26. Bloodright of the She-Wolf

NAILAH

CHAPTER 26

Nailah had never seen the ocean before. In all her travels, her journey had never taken her there. The thunder of the waves did little to blot out the screams, though. She grasped her spear and drove it through the Wolf's eye. Beside her, Balru snapped the neck of another with his bare hands. He had killed dozens of them. His size had been put to good use in battle, and she regarded him with keen satisfaction as she pried the glimmering weapon from the dead dog's hand. She regarded it with curiosity. The blade was light and balanced, as they all had been, and its cutting age was razorthin—far more deadly than the spear she'd just used.

She tested it, swinging it through the air with satisfaction and delighting at the wshhhhh it made. There hadn't been nearly as many of the dogs as she'd expected when they'd finally tracked down their main encampment on the coast.

Her troops had watched the Slumbering God explode from a distant mountaintop. They had been far enough away to escape the force of the blast, and the subsequent pyroclastic expulsion had similarly diminished to a cruel but non-lethal wind by the time it met them. That had been weeks ago.

She'd realized the vast majority of the Wolves must have died in the eruption when they failed to return to their village for many moons. Those that remained seemed unsettled by the absence, and when Nailah had finally ordered Summerhome to begin their slaughter, they had almost seemed resigned to it.

"There are none left but the chief," a soldier reported.

"Bring him to me," she said.

She lowered the blade to her side and stared out at the ocean.

The Wolves had come to these shores by canoe. Their log crafts were hoisted onto the sand, far out of the tide's reach. Her tribe had a crude form of the same vessels, though these were designed to be paddled vast distances and had room for food stores or for a person to lie down and rest. She knew at once they were of value.

Balru joined her as two of her soldiers returned with the chief.

"I fear what we've done is evil somehow," Balru said.

She turned to him, amazed that a man of his stature and status would be concerned with such things. After all, he'd lived through the decimation of Summerhome. What else could there be in the world but vengeance after something like that?

"And I fear that someday you will grow as soft as you sound, and then you'll no longer be of any use to me. Go wait for me in my tent. I will want to ride you when I'm through with the Wolf-King."

Balru flinched, but she couldn't help but notice the bulge under his leathers begin to grow as she bullied him. Balru had become trained to her like a dog, and his cock was hers now to do with as she pleased. She smiled at the thought of pleasuring herself with him. But first, she had other pleasures to attend to. She turned to face the last of the Wolves.

"Your people are buried by our gods. Your pack is broken. Your pack is shattered. And yet you live. How shall I punish you for the cruelties you've inflicted? How shall you be judged when you were spared the fate of all the rest? I would like to make you suffer, as you've made so many suffer."

"But I am not the last of the Wolves," the Wolf-King said.

He was an old man—far older than any she had ever come across. His hair was white as snow, and his face was so wrinkled and worn that his eyes were barely visible behind his drooping flesh. He was corpulent and infirm, and the sight of a man robbed of his virility disgusted her.

"Explain yourself," she said coolly.

"A Wolf knows a Wolf," he said with a smile.

She knelt down and peered into his eyes.

"Is that so? Then surely you know what I'm capable of," she growled.

"I know you'll do whatever it takes to survive. You'll put yourself first, your people second, and everyone else can go fuck themselves, right? I know you don't know what it is to love, only to use. You are a predator. Same as me."

Nailah stood and looked from one guard to the other. Then she looked down at the man who had surely been more than the pathetic creature she now saw before her.

"Exile him. None are to speak to him. None shall aid him. Let him roam the wilds for the rest of his days. Take his clothes and tools. Leave him with nothing but his sagging flesh."

"No! Please just kill me," the King groveled. "Take that sword and slit my throat! I wish to die an honorable death!"

"Like the deaths you delivered to so many others? I might be a wolf, but unlike you, I know what justice is. A wolf can't survive without a pack. A man cannot survive without a tribe. You had your life, old man, and you used it for this and you led it to ruin. I am going to build something new in the ashes of the God. And I will use your weapons to do so. Women are the Wolves. You have only ever been a sheep pretending you're something you're not. I wish to remake the world—and if it takes fire and blood, I will set fires and I will spill blood. But not yours. You're worthless to me. As far as I'm concerned, you're already dead."

He spluttered something at her back as she turned to leave, but she didn't care to listen to what he had to say. She made her way back through the carnage Summerhome had wrought on the Wolves. There were likely over a hundred dead. They had lost some of their own, of course, but she felt little about the loss of those she had never felt close to. She was pleased with her own martial prowess, at the way she'd thought to encircle their encampment and attack at dawn right as they woke.

The growing wetness between her legs sent a shiver through her as she crossed to her tent. Within, Balru lay sprawled out on the pile of furs she'd had her servants arrange for her. He was naked. And huge. And his manhood was waiting obediently. She slipped from her leathers and stood over him. He looked up at her, clearly fearing her and desiring her in equal measure.

She touched herself, and when she pulled her hand away it was slick. She squatted down and felt his cock instinctively twitch to meet her. It thwacked against her lips. She grabbed it with her wet hand and stroked it until it was covered with her.

Balru groaned in ecstasy. He had grown used to being used like this, and she enjoyed every moment of torturing the man who had bedded nearly all of the women in the tribe. But he was hers now. She slid onto him, then tilted her head back and lost herself in the pleasure of her blood right.

She was the Wolf Queen.