#guy whose priorities are fucked up: maybe dying in the desert is better than being vulnerable for 1(one) day

[sunsage]

Sun's passionate speech doesn't fully convince him, but it's too late to do anything at this point. Everyone already knows and running off to hide would only make things even more embarrasing for him.

Maybe he shouldn't have asked for help at all.

He lets Macaque carry him inside, only muttering a quiet "sorry" in response. Settling down on the couch takes him a moment: he still has sand in his, well, everywhere, and curling up isn't really an option for him right now, but he tries his best to do just that. He is still very tired. Whether from his turning to stone or from spending almost a whole day in the desert, either way a nap sounds really tempting right about now. Maybe, he thinks as he closes his eyes just for a moment, maybe he would be lucky enough to sleep through the people gathering here and looking at him with that mix of pity and worry that makes him feel like he already failed whatever challenge this was meant to be.

Maybe. But probably not.

"You did," he says with a nod. "All I can say is that I'm sorry." But he knew that wasn't enough. He did betray Monkey King's trust, even if he hadn't said that he wouldn't tell anyone. Monkey King came to him for help in confidence and believing that Sun would be tight lip. He would have been if things weren't as serious as they were right now. Seeing Monkey King in that state....it Scared Sun.

The cloud lowers them down and Monkey King doesn't give Nimbus the time to fully land, or at least not really. He rolls and lands on his own cloud. There's a distance between them and Sun hops off and lands on the ground. "I texted Gabriel and Macaque. I'm sure through that the rest knows." Sun knows exactly how Monkey King feels. He wouldnt---hadnt wanted those close to him to see what he had gone through. He gets it, but if there's one thing he learned through what he had gone through here it was that:

"It's really scary to have someone see you at your most vulnerable. Who knows what is going through their head and the feeling of them being worried for you is frightening..." He definitely didn't like the feeling of being vulnerable around people. It was why he acted the way he did. He didn't want to be seen as weak, portrayed as that same scared Monkey. Why SHOULD HE? He was Sun Wukong, Sage Equal To Heaven--they feared nothing.

"We are here to help you. Be there for you through it all. They're bound to eventually see you go through something, Monkey King." There was no use trying to hide the fact.

"Let us help you. We'll figure the rest out after."

@sunluzhen @sageshadowed @light-imperfected @ringlorn

[ayafoxheart]

