Black Bear Rising: A BWWM Paranormal Romance (Black Bear Saga Book 1) by Tia Wilson Page A

face unmoving, his jaw clenched so tight the tendons stuck out like steel cables in his neck.

    “Please Father help me,” Nasak wailed.

    The crowd erupted into a jeering and mocking laugh as they shouted obscenities at him and cursed his existence.

    “Enough,” The clan leader bellowed and the crowd immediately stopped.

    “You father cannot save you Nasak. You know the rules of our tribe. You are a mongrel, a beast so low that you have to be cast out and banished from the clan forever. Broken and twisted creatures like you cannot exist within the walls of the clan. Your presence is an abomination, you are an aberration. We are a just clan and we do not kill our own, to do so would make us no better than a rabid animal. This law we uphold above all others. We even extend it to mongrels like you Nasak. Be thankful you live in such a just society. Our half brothers the black bears would show you no such mercy, those savage beasts would have you ripped you limb from limb and your internal organs served up to your family and everyone you have shamed,” said the clan leader in a deep bellow. “Mark this mongrel before he is banished for he shall never return to us. Never make contact with one of the clan. He will forever be a mongrel, a low born twisted creature that we have nothing but pity for,” he said nodding to a man in black standing at the edge of the pit.

    The man clad in black from head to toe pulled a hood over his face and turned to the fire burning beside him. A long metal pole with a stamped iron brand sat in the flickering blaze, the metal white hot. The man pulled the pole out of the flames and held it by its worn wooden handle. He walked up behind Nasak who screamed. “No, don’t do it. Father please don’t let them do this to me. Father please,” he shouted jerking and twisting his body.

    “Brand the mongrel,” the crowd shouted in unison again and again.

    The man dressed in black jabbed forward with the pole and the white hot brand sizzled against the flesh of Nasaks lower back. He threw back his head and groaned in pain as his flesh bubbled and burnt beneath the searing hot metal. A sickly sweet smell of burning flesh filled the pit.   The man dressed in black stood back and admired his handiwork while the crowd shouted, “Mongrel, Mongrel,” over and over again.

    The man in black took a long pole with a blackened steel tip and cut the ropes binding Nasak to the cross beam. He fell to the ground and his legs collapsed out from under him, all strength drained from his body. Nasak lay in the sand panting as pain continued to wrack his body. He lay there looking up at the crowd shouting, he knew they would never refer to him by name again, he was a mongrel and deserved no respect from the tribe. He rolled onto his side and tried to prop himself up into a sitting position. His clawed hand throbbed and blood ran from the ripped flesh that the nails protruded from.

    He looked wildly around the crowd and picked out his father watching him from his position beside the clan leader. “Father please don’t do this,” he said in a ragged plea. His fathers face was a stone faced mask which betrayed no emotions. He turned and walked away pushing through the crowds until Nasak could no longer see him. “No,” Nasak screamed in agony. The clan leader nodded and then turned to leave. Nasak did not notice the man in black walking up behind him. The last thing he remembered was the world exploding in a bright flash of colour and then fading to a pinprick of darkness.

    A noise like someone flicking heavy sheets of paper crept into Nasaks mind, the sound was repetitious and increasing in speed. Something landed on his eyelid and then his cheek and then his forehead. The blackness of unconsciousness folded away like a concertina and he awoke lying on his back in a forest. Rain spattered down from above. He opened his mouth and the rain tasted like sweetened water as it slacked his arid throat. Every