"So, this is the power of the Bultungin," Tara said with a slight tremble to her voice, "You invoke an attack upon yourself and when you've already won the battle you take slaves? My people practiced the same, hundreds of years ago. My people and those from other tribes, kidnapped and took the children of their slain enemies and raised them as their own, growing their numbers by stealing from their enemies." Tara's brown eyes bore into the calm tall African woman's dark eyes deeply. "You disgust me."

"And yet, you remain," Furaha said.

Acharya took note that no other Bultungin spoke, even the two elderly men, they all stood silently with down cast eyes. Acharya had never seen a more overt display of group submission before in his life. Except if you counted the myriad of pictures, he had seen of various fascist dictators with the crowds at their feet hungrily cheering and shouting at the dictator's words.

"Can it be removed?" Tara asked quietly.

Furaha scoffed, "Why would I want to remove it?" She looked over at Mary, who's breathing had deepened somewhat and she was sleeping a little easier. "I told her that one day she would be mine, a wayward daughter returning to her place, where she belongs, under my feet."

Her words settled like dust after an explosion. The sound of Furaha's voice dropped away then, and the only sound that answered was that of Tara's feet. She took one step, then another, then another. Furaha smiled as Tara came forward. Then her smile froze, silence wrapped itself around the group in its strangling grip and the fire stopped flickering.

Tara lunged forward. Her body flew horizontally through the air, her torso and abs barely clearing the fire. As her body passed over the bright yellow and orange flames, she shifted and plowed into Furaha with full force in her werewolf form, knocking the Bultungin alpha to the ground.

Time seemed to speed up, to catch itself for what it had lost in those few seconds. Furaha shifted into her hyena form and seemed to fly at Tara's fur covered legs, and then her hyena body was hurtling through the fire, splashing the logs and embers all over the still warm African ground as she impacted with a whine. An ember resting against her back, burning her fur and filling the air with the acrid smell of burning hair and flesh.

Furaha, shook her body roughly and glared at Tara's close to seven-foot-tall werewolf frame. The Bultungin slowly started circling around the fire pit that still held some burning logs, though the light was so much less, and small burning pieces of wood now littered the campsite.

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Furaha laughed cruelly in her hyena body and lunged at Tara again. This time Tara didn't wait to deflect the attack but met it head on. Tara gripped the hyena in her claws and squeezed the Bultungin's neck. Furaha must have known she was in trouble. An average human wouldn't have the strength or hope to hold onto a mad, struggling hyena. Furaha obviously wasn't prepared for how strong Tara or any of the other werewolves were in their werewolf form. Furaha cackled as she tried to breathe and she kicked out at Tara's claws and body trying to find a point of leverage to get out of the vise grip that the werewolf had around her neck.

Tara squeezed the Bultungin's neck harder. To Acharya, it looked like Tara was trying to squeeze the hyena like a melon. Tara howled in the hyena's face and threw her down to the ground hard, body slamming her into the still hot fire pit.

Furaha, writhed and twitched and jerking her body out of the fire, was able to roll and limp away from the mad werewolf that looked as if she really did mean to kill her.

Before the injured hyena was able to crawl away too far, a brown furred arm shot down out of the dark night and gripped the hyena by the neck and yanked it seven feet off the ground. The hyena yipped and kicked as it tried to turn around and face who ever had grabbed her.

"I told you I would answer blood for blood," Aiman whispered perfectly clearly to the struggling injured animal he now held in his grip. "Either you free our pack mate or you die."

Furaha was given as long as she needed, no words were spoken and none of the other Bultungin made a move against the two werewolves that now stood around the rapidly dying fire. The embers glowed softly in the warm night air as the hyena's gold fur was lit orange and red from below. The vise grip that Aiman held Furaha's neck was absolute, and even though the hyena could breathe, she knew that she would pass out eventually.

With a strangled whine Furaha nodded her head.

Aiman unceremoniously dropped the hyena from his grip. He stood staring down at the round eared animal as she coughed and limped a few steps out of the shadow of the massive werewolf that now stood over her. Aiman watched the Bultungin, like a hawk watches a fish in the river.

Furaha laid down on her side and rolled onto her back, breathing raggedly as she shifted back to her human form. Her left leg slowly rose on a bent knee, her foot dragging slowly across the hard ground unable to lift itself even an inch off the ground, only to straighten out again as she whimpered in pain. The woman had tears streaming from her face as she tried to cope with the humiliation of her defeat and the pain that wracked her body. Tara wasn't sure she had broken bones or not, but between her and Aiman, they had wounded her grievously, even if most of it was pride.

Asclepius made to go over and see to the softly moaning woman but Acharya raised a hand, stopping the pack healer. The pack alpha walked over to Furaha. The woman's dark eyes followed him as she tried to move away from him, her body was too overcome with pain to move, all she managed was to turn away from the Shape shifter pack alpha.

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