Bløød and Sand

Original RPC Post

What does it mean to be an Ala Mhigan? It's rarely an academic question.  Rather, it seems to cut to the bare bone in a way few others are capable. Big, dumb, trouble, vagrant, lazy. Refugee. Tough, strong, iron-willed.  Dangerous. Every Ala Mhigan to be found in free land has abandoned his homeland in one way or another.  That seems to be the rub.  The salt in the wound.  Its left a mark that doesn't want to rub off.  And every Ala Mhigan knows this, whether they'll admit it or not.   Some its never seemed to bother. Minding his shop, the smithy Osvald is as happy and satisfied as he will be.  As Ishgardian as he is Ala Mhigan, he was young enough to adjust, adapt, and start over.  He found his life's calling in a trade.  He'll be happy as long as he practices.  Wherever that may be. To others it meant opportunity; a fresh start without all the strictures of established society. Raubhan, the mighty warrior become General.  Never could he have found such power and influence in the land of his birth. The red-haired Bohanon, wild and free as he roams the streets of Ul'dah ruling the city a block at a time with the gang. But for some it means a past that can never be forgotten.  One to be clung to, and whose recovery brings all other priorities into question. Kael has never forgotten the family estate.  Never relinquished the claim to that which would be his.  Entering middle-age he dreams of abandoning his young Ishgardian family to strive for glory and revenge in the homeland.  To restore honor to their name, and return to their rightful place where their ancestors fought and died. And for others?  It is a duty that demands nothing short of a zealous self-sacrifice.  No greater cause could exist than revenge for the crime inflicted upon the nation and people.  There is no chip too big for their shoulders.  No excuse for a life outside the resistance; for the direction of any effort that is not targeted against the Garlean occupiers. Eva, red-haired and fierce.  She has trained all her life for but one purpose: to return Ala Mhigo to its people.  To expel, and destroy the Garleans.  Prepared to die, there could be no more righteous cause in life. Then, there are those who wish they were like them.   Heji, is her name.  'Hellion' more commonly.  An Ala Mhigan in the classic mold:  tall, powerful, fierce as the wind that batters that highland realm.  She's known on the Sands for her strength and body--for her war cry, and ruggedness.  But there's more to her than that: honed technique, experience, and a certain grace that under girds the ferocity.     She's been a friend of mine for a long time.  We were rivals once upon a time.  When my career was ending, and hers just beginning.  We won't discuss the record.  We don't mention it any more. Vision stirring.  Everything is... I've taken a new student some while back.  And when she asked about unarmed training I knew there was no one better to engage for instruction.  That's when I introduced the Hellion to the Fox.   There was the Hellion, well over six foot of sculpted muscle.  One side of her head shaved. Covered with menacing tattoos.  And the Fox - with her manicured nails, and figure fit for sculpture.   Red. Is that blood? My blood? Its all over the sand... I won't admit to being wrong.  No, there was no better education I could have offered.  The Fox is a quick student, though I'd have never believed it when I first met her.  Neither as dainty nor as foolish as she seems. Numb... numb... bleary... But as the Hellion landed another blow I knew it had gone too far.  An instructor doesn't land a punishing blow against a helpless student.  Not with this sort of viciousness. Not long into this session she'd taken the Fox down with a quick sweep.  It wasn't exactly a fair strike, from a professional with hundreds of bouts worth of experience, against a student focused on learning.  And then she'd shifted gears, using the woman's momentary helplessness to force her into a blind submission with her fist.   ........ "Enough!"  I leapt from the stone where I'd been observing and strode out toward the pair.  "Enough!" I hollered again.  But the woman responded with yet another blow, this one directly to the face. This, you must understand, was strictly against the terms of our employment.  The Fox makes her living with her face, more than anything, and she hadn't wanted to risk her living for this.  Not yet, at least.   Sure, I threatened her about it all the time.  She didn't wear any protection.  It raised the stakes.  Kept her on her toes, as it were.  But my threats were for show.  To make her worry.  To make her work harder.  To keep her on edge.  This was altogether different.  This was punishment. "Damnit, Heji!  Enough already, you know she's the one paying you!" The woman did stop.  In a sense.  She turned her attention to me.  Rage burning in fierce eyes.  "I'd do this for free, old man.  Its what this bitch deserves!" For Twelve's sake.  There's not enough gil in Lolorito's vaults for this. "What the hells are you on about, woman!?  Get off her already!" By now Lunk had started up too.  The big guy was always a little slow to get on his feet.  I knew I might need the reinforcement. "Thinking she should just dance around the desert, looking pretty for all these gods-damned money-bags while we're fighting;  DYING! for our homeland!" The Hellion had raised her voice to a shout.  Just short of the war cry that had made her famous.   I raised my oaken stick - what sort of weapon is that against a mistress of the unarmed arts you might ask? Lets not discuss the record of our past matches, okay? - and then I slammed it into the ground as hard as I could.   That finally startled her into jumping to her feet. What was... that... sound... why can't I see? This was just fantastic, really.  Why am I always surrounded by Ala Mhigans with all the damned chips on their shoulders?  Everywhere I go it seems to be Ala Mhigans everywhere, and not a one of them seems to have any sense! "What sort of stupid shit is this?" I asked, incredulous.  "Why aren't you out at Baelsar's Wall if its so important to you?" With that she took a mighty swing my way.  I won't say that it was unexpected. Well, not entirely.  The breeze that brushed against my cheek told me everything I had to know about her earnestness. "My brother just died up there, you son of a bitch!" Well.  This didn't seem like it was going to end well.  Where the hell was Lunk any... the sound of his mailed fist smashing into the Hellion gave me some joy, I'll freely admit. I... can... For a moment she sprawled onto the ground, and the big fella recoiled at what he'd done.  It wasn't his style to gang up on someone, especially not a woman. The Hellion spit blood.  She'd have it no other way.  Rising to her feet she wiped her forearm along her lips.  "Oh so now you want to fight, huh, fuck head?  Going to defend your fairy princess, is that it?"  She snarled.  It wasn't a pleasant look, that one. "You know, there's one thing you just don't seem to understand."  I said, as calmly as I could muster.  "Oh, what's that old man?" she glared at me.  I rested on my oaken stick.  "She may look a might weak.  But she likes nothing more than being underestimated. And..." "She's a spoiled bitch..." "She doesn't give up," I finished. "... just a bitch who's forgotten where she came! And I'm going to fuckin' give her a reminder she'll never forget!"  The Hellion turned to look for the princess.  But she never quite found her.   The form of the kick was, I must say, perfect.  She'd been taking her lessons well.  The snap of her lower leg was directed precisely into tho back of the Hellion's knee.  The larger woman crumpled in a surprised instant. But its not the initial strike that is the most important.  The Hellion always stresses this.  First you disrupt balance.  You create the opening that allows you to get inside their defenses.  Once inside it was the next move that was the most important.  It must be aimed for victory, whatever the goal of the bout.  From a pin, to a deathblow.  It really didn't matter what the end result was, this was always the moment to strike for it.  The lesson always seemed to sit well with the Fox.  She'd told me once upon a time she'd lived among Wolves, and they taught her the same lesson.  I had an inkling of what she meant. As the Hellions back touched the sand her assailant had already pounced.  Her entire body was in the air.  One arm locked the other in place.  It was a fore-arm drop, aimed to the momentarily helpless woman's throat.  With her full weigh behind it, it could have been the end.  A crushed wind pipe and a painful death. The strike was pulled at the last moment.  Instead the Fox locked her arm around the woman's neck.  As the Hellion struggled against the sleep-hold a terrifying grin took hold of her curled lips. "So.. she has fight in her..." she rasped before passing out.   We walked back toward the city in some silence.  Lunk helped the Fox along, with that gentle concern of his.  The price for the day's lesson had been steep.  No poultice would handle this.  No mere cosmetic could disguise the punishment suffered by her usually smiling features.  We'd thrown her cloak over her as best we could.  Not that anyone likely would have recognized her in this state. "You're going to need a healer..." I suggested, hoping she already knew of one to visit. "I know who..." she replied.  And off we went. For some, to be Ala Mhigan is little more than an accident of fate.  To others, it is the very meaning of life itself.  But none who bear that name can fail to consider its importance.  To them.  To others.   What of the Fox?  Politics where never her game, as much a I could gather.  She cares about people.  A smile means more to her than an army.  A satisfied life: in Ishgard, in Ul'dah, in Ala Mhigo, more than any ancient banner or name.  The future more than history.   That's my take, at least.  But maybe you should just try asking her.

