Settling in

How could the gods have abandoned her to such a cruel fate? This was the question that had been swimming in her head for the last several moons, but now more than ever it had resurfaced in Marina's mind from the moment she was led away from the ruthless monsters that had abducted her seasons ago by an even bigger and more monstrous wolf that she was now forced to call 'master'. The young fae's coat was disheveled and dirty, mussed up this way and that from numerous days of sleeping on nothing but hard earth and enduring beatings for behaving out of line. They had tried to break her spirit, tried to tame her like a wild mustang. She had not broken. Not for them, nor would she break for this beast now leading her to gods knew where. That was the mantra she repeated to herself over and over. She could not break. The moment she did, her life was over.

Marina hadn't said a word during the transaction, simply leering in steely silence at the males as they haggled over her—like goods, like a product. It made her skin crawl how easily and nonchalantly fellow wolves could engage in the flesh trade as if they weren't destroying lives over this. Oh, how she wished she could fight back. But fighting back was what had gotten her the last beating, the one that had sprained her hind leg. She could still walk fine, though if she put too much of her weight on it she'd have a noticeable limp, but she refused to show any pain or discomfort on her face. That's what they wanted, and she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. Rina kept to herself as they walked back to the brute's home, his stench growing stronger the closer they got to what she assumed must have been his pack. Her nose wrinkled and turned up at the smell. It smelled like a prison to her.

Entering into a rocky mountain pass in some territories of some land she knew nothing about, Marina kept her head lowered but eyes turned up, taking in her surroundings. The only sound besides the soft footfalls of their paws on the hard ground was the gentle rattling of the metal chain of her pendant around the fucker's neck. The sound sent a chill down the femme's back. Of course the slavers would give her mentagion to her new jailer. They knew it was the one thing that actually kept her subservient. And if she hadn't stood a chance getting to back from those bastards, trying to take it from this unnatural behemoth of a wolf would be suicide. He led her into a den and when she followed him inside and only saw a bed within, her heart immediately sank, fearing the worst was about to happen. Was this the purpose he had purchased her for...? Not even the slavers had been cruel enough to lay a paw on her to defile her...

The giant wolf spoke to her for the first time, asking if she could manage her own injuries or if she needed assistance. Marina didn't look up at him when she simply responded, "I am capable of tending to myself, sir." She stepped her way past the giant wolf to the bed and the bag of medical supplies, settling her hind end carefully down so as not to agitate her leg or the lacerations still healing across her body. She winced as a pain ran up her leg, but quickly stifled any further reaction. She kept her eyes turned down; if there was one lesson she'd learned quickly it was that making eye contact was the fast lane to pissing off these egocentric brutes and getting a smackdown.

"Marina"