I was defeated.

Not the kind of defeated that comes with humility, like being bested in a spar with your friend, or the kind of defeated that accompanies your mind when you start a puzzle that you know you'll simply never finish. 

No...this was the kind of defeat that a man who has come through hell and back for literally nothing feels. The kind of defeat that only those who have fought, tooth and nail against an army of an entire nation, only to fall just short of victory feels. 

And it was painful.

"C'mon...wake up, Varas...we have to get going! We were lucky to make it through til the morning, but we have to go now!"

The Huntress, still nameless to me that day, shook my broken body violently against the ground. Her hands, despite their small and demure size were insanely strong, and I jerked awake in a coughing fit.

"Kaff! Kaff! AHhh...ah...what...what happened? What's...what's going on??" I asked, trying to sit upright, but there was the remnants of a concussion, keeping my body flat against the ground where it was. I started to open my eyes, but immediately closed them at a wave of nausea and the sudden, blindingly bright beams of morning sun that broke through the endless walls of trees around me.

Another shake just made me wince my eyes shut tighter. "This isn't a joke, Varas! GET UP NOW!!"

I thudded against the ground helplessly. I was awake now, no doubt, but even if I had determination to give, it would have done no good against the rigors of the day before. I gritted my fangs as I started to recall it all...

The fierce, brutal strikes to my stomach at the gates...

The harsh, stinging slap of my mistress as I made a spectacle of her at the town...

The foul, putrid stench of urine about my fur as I woke up in the jail cell in a pool of my own blood and vomit...

The drugs that had been forced down my throat and tricked my body despite my horrid condition, making me into nothing more than a public sex toy...

And yet, I was still alive.

"Alright. Let's go."

With a struggle greater than any strain my arms and legs had ever experienced at any point in my life, I pried my eyes open and lifted a paw to my forehead, trying to shield the light from my eyes. The Huntress, in what I still considered unfathomable kindness from her, saw my strain and moved into my line of sight, blocking the sunlight from my vision. Like the angel I suddenly thought her to be, the sunlight broke around her visage, highlighting the bright, golden blonde of her hair and shining over her like a halo, so much that I felt that perhaps I had died in the night and been taken up to heaven in all of God's infinite mercy. 

This was not the case, but certainly, for me, it was close enough.

"That's a bit more like it."

"Glad you think so."

"Stop forgetting your honorifics."

She might have the voice of an angel, but her tongue was still sharp as a razor's edge, and she still felt the importance of keeping me in my place. "My sincerest apologies, Mistress," I replied dryly, and to my shock, there was no tightening around my neck, and no impact to my head. Instead, there was a dainty hand offered out to me, with one of the mostly kindly smiles I'd ever seen.

"Not anymore." 

My jaw dropped. "W...what...?"

I remembered her hand reaching out to help me, but it turned out I was wrong about that after all. I felt the harsh grasp of enchanted steel clenching around my neck, and as I admired her smile, I started to wonder if perhaps her smile was a lie, or maybe, I was still delusional from my injuries. My head was still spinning like a top, and my eyes were blurred as though they'd been smeared with oil...but even as I was relieved when my vision cleared, it paled in comparison to the relief I felt at unrestricted, fresh air filling my lungs.

"Mistress...did you just...?"

I saw the enchanted steel slowly disintegrating, turning into a light blue aura and disappating into the air around me, accompanied by the calming sound of what seemed to be tiny shards of glass shattering upon the bricks of a human city. 

The same hand that just freed me, despite her never having fully broken me, came up to stroke lightly at the fur upon my cheek. "It's Aiyana, actually."

My mind was still swimming in total disbelief. This couldn't really be the same female who had captured me only two days before, could it? Even if she had stolen from someone just to save my neck...even if she had gone back on the promise she made on her mother's death...why couldn't I trust her? Had she really changed?

"That's...beautiful. A beautiful name," I said, still a bit breathless at the sensation of being able to breathe again, ironically. "Do you have a last name, Mistress?"

"Verza...and I told you, not anymore," she reiterated, lifting her hand away from my cheek to cover her soft, kissable lips, and a playful giggle. "That title never felt right on me, Varas. I'm sorry I imposed it upon you over these past few days. Would you be willing to forgive me...?"

"On a couple of conditions, of course," I replied, taking her delightfully delicate hand in my coarse, well-worn paw. I stood upright, and she stood up with me, and for the first time, I was able to stand face to face with her and truly appreciate all of the beauty she'd been blessed with. "First and foremost that we walk and talk at the same time. I've kept us stalled plenty long enough."

Aiyana gave my paw the most subtle of squeezes, so much so that I wondered if maybe I had just imagined it, and released it as she turned away. She started walking on ahead, and against the foul odors that the other pitiful humans had stained me with, I could smell a delicious, feminine and tropical scent trailing off of her as she lead the way out of the forest. Before she'd turned, I was sure I saw hints of a blush highlighting her cheeks, and bringing the bright, beautiful jade out of her eyes. Her hair was certainly blonde now, and it shined brilliantly in the morning sun as it moved over our heads.

"And what are the other conditions?" she asked, as I started walking along just behind her. She'd turned a new leaf, or perhaps, turned back to an older one, but in all that had happened the days before, I was still hesitant to walk right in line with her unless she instructed me to.

"That you keep shaking me until I wake up from this wonderful dream, or, if I'm dead, stop lying to me and tell me I'm already in Heaven."