[booksummarieswithkatz]

Beneath a Blood Moon by R.J. Blain, a summary

Okay, terms to know can be found here.

Now that that’s out of the way let’s get on with the story.

WARNING: THIS FOLLOWING CONTENTS INCLUDE RAPE, PHYSICAL ABUSE, SUICIDE, AND MURDER.

Sara Madison is a stripper living in Las Vegas, at twenty-one, she has been working under a fake ID for the past three or four years, ever since she escaped her rich, controlling, and abusive father. Since Sara has no proper credentials she’s confident her father can’t track, she’s been working four gigs and paying for college one class at a time, with her current income and pace it will take her over a decade to finally get a degree and a more savory job. As the days go by she becomes more and more tempted to let go of her principles and take the extra income for going home with clients from the clubs, but despite the criticism from her coworkers she has persevered. It’s here that we begin the story.

Sara gets back at four a.m. from the club, and on her doorstep is a black funerary urn with crimson-red roses inside. Hidden among the roses is a note: These roses aren’t red, unshed blood is blue, this urn for the dead, I made just for you. One trip to vomit later and Sara is terrified, but she can’t call  the police because they will just blame it on her being a slut and then ask uncomfortable questions about her less than real records, so she heads to class like nothing happened and heads to the club. It’s then that we learn her main method for getting good tips on-stage: find a client you like, dance like it’s just for them.

When she looks out at the crowd, she doesn’t see anyone that catches her fancy until – she saw him. The hottie™. He is perfect: the right height, the right amount of muscle, a rugged handsomeness that’s not too rough but not too smooth, and these inhumanly golden-amber eyes that just scream sexy (that’s “sexy” read as “totally a werewolf”). So a very good night of tips later and Sara puts on the feathers and sequins for her next gig. On her way to the gig, she meets – surprise – the amber-eyed man and a friend of his, who hope to get some souvenir pictures. Of course they get their pictures. Hot guys always get pictures. The amber-eyed man even blushed. And has a sexy voice. And a nice ass. Priorities.

Too bad that when she gets home there is an ominous empty hourglass and another note. What a fucking buzzkill, huh? So she calls her only friend and coworker, Isabella, and hustles out to her place to crash until all this blows over, but she forgot her textbooks, so the pair wait until they finish work (the amber-eyed hottie wasn’t there this time, what a shame) and stop by Sara’s apartment. Then they get knocked out from behind.

They wake up in a shack, tied up with some shitty rope. Sara chews through the stuff and frees Isabella, but because escape attempts that don’t involve ridiculously complicated plans never seem to work in fiction, their captor appears. This douchebag’s name is Rory, and he was Sara’s boyfriend until he cheated on her just before she ran away from home. So Rory comes in and is all like “love me baby” and Sara is just like “why would I love someone I could not trust to keep his dick in his pants tho?” and he’s all like “because if you don’t ima kill both of you,” and Isabella is all like “hey, hey, hey… if I fuck will you not kill me?” to which he responds “OH YEAH.” And so the two start flim flamming their jimmie jams, while Sara – bruised but not broken – crawls out into the moonlight of the Nevada desert. The moon tonight is an eerie blood red color, and as Sara drags herself through the sand – maybe she is broken, her sternum at least – Rory and Isabella show up and start mocking her, then Rory gives one last offer *cough* death threat *cough* which she refuses cuz Rory is a bitch and Sara takes no prisoners. So Rory draws a weird pattern on the ground, and asks Isabella if she is willing to be his, then gives her a good snogging, and then they turn into giant wolves. Hungry wolves. They start eating Sara alive.

But as she screams and writhes in the sand, something comes to her, an offer for help, an offer for safety. She accepts. Sara’s new wolf howls in triumph, and turns her attackers into puddles of meat paste. Sara returns to the shack, is released from her lupine shape as the moon sets, vomits everywhere, washes herself off, and nabs some sweatpants and a shirt before setting off toward the distant lights of the city.

The night blurs, and Sara finds herself on her doorstep. She spends the next several days going between three states: horribly sick, disturbing gluttony, and the kind of lust that would impress a succubus. Her wolf is rutting, and at this point any male will do (where my gay wolves at Blain? Gimme my gay wolves dammit!). But Sara’s got her heart set on keeping herself under control, and finally convinces her wolf that she will take any man the wolf wants, so long as he fits her standards. The wolf agrees. Once she can finally stand without vomiting, shitting herself, or needing a cold shower, Sara realizes that her new diet – all meat and 25,000 calories per day – is really taxing on her bank account of two bits of string and an expired condom. So off to work she goes, and her boss is pissed. He sets her up to dance twenty minutes straight every hour (usually it’s five or ten minutes only) and demands that she keep her clothes completely on until the after-hours VIP special, not a good way to get tips. Also he tells her to glue some feathers to her ass. For some reason. Of course, she doesn’t really have a choice so she heads up on stage and oh-baby, its the amber-eyed hottie.

