A Sinless Betrayal by Cherie Benjamin (books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📖

boom. Drinks Of Waterfall and Three Horses grab Cordell by his arms and force him to his knees in front of Abigor.

As I try to push up onto my knees, I can barely even recognize my husband. His eyes are black and he looks more menacing than ever. At his height of nearly seven feet, and his muscle mass like the mass of a walking mountain, he is the epitome of a god—an angry one at that.

"This isn't fair!" Cordell cries, terror evident in his eyes. "You made a deal!"

"You should know the barbarians," Abigor says with menace laced throughout his tone. "We never play fair." He picks up the cauldron of bubbling silver and holds it high above his head. "Za ka so da Silvertongue, zan ba ka da Silvertongue!" (You want the Silvertongue, I'll give you the Silvertongue!"

I look away as Abigor pours molten silver down Cordell's screaming mouth, then using his khopesh to cut out his tongue. He holds the bloody, silver-covered tongue high up into the air as Cordell's lifeless body plummets into the earth. "Tsoro ni! Ku bi ni! Tare za mu kashe mutanen a cikin bakin karfe kara, fyade da mata, enslave 'ya'yansu!" he screams. "Za mu san kõme ba na jinkai." The Hausas scream with him. (Fear me! Follow me! Together we will kill the men in iron suits, rape their women, enslave their children! We will know nothing of mercy.)

As I struggle to my feet, I can see the bodies of lifeless Bellechesterman soldiers littered everywhere. I make eye contact with him and the look on his face shows pure relief. "Ku zo gare ni, ni mace." (Come to me, my woman.)

I smile because I know that everything's going to be okay now. I'm safe as long as I'm with Abigor. I scramble to my feet, holding my large stomach in my hands. Suddenly, I hear a cry of anger and pain floods my system.

I'd been whipped.

One single Bellechesterman wanted his vengeance. The barbed leather raked across my back, my smooth skin quickly becoming mangled and bloody. I cry out in pain.

I'm bleeding. I'm bleeding everywhere. I don't see when the man gets killed. I don't see the look of horror and pain evident on Abigor's features. I hear bones snap and skin rip and suddenly I feel sick to my stomach.

I can see Three Horses scuttling towards me, pulling me out of the way and to safety. I don't understand. I hear growling behind me. I turn my head towards the sound. And I find myself looking into the eyes of an enormous wolf.
Howl

When I come to, I am laying on a bed that smells like him. Abigor. But the last that I remember is that barbed whip stripping the skin from my back. I sit up too quickly and the pain instantly hits me. The furs on my top half are gone and I am naked except for the white bandages that dress the wounds on my back.

I see the door to Abigor's warm cabin open and Three Horses steps inside. He is red in the face and his eyes are wild. "Sarauniya," he whispers. "How do you feel?" It is quiet and cold—I assume that it must be nighttime.

"How long have I been asleep?" I ask him, rubbing a hand over my growing stomach. I try to sit up straight to relieve myself from my back pain, but it only does a little.

Three Horses nears me. "A few hours. It is midnight."

I try to swing my legs over the side of his bed but I'm so sore. Three Horses rushes over to help me up from my place on the bed. I tear my memory apart trying to remember what happened before I fell into that deep sleep.

An eye. I can remember a huge brown eye staring at from me, a long snout and huge white fangs shown from pulled up lips. I can see a wolf. And that's when I recall what happened before I was here.

"My husband," I whisper. "Three Horses, where is Dances With Wolves?"

This is when the warrior's face turns pale as he looks towards the door. My skin turns an inhumanly shade of white as I begin to feel rather nauseous. "We…work with him. He's healthy but…unhealthy in a way. I t'ink you might want to come take a look for yourself."

Three Horses fetches my heavy animal fur cloak and drapes it over my shoulders. Wrapping a hand around my waist, he stabilizes me and helps me walk out the door. Instantly, the cold blast of wind hits me and stings my once warm and rosy skin. In the distance, I can hear the howling of a wolf ring in my ears. My heart beats faster as we trudge through the snow. I'm trying to keep up with Three Horses but my back hurts so bad. Finally we near where the warriors are trying to keep a beast at bay. My beast.

When I see him, my heart stops. I gasp and fall back from my place. He thrashes in the ropes he's tied it. The warriors try to calm him and lower him to the ground with said ropes, but it's only making him angrier.

His eyes are yellow, primal. His fangs are sharp and purely white, dripping with blood. He stands taller than any wolf I'd ever seen in my life. His eyes rise to meet mine as he lets out a horrific howl that curdles my blood.

