she put it through.
With all the toxic salt her tribe had consumed, it
was a miracle any pregnancies even took. Only
Kiera, with her divine gift, could manage to
carry a cub to term.
But now, her Wildplains Tribe was full of the
weak, the sick, and the crippled.
And it was all thanks to her.
During the winter, their food supply had run
dangerously low.
Her three mates made a despicable decision.
They would use Kiera’s fertility to trade for
food.
They turned her into a commodity, forcing her
to bear healthy cubs for other shifters in
exchange for supplies.
Some of those shifters were enormous.
Kiera’s body couldn’t handle it.
She was reduced to a broodmare, constantly
birthing cubs.
She was no longer divine or beautiful.
She was filthy, and she reeked of sickness and
despair.
I looked at her and spoke calmly. “Kiera, didn’t
you choose this path yourself?”
In both lifetimes, whether she chose Sacred
Maiden or She–Shifter, the choice was always
hers.
She opened her mouth to say something, but
her three mates walked over.
They looked at me with a mixture of fear and
defeat.
A strange, twisted smile crossed her face. She
turned and whispered something in their ears.
But Kael heard every word.
“Despicable,” he growled. “They’re going to
coat their claws in arrow–poison.”
A coldness settled in my eyes. Thankfully, this
was a primal forest.
For every poison, there is an antidote growing
nearby.
And thankfully, my Animal Husbandry major had
required a few botany and herbalism classes.
I knew exactly what the antidote for arrow-
poison looked like.
I described the red–backed reed to Roc and
Ash and sent them to find it quickly.