Now, I don’t mean to tell Blain how to write her books, but I find it suspicious and hamfisted that the amber-eyed man is the first patron she ever chose to dance for a second time, but it’s also a romance novel so I guess I can just go fuck myself (in more ways than one) and let plot convenience happen. So Sara heads out on stage, takes in the new – and in here overwhelming – aroma of male arousal, and starts putting her assets on display with a nice bit of flamenco on the pole. Now, the amber-eyed man has company again, the other man from before, and a woman who is sitting as close to on that man’s lap as she can while still looking classy; needless to say, Sara’s wolf agrees with her that amber-eyes is sex on wheels and they put on the performance of a lifetime (or something, idk, romance novel shit).

Once she’s offstage again, a coworker named Danny slaps her on the ass, tells her she’s killing it, and asks if Sara is willing to go home some VIPs, a man and his wife, that want her specifically. She says no, and Danny clarifies that they are willing to pay her twenty grand directly AND give the boss another fifty k to let her go with them immediately. Sara, because she is not an idiot, knows that this is an ultimatum, and since twenty thousand will buy a lot of food for her very demanding wolf,  she accepts. Danny says “great, now put on this dress and blindfold, and here’s some vodka to steady your nerves!” Sara agrees, because sometimes a bitch just needs a drink, and gets changed; she is then led down to her new clients’ car.

Her clients are pretty cool, surprisingly, and the man has a seriously familiar voice. They tell her that she has been hired to act as a plus one for their friend, whose wife recently passed away and has been taking it really hard lately. After some comments about how “he’s really determined” and had “better get down here before the buffet closes,” the friend, Sanders, finally shows up, angry because he “couldn’t find her.” All his complaints dry up when he opens his door and sees her though, and after the couple in front, introduced as Charles and Wendy Desmond (that’s right y’all, Big Daddy D returns!), have a nice long laugh at his expense.

Sanders, flustered and (by his scent) clearly aroused, takes off her blindfold and who guessed it? We all guessed it, he’s the amber-eyed hottie. The aforementioned arousal is mutual. The four of them drive off to the buffet and decide to have an eating contest, Sara and Sanders versus Wendy and Big Daddy D. Sara destroys them all. They head off to Cirque du Soleil, and after that to their hotel. And by hotel I mean a penthouse sweet at the Venetian ($10,000+ per night).

It’s in their hotel room as they wait for Sanders to park that Sara realizes how her wolf has gone quiet, and she’s answering questions she shouldn’t, and doing whatever she’s told without consciously agreeing to it. Wendy and Big Daddy D continue to ask her about her life and why she accepted their offer, they ask if anyone gave her something to drink who shouldn’t have. Danny spiked the vodka with wolfsbane. But, hold on, Sara thinks, why would they know it was wolfsbane whe-… they know! Sara and her wolf freak out and shift, only instead of the powerful predator they were during the full moon, they come out of an excruciating transformation as a tiny, wobbly puppy.

Sanders, Wendy, and Big Daddy D are very upset to find how new she is as a Fenerec, especially when they can tell she has no pack and no mate to protect her. They do their best to calm her down and figure out how she ended up like this since she did not go through the ritual and it’s supposed to be impossible to become a Fenerec as an adult without it. Big Daddy D confiscates Sanders’ cell phone and demands they get nasty, because apparently Sanders is the third most powerful Alpha on the continent (second is Richard Murphy and first is Big Daddy D) and his previous mate dying means that he is at a big risk of running wild, and that means his entire pack of over a hundred wolves will run wild with him, so the Inquisition has demanded he take a mate of Big Daddy D’s choosing. Big Daddy D, seeing that Sanders was going to court Sara when she was still a human and that Sara was mutually interested, is quite pleased to find that she is now a Fenerec (circumstances notwithstanding) and is therefor won’t get old and will be much sturdier than Sanders’ previous human mate. He asks Wendy to leave the room and return in wolf form, then gets her to help Sara shift back to human. They all sit and eat room service (I want this metabolism dude). He then graciously allows the two to have the room to themselves for the night and takes his wife to get a new room and perform some extracurriculars of their own.

Unsurprisingly, Sara and Sanders almost immediately take a trip to pound town. A most satisfying venture which we don’t get to read about because the book has a plot but no “plot” :(. Regardless, they form a mate bond and Sara is brought into the Seattle Pack, however, the promised warm fuzzys do not come but instead a lingering cold comes through instead. Assuming it’s normal, Sara ignores it and has breakfast with Sanders, before getting dressed and heading off to class for the day. After class Sara returns to her apartment and promptly gets kidnapped again, this is what happens when you split the party. Never split the party.

