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

part of him ached, the brand on his back was a burning nexus of pain. He sat up and his joints and tendons popped painfully.

    Someone had taken him out of his blood stained rags and dressed him in a simple shirt and trousers. Beside him was a leather satchel and inside was a roll of money and a picture of his father giving a rare smile to who ever was taking the picture. Nasak flipped it over and written on the back in his fathers block like scrawl was the word sorry.  

    Nasak sniffed the air and breathed in the scent of loamy earth, pungent blossoms and the sweetness of tree sap. There was something else under the rich scent of the forest,he had smelt it only a few times before, he could smell the acrid stench of people. Nasak was being watched from the woods.

    “Who’s out there,” he shouted as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “Show yourself.”

    A tight clump of fronded ferns rustled up ahead and Nasak headed in its direction.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Tulimak & The Pit

    Tulimak walked across the raised walkway that circled the fighting pit. Blood stained the sand floor of the main pit in the centre of the wide open barn. “How is the new meat coming along?” he asked Slattery who was walking beside him with a notepad and pen in his hand.

    “Very good, Sir. We have a bull of a man who was on death row. He was months away from the lethal injection. He is hungry for life. He came so close to it he could practically see it over his shoulder. I have no doubt he will put up a mammoth effort. For something a little different I have a man who was one of the most notorious burglars in his city. This guy used to scale the side of buildings with nothing more than his bare hands and a small pouch of talc. He’s small and compact and extremely wiry. His reflexes are second to none. He should be a very interesting opponent and quite different from the usual brawlers you face,” Slattery said.

    “Very good,” Tulimak said circling the main pit again. “How are the youngsters coming along in their training?”

    Slattery flipped through the pages of his book and ran his finger over a list of names and said, “Eight out of the ten understudy class will make excellent soldier material. The other two are possibles leaders. Both are strong, smart and have a wild viscous streak.”

    “Do I know them?” Tulimak asked.

    “The young man, Tray Lanin I think you are familiar with. You had had his father disembowelled in front of the whole family when the uprising was squashed five years ago,” Slattery said.

    “This young man joined the corps even after what we did to his father?”

    “He thinks his father was a weak man, someone who didn't see the bigger picture of what you were doing for the clan as we move forward in this time of instability. He is fully on board with the cause, zealous doesn't even begin to describe him. I think he feels like he has to redeem the family name after his father brought shame to his clan,” Slattery said.

    “Wise boy,” Tulimak said picking at his teeth with a toothpick. “And the other?”

    “A young girl, strong-willed, independent, a little reckless at times. She is a natural leader, the other recruits seem to have nothing but respect for her,” Slattery said.

    “How did she manage that,” Tulimak asked flicking the toothpick into the bloodstained fighting pit.

    “During her first week of training, two of the other recruits, thick headed grunts in the making would not let up on her about her lack of family. She was found abandoned in the woods sixteen years ago by one of our border scouts and given to a barren woman as a surrogate. These two kept giving her grief about her lowly status in the clan, how she was nothing without family. They were starting to get increasingly physical with her. Pushing her in the lunch queue. Knocking her tray out of her hand, that sort of thing. One day she turned around and leapt on one of the boys. Bent his arm back until it snapped at the elbow.