She rolled her eyes at me, much as I'd expected, but there was no malice left to stare me down. "I suppose my change in personality is a little bit too much for you to handle so suddenly?"

"It's certainly not what I expected," I admitted, nervous that she might strike me for the wise crack, but I felt no sting. "Are you that kind to all of the slaves you sell?"

"Every single one of them," she played along. "But I guess you've probably figured me out, then; that almost everything you've seen of me up until now has been me wearing a disguise...even if I had my reasons."

I raised a brow. "I didn't think you were hiding anything quite so deep. What parts were true?"

"The part about my parents."

I gulped. 

"And the part about wanting to live up to my mother's death in a new way."

Then, I sighed with relief.

"Varas...I really am sorry for what I did to you, but...I guess I'm really not that simple as a person. Everyone has an expectation for me to be a fierce goddess of battle, while being some unattainable sex symbol that makes most men quiver with fear and doubt just from being around them. It's frustrating to maintain, but when you so wholly and completely ignored all of that about me, you helped me see back into my true self, even if I was too angry to realize it at the time. I didn't want to admit or accept that I might not be so angry or vengeful, so I kept up that charade around you. The loss of my parents still hurts, and everyone in Makusa has drawn my ire time and time again, but...all you ever did wrong to me was live up to your reputation, while trying to deny me my own."

"..." I wasn't really sure how to respond to her. My whole life growing up and interacting with women of any species, tribe or background, none of them had ever really talked about their feelings with me, and I never got the hint that any of them wanted to, nor did I ever have the time or care to listen. 

This time, I had to at least give it a try. "I guess I didn't realize that you were so complex, Aiyana. I really did believe that you were nothing more than a girl who was out to destroy my kind, and look damn good doing it." Smoooooooth, I thought in cursing myself. 

"You sure know how to compliment a woman," she said, and her gruff tone made me unsure if she was being sarcastic, or legitimately annoyed. 

"I'll admit, it's not something I've ever had to do a lot of in the past to get what I want, but you have at least peaked my interest, Aiyana...so what are you, really? Just another angry huntress wanting to avenge her family and tribe against crimes by scum like me, or a calm, wandering spirit who got forced into a way of life she doesn't necessarily like?"

At that, I could at least see a genuine smile forming. "Somewhere in the middle, Varas. You'll just have to find out; but I'm curious to know...what are you, really? Just another horny animal that will have sex with any woman that walks his way, or a silly young wolf who is lost in the world because he was never properly raised?"

I snorted. "I happen to have exceptional taste, actually."

She chuckled, and for the first time, when I joined a woman in casual laughter, it was real...it actually meant something. I wasn't trying to bed her, or get her off my back about something with fake laughter...this was real. 

It didn't hide my pain, though; that was just as real. "I guess it wouldn't do any good to lie to you, Aiyana. Having empty sex with anyone I could did just enough to keep me from feeling as hollow as those carnal relations themselves were, but it was my only little version of revenge against you and your kind...I knew the fates of human females that would go to bed with a wild beast like me. I knew that some of the females of other species I slept with were in heat or impregnanted, and I walked away from them without even a moment of hesitation...so why on earth are you suddenly being so nice to me?"

"Because...what I did to you was every bit as unfair as anything you've ever done to anyone else, Varas, and slave or not, I want you to stay with me for a little while."

I couldn't help raising a brow. "Why...?"

"You may not be my slave anymore, but I think I have one more task for you, if you think you can handle it. Given what you just told me, I have no doubt that you can."

The idea of doing any further work didn't really appeal to me. The reality of the fact that I was free to make my own decisions again hadn't really set in until the prospect of further work was brought about, and at that notion, I wasn't exactly thrilled. "I was kind of hoping to walk away from all of this completely free, but you did save my life back there. I suppose that whether or not I like it, I'm still indebted to you for at least a little bit."

"You owe me no further form of a debt," she confirmed, and as she did, she paused in her stride. "But if you were to accept this task, I'm afraid you wouldn't be truly free ever again."

I stopped right alongside of her and turned to face her. Her tone was suddenly so serious upon my ears that I could feel the very weight of her words. "If you were intending to keep me broken, you should have left the collar on me, Aiyana."

She shook her head. "Not broken. The decision would be one of your own will; the fruits of that decision would keep you bonded to me forever."

"What decision? What could you possibly be planning?"

Her hands, strong in their will but delicate in their touch, grasped my much larger paws, and brought them towards her, letting them rest right upon her perfectly toned stomach. Still feeling the effects of my body being so heavily drained, I didn't even attempt to resist her touch. "I can think of only one way to honor my mother's wishes that won't end in bloodshed, and even this one still may, but...another war is not the answer, Varas. You've proven that to me by showing me the true strength and character of a beast with nothing left to lose. It's admirable..."

I may not have always been the wisest man alive, and certainly, I wasn't the best at picking up subtle hints from females when the norm was closer to them throwing themselves at my footpaws, but the tone of her voice, the way she held my paws upon her stomach, and that soft, pleading look in her eyes that betrayed the very strength she'd shown me, and yet, reinforced it by letting me see it in the first place...this was no ordinary plea for my cooperation. 

"Aiyana..."

"I've yet to meet a single man in my whole tribe, no...in my whole life who is a better measure of what it means to be a man than you are, Varas. I've never met a man who I could ever consider remotely worthy of leaving me their seed, but you-

"You can't mean..."

"Let's break down those walls in ways that our parents never dreamed of, Varas."

And suddenly, I was faced with the most difficult decision of my entire life.