Sara awakens in a tiled room with a shower head above her, a man is standing above her and is dying her hair bright red. This man introduces himself as Kent, and promptly displays his abilities as a sorcerer by torturing Sara with magic repeatedly. It turns out that Kent is the Sorcerer that killed Sanders’ previous mate, Mary, and he plans to use their fledgling mating bond to torture and break both her and Sanders for a power boost. He drags Sara through a curtain of silver chains, hangs her by her arms from the ceiling, and positions the curtain around her on all sides, trapping her. It then revealed what else the sick son of a bitch keeps in his basement: he’s kidnapped a dozen or so male Fenerec, broken their wills, and turned them into slavering beasts capable only of sex and pain. We also meet Kent’s conspirator, a water witch named Brandy, who is aiding him in exchange for power and also some kinky mad wolf sex.

After a week of repeated torture and abuse, Kent loses his patience and decides to just make a video of him raping Sara and sending it to Sanders to really fuck him up after severing their bond and also her bond to the pack. This turns out to be a mistake, because when he unchains her legs to spread them she whips her feet around his neck and chin and snaps his fucking spine. So satisfying.

However, because this book seems to hate Sara, it’s not just sunshine and roses, because Brandy sucks up all of Kent’s extra powers and becomes ridiculously OP, she makes out with Sara (kind of unnecessary but okay), says that she’ll drown but won’t die, and floods the basement. True to her word, Sara floats in the flooded basement for another week before she gets pulled out by some Inquisitors sent to investigate the scene. The group, and you should remember their names, are Dustin (water witch), Holly (Fenerec), and her mate, Barry (also Fenerec). They get Sara lucid enough to say her name before freaking out and calling Sanders.

Sanders shows up with the kind of hurry usually reserved for a horse with it’s ass on fire, and glomps onto Sara immediately. He brings her back to the hotel, brings her back into the pack (still no warm fuzzys like she was promised), and then they “ensure” that the mating bond is properly restored. The next day, Sanders has to go do work things and wants Sara to just chill out and rest after that harrowing experience. Of course, trying to keep someone in a confined space is probably not how you should treat someone that just escaped from cage-based trauma, so Sara goes outside and sees that Sanders, helicopter mate that he is, has arranged for some big, intimidating Fenerec bodyguards to look after her. But putting someone that was just in a traumatizing situation involving lots of males she didn’t know and couldn’t trust in the exact same situation is a BAD FUCKING IDEA, Sara ditches her guards at the first possible instant, and because she is also a goody-two-shoes she goes off to her former place of work to formally tell her boss that she quits and he can go fuck himself.

The bouncer convinces her in the least suspicious way possible (they split the party again because they are idiots) and she agrees to meet her boss in his office. Of course, that was a terrible idea and the boss sticks a needle full of ketamine and wolfsbane in her arm and ties her up in a sex dungeon; someone in New York (it’s her dad) wants her enough to pay some rather excessive amounts to insure promptness. Luckily for everyone involved, Dustin, Holly, and Barry show up and rescue her again. They are even kind enough to convince Sanders and Big Daddy D not to kill everyone inside the club. Except for the bouncer, because he told Sara that when she came back from New York he was going to “enjoy breaking her and turning her into the perfect slut” and that’s not paragon at all. So he dies a horrible death and there is much rejoicing.

So everyone gets together and has a chat about why someone in New York wants Sara and decide that the best solution is to have Sara show up at the airport as if she had not been rescued and tail whoever tries to collect her. So everyone flies to New York before Sara does to set up the operation. Unfortunately Sara’s flight gets rerouted to Chicago due to bad weather and is then canceled. So Sara calls an emergency number given to her by Sanders and ends up having a chat with the Shadow Pope. They get along swimmingly and Sara asks if she can be let out of her pack because that lingering chill from the pack bond has escalated into a seething mass of hatred that crawls up her spine and beneath her skin and tries to poison her thoughts. The Shadow Pope says she can but has to be directly supervised by her mate still, also that she should call him because he’s freaking the fuck out right now. When Big Daddy D picks up the phone, he reveals that Sanders is so wild with worry that he had to be sedated, then hands her off to talk to Sanders’ second in command for the pack, Joseph. Joseph basically implies to Sara that she’s a piece of shit whore and that she should just kill herself now and save her mate the trouble. Sara responds by not escalating the conversation, not because she didn’t want to but because she gripping her cell so hard in crumples to pieces.

Now without a plan and no way to contact anyone for help (and by that I mean not thinking clearly enough to borrow a damn phone) Sara uses her cash on hand (Sanders gave her several hundred) to buy the first plane to Atlanta and then takes a nonstop bus to New York. Upon arrival in the big apple, she checks her bank account to find that the Inquisition payed her for Kent’s bounty (it’s a dizzying number of zeros). One shopping spree later, she checks in at the Plaza (where she knows Sanders is staying) and sends a package to Sanders room (containing the sexiest underwear she could find). Then heads to a big fancy party that everyone is attending to scout out who has the money to orchestrate Sara’s capture.

At the party, Sara steals the show by being gorgeous™, and Sanders shows up so hot and bothered you could fry an egg on his dick. They have a really cute moment together and then all of those feelings turn to ash when he brings her to meet Joseph, and a submissive female of the pack named Chrissy. So there they are, the two pack members sitting on a sofa staring at Sara and Sanders at the door, Sara tells Sanders that she wants out of the pack, that the pack hates her and wants her gone, and that his promises of love and family are a crock of shit and she will not stand for it even if it meant losing him. And you know what Sanders does? You know what he fucking does?! Slowly and calmly he lets go of her hand, walks away from her, and sits down next to Joseph.