0o0o0o0o

ABIGOR'S POV

She sees me. She's disgusted with me. What I've become. I can't look at her beautiful face. I can't bear to see the disappointment and horror in her eyes. I stop fighting the warriors and settle down in the snow. I can see the beads of sweat forming on Drinks of Waterfall's face as he loosens his hold on the rope.

I'd been fighting long enough. Three Horses whispers something to Eliza. She licks her lips and steps forward. "Na soyayya…kuna har yanzu a wurin?" comes her sweet, honey-toned voice. "Ina bukatar mu san idan mutum shi ne har yanzu a ciki.." (My love…are you still there? I need to know if the man is still inside.)

I lift my head slightly at the sound of her footsteps drawing closer. I breathe out of my huge, flaring nostrils and watch as my breath curls away in the crisp air like fire smoke. How do I answer her? I cannot speak. I cannot communicate. I am a beast.

She inches her hand closer to my pelt. I'm calm now. I shove my nose into her palm and lean my giant head into her arms. How I'd longed to be touched by her, held by her. I can smell the infant growing in her swelling stomach, I can smell the blood from the wounds on her back.

I growl in remembrance of that wretched Bellechesterman scum that whipped her. This startles her and she jumps up, trying to scramble away. I whimper and inch closer to her on my paws. Once she realizes that I'm not being aggressive towards her, she throws herself at me and wraps her arms around my thick neck, her tiny fingers grabbing at my pelt.

"Don allah," she whimpers, her bottom lip quivering. "Don allah, ina bukatan miji na baya." My eyes feel watery as I stare out into the distance at the bright moon aglow in the sky and the Vibrant Mountains off in the horizon. (Please. Please, I need my husband back.)

She's weeping now. "Ya mai girma da dukan iko wolf, bã ku canza konkoma karãtunsa fãtun a gare ni?" Somewhere deep in my body, I can feel something stirring inside of me. I need to be human again. I need to be there for her. (Oh great and all-powerful wolf, will you not change your skins for me?)

As this something stirs, I can feel the most excruciating pain in my life come back to haunt me. My bones are breaking, shrinking smaller. My skin is splitting, my fur falling away as human skin takes the place of it. My wolf howl is cut off as my fangs are back to human teeth and human lips form a human scream rather than a howl.

And here I am, standing naked as day before my wife and my warriors. My shoulders heave up and down—that whole process was physically exhausting. "A-Abi—" I don't even give her time to finish.

In one step I am by her side, clutching her frail body to mine, burying my nose into the collar of her neck. And she's hugging me back. "I almost lost you," I sob into her shoulder. The memories of the knife to her neck, the whip stripping the porcelain skin from her back.

"And I almost lost you," she sobs right back to me. "I didn't know if you could ever change back." She pulls away to look at me. I'm naked and not having seen my body in weeks makes a faint blush return to her cheeks. How I'd missed that blush of hers. "You are not cold?" she asks.

No. I am not. In fact, I feel comfortable in this weather. I don't say anything about my temperature. "Come with me, kyakkyawa. There is much to explain." (Beauty.)

I ignore the gaping mouths of my men and trudge to my cabin like I wasn't a wolf just a few seconds ago.

0o0o0o0o

ELIZA'S POV

"Everything I've ever been told, everything I've ever read…it's all been true. It all makes sense now!" He paces the length of the room, naked as the day he was born. He still hasn't bothered to put any clothes on, but it's not like I care. "Before…before you were captured, those random fits of rage were unexplainable and I knew not what was going on with my body. But now…"

"You are a wolf," I finish for him, my voice feathery and breathy. "Just like in the tales your father told. Like the ones I'd read in the library."

"Shapeshifter," he corrects me. "Hausa Shapeshifter. The last one of our kind." My mouth falls open slightly as I smooth my hand over my stomach. He catches the small gesture and his eyes widen. "I…"

"Do you think our baby will be a shapeshifter?" I whisper to him.

He walks closer towards me. "It will be hard to say," he replies. "There's really no telling."

"But now that you know it's in your blood, it…it must be in our baby's." I nod my head at him. "It has to be."

"Wait," he says, coming over to sit next to me on the bed. "It skipped over my grandfather and my father. The last time a shapeshifter was documented was three generations ago, with my great-grandfather. Ephraim, or Mighty Claw. It's possible that this shapeshifting bloodline could be passed to our child."

I lean back against the wall for a split second but sit right back up due to the wound. "Ouch," I murmured, rubbing my back softly. His eyes widen and he inspects the bloody bandages doing poorly to heal my wound.

His heated fingers skirt across my cold skin. "How are you feeling?" he murmurs. "Does it still hurt?"

I shake my head and stare at the fire crackling before the both of us. "Not as bad as before. I think you scared