The devil you know

She wasn’t sure what the stranger was doing, but she could feel the occasional shift or tug on her back as he examined her. Only, to her so much as a breath over her back right now sent agony through her system. She wished that darkness would keep her, but it refused to swallow her whole again. Instead, she stayed conscious as his words reached her. won’t let? a strange thing for a slaver to say.

The ice around her slowly began to numb the pain, or perhaps she was losing feeling in her body. Moving seemed like a very bad idea, but as a commotion happened around her, she struggled, shifting and groaning until she had turned enough of herself for her head to flop in the direction of the wolf that had found her, and the bear that had mauled her.

Which actually led her mostly to looking upwards. The wolf was the same soft tone as the snow, though there was no softness in his manner now. He was like a blizzard, moving with purpose as he fought the much larger, much more powerful bear. Why? She wasn’t worth enough for that. She knew it, she was told it day after day.

"Speech"