The heat from the clearing slammed into my back as I charged at that cowardly rat, my so-called master.

  "B-Boss, it's her!" the young human male shouted, giving up on getting the stallion to budge. "She's running over here!"

  "Who? Branwen? Took her fuckin' time..." spat the rat, stopping dead when he saw it was me, not her, storming in. "M-move… move, you useless animal!"

  Hil'ren, the scalehoof, didn’t so much as twitch, standing solid despite the fat little man’s angry and a bit desperate kicks to make him move. Only as I got closer, the stallion reared up and tossed that cowardly rat right off his back.

  ?Well done!?

  ?Deserved it!?

  The other scalehoofs cheered while the fat human squirmed on the ground, whining.

  "You...don't you dare!" he snarled, his eyes locking onto me as I closed the gap. "D-Don’t you dare lay a finger on me! That’s an order!"

  ?Craven!? A growl escaped my throat as the collar’s magic worked its nasty spell on me. The urge to obey slammed into me hard.

  "I-I order you not to move, wench!"

  Annoyed, I stopped dead. Fresh commands were always the hardest to resist; the old ones faded with time, right along with memories.

  "Tate! For tits' sake, Tate!" croaked the short fat human, thrashing around in the moss, darting glances everywhere.

  "Y-Yes, boss?"

  "What’re you waiting for? Get me the fuck up!"

  ?Leave him be!? I barked at the young guy as he moved to help his pack leader. It may have been easier for me to stay put and not resist those pesky orders, but that didn't mean all I could do was stand by helplessly.

  "I think… I think I'll wait here, boss."

  "What? Get your ass over here!" squeaked the little fat human, struggling to get back on his feet. Not very successfully. Looked like his strength had bailed on him - along with his courage. "I have the wench under control. I DO!"

  "Don't think so, boss."

  "Y-You..."

  ?Keys!?

  My growl made him cover his face like it was worth anything. Like any human, though, dumb as a rock, he didn’t get it. To him, it was just a growl.

  "I said don't you dare touch me, y-you hear me!"

  ?Keys, you craven,? I growled at him, not bothering to acknowledge his orders. The time for playing the obedient slave was over. Or... was it? Why couldn’t I hear the mossbear crashing into the clearing?

  "If… if you think I'm going to take your collar off, you're wrong," the sniveling rat snarled. Embarrassingly, it hadn’t even crossed my mind when I stormed up to him. But as much as I would have loved him to do that, I had to admit that he would have to be beyond stupid if he did release me. There would be nothing but my conscience to stop me from sinking my fangs into his flesh and he knew it.

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  ?Keys!? I growled, stepping closer.

  "What the fuck do you want from me, you wench?"

  ?Keys, CRAVEN.? To make him understand, I made an exaggerated motion like I was unlocking something.

  "Th-these?" His greasy smile stretched wide. "Then go get them!"

  Giving me no chance to react, he tossed them into the woods. Of course, he didn’t have much strength, so they didn’t go far, but it was annoying enough. And I let him know how much it pissed me off with a growl before I bolted off to find the keys. While following his order as I went along was highly irritating, the order itself was somewhat liberating. The moment I found the keys lying in the moss and clutched them in my paw, I was free from any restriction to move. The last order nullified the previous ones, and he didn’t give me any other to follow.

  Free of the collar's pull, at least as long as I would remain silent, I headed straight for the cage.

  ?Keys.? I growled, holding up my prize for the two women to see.

  "Fucking awesome," Vara grinned, grabbing the keys from me and immediately rushing to unlock the cage.

  "Forget about us, Korra. We'll take care of ourselves. Here." Elira shoved the Union Ring into my paw. "Help, Harcon!"

  Glancing at the inferno in the clearing, I found the former Master Guard in the center of it, using his staff to deflect both Swordstress’ and Shadow Thief’s attacks while continuing to cast spells to keep others off him. Honestly, I had never seen anything so impressive. Even the beast in me purred with approval.

  'Are all Master Guards that good?' He was a mage, yet somehow, he held his own against two blade-wielders. Not to mention all the others. Of course, I wasn't blind. Doing that was taking its toll on him.

  'Where the bloody fuck are they?' Their forest was ablaze; they heard me, and yet...

  "Harcon, the mossbears aren't coming," I sent my thoughts through the ring, clueless on how to actually help him. Everyone else out there had twice as many sigils as I did, if not more.

  "They... are... there..." His voice was a faint echo in my mind. He didn’t ask how I got the ring, didn’t grumble about his fate, didn’t beg for help. That male knew what he was doing, what fate he had chosen. So I didn't say any more about it either. 'The mossbears? I mean everyone in the clearing heard their roars; I could feel their presence on the back of my neck, yet...' No matter how hard I tried to find them among the trees, I didn't see a single one. The battle was loud, the fire’s roar even louder, drowning out everything else, while the dancing flames made a mess of my dusk vision. But if they were really there...

  'What are they waiting for? When their forest burns?'

  Seeing that with each breath the fight in the clearing neared its end, and knowing I had no choice but to venture into the depths of the forest to find the mossbear, I braced myself for paying the price, took a deep breath, and let out my challenge.

  ?ROAR!!!!? Come, you cowards! Come and fight me or your forest will burn! Once again, I put everything I had into my roar and more. My beast might ripped out of me, its pressure bearing down on the surroundings, challenging the mossbears and taking more of me than ever before. I collapsed, feeling like I’d just run a marathon twice over. My body ached, muscles on fire, lungs barely working. Yet I lay there, listening. Then it came. The mossbear’s roar echoed back, even louder this time, full of rage. The fury at my boldness came through, clear as day.

  'I don't care!'

  ?Come!? Better to end up as some beast's midnight snack than a mind mage’s next experiment.

  "Well done," crackled through the ring, barely a breath before the first mossbear stormed into the clearing. I was too far off to gauge its strength through the Lattice, but by the look of its body and antlers, it couldn’t have been much older than the ones the bitch was controlling. 'Where was she, anyway?'

  A scream ripped out from the middle of the inferno, pulling my mind off her for the moment. The shadow-thieving male had broken through Harcon's guard, sinking his dagger right into his side. Unable to move or form a single thought, I watched in horror. Like a balloon, pierced, he exploded. Flames surged across the clearing and through the inn's ruin, tossing aside all those he had fought.