So here Sara is, traumatized after multiple rounds of kidnapping and torture and abuse, she finally makes it back to the one person she can count on to support her, and he completely ignores all of her problems and gets mad at her instead. Good. Fucking. Job. Dick-knuckle. So Sara runs out of the party and to the nearby beach, she feels pretty used right now and is convinced that Sanders doesn’t want or love her and that he would want out of their mating bond if he could – but mating bonds last till death – wait… mating bonds last till death! So Sara walks into the frigid waters of New York in winter, and kills herself from hypothermia and drowning. That’s right. She did not attempt to kill herself; she succeeded in killer herself. Good. Fucking. Job. Sanders. You dick-knuckle.

So Dick-knuckle finally calms down and uses his nose to smell the reek of satisfaction coming off of Joseph and Chrissy, and realizes that – oooOOOH SHIT! - I think I fucked this up guys! And that’s when he checks the mating bond to find that she’s dead. D-E-D DEAD. As is proper for someone who realizes that they might have just drove the person they love to suicide, he freaks out and runs out to the beach. Luckily Dustin was forced to follow along and he gets his team of pet sharks to find her and bring her to shore. They then begin to furiously attempt to resuscitate her and Dustin forces her to shift to her wolf form to recover more quickly. Also, Big Daddy D gets fed up with Sanders’ shit and cleans his clock so he can’t put his foot in his mouth again by misunderstanding Sara’s emotional damage and fucking everything up more.

Once she’s awake again, Sara’s wolf takes charge and runs into the ocean again to get away from those she feels can’t be trusted (everyone). Dustin gives her the counter proposal of “I have three dozen sharks with thirty feet of you and if anyone tries to bully you I will let the sharks eat them, otherwise you can come chew Joseph and Chrissy’s faces off. Faces are high and protein and you have not been eating enough for a newly turned.” This incredibly reasonable offer of shark-bodyguards and tearing off her abusers’ faces coaxes Sara out of the water enough for Big Daddy D to pick her up and give a firm talking to about how a pack is supposed to be. He manages to convince her to join his pack (currently him and his wife) and feel what a pack should be like. The moment the bond clicks into place he showers Sara in his protective care and Wendy supplies her own brand of maternal love, it’s a pretty damn good feeling for someone who had thought that nobody loved nor supported her.

So once she is a bit less hypothermic and a bit more willing to talk, Big Daddy D, Wendy, and Dustin really sit down and listen to what Sara needs to start getting better, and at the top of that list is actually learning about how this whole mating thing works, because everyone was so caught up in their complete contexts they forgot that she knows literally fucking nothing about Fenerec society and culture. The trio finally start helping her to understand the complex knot of pack politics fuckery that just happened and how they plan to stop it from happening again and how to fix her current problems with Sanders and how protect herself from such things in the future.

So Big Daddy D says “fuck the inquisition! You want your hot boy back? I will get you your hot boy back.” And then he forcefully subjugates Sanders, takes control of the Seattle Pack, and isolates the two of them from the pack so they can slowly teach Sara how to use the pack bond. Also he reveals that not only is the Seattle Pack a bunch of fuckups for driving their alpha’s mate to suicide and sending the alpha careening over the edge of insanity, they also were driving the most valuable kind of Fenerec to their death, because Sara is an omega; meaning that Sara’s most immediate instinct is to do anything that the pack needs to keep order and stability, which seriously compounded with the fact that the feeling she was getting from the bond was that her existence was the problem that needed solving. So along the way, Desmond gives Sara the Fenerec version of the Birds and the Bees, which is consisted of: And then they both get really horny and form a mate bond, they remain infertile until they rut in the winter, which is when the female (&$#! and ^#$%&@ as well as ^&%&*$^%$ the male to make him fertile so that they can make puppies. And Sara, who just really needs to make her own damn decision for the first time since choosing Sanders as her mate, asks that Sanders stays with her for the night instead of Wendy or Big Daddy D.

So they head towards the elevator and oh boy, Joseph is in the elevator when the doors open. Sara is so surprised that she immediately lashes out and knocks him the fuck out. One punch right to the chin. She drags Joseph’s body to Sanders like a sack of potatoes and demands that he join her in her room as thanks for not killing his second. Sanders thinks that’s just about the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen aside from Sara (naked), Sara (clothed) and Sara (wolf form), in that order; he happily agrees to spending actual uninterrupted quiet time with her for the first time in the whole goddamn book why can’t they just get a normal relationship Blain? You dick.

Anyways, the couple spends a few hours just being with each other and solving their problems and figuring out how to salvage the trainwreck the pack made of their relationship, and they decide that the best course of action was simple: GIT. FUCKING.  N  A  S  T  Y  . So they fuck for about eight straight hours and also Sara on the sly decides that she’s gonna give the gift of pregnancy to Sanders, since his previous mate Mary couldn’t have kids and he’d been forced to give up the idea of being a father (why don’t Fenerec just adopt? Probably a wolf spirit thing).

NOTE: For the rest of the summary I shall attempt to spell the word “pergant” differently every time.

