed against the bile in my throat as I looked at the underdeveloped child. He looked to strange lying there in the dirt, coated in both blood and soil from where she had carelessly tossed him aside.

My throat was dry and I couldn't help but swallow convulsively to keep the bile from reaching he back of my tongue. "Do you... do you wish to bury him?" I knew there was a very high chance there wasn't going to be an answer but I needed to ask. Needed to know because he looked so horrible lying in the dirt surrounded by the blood of his mother. It looked so wrong.

I glanced at her, watched as she gave a chilling smile. Her eyes swirled with fragmented black and her teeth were too sharply pointed to be fully human as her chest rumbled. "Let the animals eat." There was an edge of glee to her hollow tone that made me want to weep. What had her male done to her to drive her to this fragmented mess? What had happened in her life where she could find glee in such a moment?

After a moment she blinked at me slowly. All the cold sharpness left her face as her bright blue eyes that shone in the moonlight settled to normalcy, not a trace of that darkness left. She frowned and reached up as if to touch my face. "Do not weep for those who could never have breathed." Her hand went back to her lap before it could touch me. Her face fell to a look of serene peace as she looked up at the moon, her shoulders slumping slightly. "The goddess smiles upon me tonight. It is her will." She swayed and my chest squeezed as I realized that if I did not help, she would join her son in meeting our goddess.

I picked her up, knowing we needed to reach Altia quicker. If we didn't, the female whose blood was staining my clothes, would meet her child in front of Mene and be judged for her sins. I wondered how the goddess would react to such an action. I swallowed hard and murmured to her that it would be okay as her head lolled on my shoulder. Her breathing was strained as her life continued it's slow slide through the brutality she had done to herself.

I ran for her, to save her.

How would Mene react to her? Her mind was in so many fragments. She didn't understand her actions or control them. How could one punish a female for that?

There was a price for the Old Ways and it was never as simple as a pound of flesh. A person's sanity weighed far more than that.

I held her closer and I ran faster.