So although Sanders won’t know it for awhile, Sara is pergnent; this will continue to fuck up everything for the rest of the book. Everybody has a meeting about how to proceed with luring their quarry out into the open, and track down another gala for The Rich Assholes of New York (my favorite reality tv show btw). They plan to have Sanders and Sara arrive together as a married couple to taunt their prey into making a mistake.

However, because once again this book just loves to shit on Sara’s happiness, the limo driver (who works for the Inquisition) shoots Sanders with a dart gun, and he passes out. Sara tears the driver’s throat out with her teeth and grabs his gun, shooting the second assailant positioned outside her door. She makes use of the confusion to drag Sanders into a nearby lake to lose their would-be abductors, then shifts to her wolf form to keep him warm until the drugs in the dart wear off. Unfortunately, because this book just hates it’s protagonist, Sara startles awake to find that Sanders turned into his wolf at some point and he’s currently checked out and mostly wild. He leads Sara on a month long trek across the continental U.S., and becomes a hyper-aggressive near-out-of-control bestial trainwreck that barely even recognized the need to feed and protect his pregart mate.

Around the time they’re somewhere between Montana, Idaho, and Washington (they made excellent time, wow), Sara gets grabbed by a group of strangers with silver cages and collars. While Sanders does circle back to free her, they still manage to put a tight silver and metal muzzle on her. Even though she escapes with her mate, they can’t get the muzzle off, and Sanders has to feed her though the cage piece by piece, she begins starving; her purgansy is at risk. Sanders has already been starving himself to keep her fed, but it’s not enough. He goes out to hunt. He doesn’t return. Sarah starts to wander after his scent, she hasn’t eaten in days, she’s thin and weak, starving and pargnat.

Someone picks her up, it’s Richard Murphy! The bastard pretended to be a concerned motorist and snuck up on her! He helps her take the muzzle off and calls Big Daddy D. Sanders disappeared because he ran in front of Big Daddy D’s SUV and got zapped by Nicolina (if you don’t remember her from previous summaries she’s a wizard). They let Sara hear Sanders’ voice, and when Richard goes in to a convenience store to buy her some food she turns back to human form (this is still okay because the first month of pergalerncy won’t miscarry from shifting). And Richard gets a surprise eyeful of hot naked Sara before grabbing a blanket for her and driving out to a lodge Sanders’ keeps when the pack needs to get away from the city.

Everyone has a sweet reunion (and [re]introduction for Nicolina, Alex, Lisa, and Amber), and then Sara presents herself to her mate so he can finally calm the fuck down and shift back to human so they can tell the story of why they suddenly disappeared on the way to that gala.

It’s decided that someone in the pack and possibly the Inquisition is working for whoever wanted Sara in New York (it’s still her dad, I didn’t really explain it but it’s clearly foreshadowed and everything). But Sanders is an idiot still, so he demands to go to his landscaping company’s greenhouse to make sure his babies (plants not puppies) are doing well. Also Wendy got pregante so that Big Daddy D wouldn’t start burning down forests looking for Sara, because he’s basically adopted her anyway. So Wendy, Big Daddy D, Sanders, and Sara all head down to the greenhouse to check on the plants and let Sara experience Sanders’ love for his work, they get a few Inquisitors to watch the place for safety but none are allowed in because males with permanganate mates are territorial enough to start killing strangers. This is also splitting the party, since they could have had a veritable army and they are stupid for allowing it, because someone starts shooting at them and the two men go out to kill the attackers, leaving the remaining enemies free to capture the two perogent women. Slow claps all around.

So Wendy and Sara get taken to a boat and brought out to sea to evade pursuit and are placed in a room by their captors, who are also Fenerec. The leader of the abductors is a little bitch who thinks he can dominate them enough to stop their transformation at the full moon in a few days assuming they play nice. Sara says that’s some bullshit and, despite the fact that she will almost certainly cause her puppy to miscarry, changes to her wolf to protect her alpha female, Wendy. Over the next several days Sara protects her charge by ruthlessly savaging anyone who crosses her, usually because they tried to give them drugged food. But low and behold the full moon cometh and Sara uses her super-cool-omega-protagonist powers to be as dominant as she needs (really just printing a blank check there) to keep Wendy in human shape so she doesn’t erroneously terminate her pargnency.

Their captors, however, are a bunch of idiots and send in some wolves to take control back; Sara responds to this by subjugating the goons sent after her and then going full rambo on her captors. Sadly, Sara doesn’t get to kill their leader, he gets eaten by a giant fucking shark that jumps onto ship. The shark, satisfied with his meal of big stupid wolf, gives Sara a whole tuna and then leaves. Wendy tells Sara that killing everyone who knows how to pilot the boat was a bad move, also these overly friendly sharks are creepy. So a non-specific amount of time passes, with Sara still a wolf and Wendy still mad that they are drifting somewhere in the pacific, until they see land in the distance. Sara jumps off the boat and swims to shore, and Wendy soon joins her. The boat crashes onto some rocks and splinters to bits, trapping them on the island. Also it’s an island so they sort of jumped the gun on the whole “yay we’re safe” thing.

So they chill on the island, and Wendy sets a bunch of shit on fire to try to attract rescuers; Sara goes hunting and tries to keep Wendy sane, which goes pretty well until the next full moon. Sara succeeds once again in keeping Wendy human, however Wendy is getting pretty fucking pissed about her situation and starts attacking Sara when she gets close. Eventually Wendy gets so fed up that she just hops on a friendly sharks back and leaves the island altogether. Sara remains on the island since she is kinda terrified of sharks and she’s also the size of a adolescent wolf so trying to swim past the horizon is basically suicide. So she starts starving again, because the sharks left to protect Wendy and stopped giving her fish and there are only so many mice and birds a small preganta wolf can eat.

Another unknown amount of time passes and humans land on the island, it’s Dustin! YAAAAAAAY! He picks Sara up and gives his uncle a call (turns out he’s Sanders’ nephew) and says that if they let her stay as a wolf then both she and the puppy will die, and if they force her to shift to human she’ll survive and the puppy almost certainly wouldn’t. Sanders takes this really well. Psych! They have to peel him off the ceiling and sedate him while they ask Dustin to help Sara shift back to human.

Dustin pulls off a real bully for modern medicine in that he uses his powers to not only safely shift Sara back to human, but also got her puppy to shift with her; turns out Sara was paraganet with a true born Fenerec baby. So that’s pretty great.

Sanders comes onto the scene by crashing past all obstacles like a lupine cool-aid man, and he and Sara have a nice moment together and take a nap or something. Sara wakes up first and gives the Shadow Pope a call. They have a chat about how to catch the traitors in the Seattle Pack; it turns out that nobody thought to just pull all their phone records until Sara suggests it. Geniuses, the lot of them. The Shady Pope delivers all the phone records and they discover that around a dozen or so Fenerec have been communicating with a series of New York and New Jersey phone numbers; the biggest offender being a wolf from New York named Arnold, that nobody seems to know where nor when he appeared, and that Joseph was also involved up until the night Sara drowned herself.

Sara takes one look at whose number the traitors were calling and has a panic attack because it is * le gasp * her father’s number. “Oh it’s all my fault” she says, and is then told that that’s probably not true, because the communications of the traitors go back all the way to before Mary’s (Sanders’ last mate) death. It’s decided that Sara’s father is an insane rogue wolf, that he probably killed her mother trying to force her through the ritual, and that he has been aiming to destabilize and take over the Seattle Pack long before he located and targeted Sara, so yay absolvement of guilt onto the mentally ill, progressive!

Everyone has a nice good think about how to lure out Sara’s father (henceforth to be called Dig Baddy), and decide that they will have the ladies head up to an out of the way resort and the men will ambush the traitors and the rogues all together (of course the women can’t help with dangerous things, they’re all pargetna and stuff). The women take this very well. NOT. Wendy, Sara, Nicolina, Lisa, and Amber tell the guys they are going shopping, leave their phones at the hotel, grab a rental car, and book it up to Seattle (they were in Cali at this point). They then proceed to steal Sanders’ truck (not actually because the Shady Papa modified all the paperwork to be in both Sanders’ and Sara’s names) and then one of Sanders’ blankets so Sara can keep his scent with her to remain calm, as one does.

They gaggle of women head up to Canada, cross the border, and head to an Inquisition gun range. Sara tries to learn how to use a Beretta, but it turns out that she is a flinching mess with no ability to aim, however, it turns out that Sara turns from completely inept to perfect marksman when they put a fully automatic Glock 18 in her hands. Everyone recognizes that this is bullshit but if it fits and ships so they put one in her purse and call it a day.

After departing from the gun range, they leave Canada and enter Alaska, where they drive to an out of the way Inquisition airstrip to lure Dig Baddy. She gives him a call and he goes full dumbass and flies out immediately. He arrives, but with Sanders and Richard at his side. You see, Dig Baddy is convinced that the reason Sara ran away and became a stripper was because he didn’t let her have a harem and get her lady garden ravaged on the regular, so his solution is to abduct Richard and Sanders, drug them with copious amounts of wolfsbane and give them to his daughter as hot, sweaty, eager to please peace offerings. Sara responds by handing Richard a gun and saying that shooting her dad would give her the greatest pleasure possible. A Glock 18 empties a 32 bullet magazine in two seconds. Dig Baddy goes from deranged idiot to puddle of meat paste in about that long.

Sara tells Richard that he can’t follow any orders he doesn’t want to if they don’t come from her, and then they get Nicolina to cover the runway in ice so the next plane that comes (filled with Dig Baddy’s goons and the Seattle Pack traitors) will run into the first plane and turn into one hell of a fireball. It works, and they all head back to Seattle to find out what happened to Big Daddy D and company.

They learn that the Inquisition had put Big Daddy D and the rest of the group into protective custody so they wouldn’t run wild without their mates, and they all head to the Desmond’s house to chill. Sara realizes that Sanders misses his pack and decides she needs to deal with her trauma with them so she asks Joseph to bring over all the members he thinks Sanders needs to cheer up. 80 wolves end up in the Desmond residence, and Sara gets over her issues with them after a round of pointing her Glock at them followed by some good old fashioned cuddles. Also, the Shady Poopy bought them a nice house using the bounty technically owed to Sara for dealing with a pack of rogue Fenerec (judging from mentions in other books, it’s like 5 million dollars per head). The End.