Ansuya held the child as best she could and Keva ran to grab a leg of lamb that had been set aside for the wolves. Slicing off thick chunks of the raw meat, she put it onto a plate, and set it down on the floor.

Ansuya let go of the child. She dove to the ground, on all fours and shoved her head onto the plate, eating without using her hands.

Ansuya watched in semi horror at the pure animalistic behavior of the child and Keva was just as confused. The child grunted and growled as she tore into the raw lamb pieces as if she hadn't eaten in weeks, and maybe that had been the case.

"What do we do with her?" Keva asked quietly. "We can't leave her here, clearly these people don't give a damn about her, otherwise she never would have been able to get to this state."

Ansuya nodded, "Your assessment is correct. My people have a stigma against women and girls in general. If the first born of a family is a girl, the father, in way too many cases, will have it aborted. Or if it's carried to term, sometimes, the child is abandoned. It is the barbaric underside of my people that I have never been able to reconcile. But then again, I grew up in the less than glamorous, less than godly, partial underbelly of my society. I have a bit more perspective than most."

The girl finished her meal incredibly fast and grunted and growled. Her throat noises sounded similar to howls, not the melodious howls of wolves, but something more primal, higher pitched, and savage.

Keva sliced more of the lamb for the child and she ate this portion slower than the first, but only just. By the time the child had had her fill, the entire leg of lamb was all but gone. The child had just eaten what a full-grown wolf would have eaten for two days.

The child was tired. She was drowsy and her eyelids were not up all the way, but she yowled and scratched at the walls. Ansuya let the grey wolf into the room and the girl ran towards her protector and hugged around his neck, burying her face into his course fur. The grey wolf laid down with the child and as soon as she laid down with him, her eyes closed and she was asleep.

Ansuya said to the wolf, "I would not saddle you with this responsibility in any normal circumstance, and it may seem cold now. But she is your responsibility. We won't abandon her. We will care for her as best we can. But, as Derceto took reasonability for you and your brothers, you take responsibility for this child. Do I make myself clear?"

The grey wolf nodded and nuzzled the girl as she slept. The soft wet nose of the wolf against her neck, caused the girl to smile. It was a soft turning of the lips, something that didn't seem quite right on her harsh and sunken features. It was enough to make Keva want to cry.

She let herself out of the room and walked down the stairway to the courtyard. She walked across the open yard, in the rain, which hadn't showed any signs of slowing down, and she trudged into her room. She thought of all the things that had happened to her since she had learned that she was a werewolf. Getting into it with Setford, punching him in the face, being chosen as a pack Alpha, going north, losing Erato, and everything else. And yet somehow, none of that seemed to matter. If Aceso was right, and they were supposed to be guides for Humankind to be more civilized, than they had failed miserably. Any world where a child, any child, is denied basic consideration from their parents because of their gender, was a world that had become sicker than she had ever wanted to admit. She thought back to what Huan Li had said. If she was to be the leader her pack deserved, then she was to do what needed to be done.

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She ran out of her room and down the stairs to the courtyard. The rain hadn't stopped. She found Hysminai and Soter just finishing their meal. She stood under an overhang as the rain water poured down in front of her. "There's something I need to do, guys. Tell Huan Li, Javier, and Michelle, that I will meet him and you as we had planned. I won't be coming back here." She smiled and looked westward, "I have to see a guy about a horse."

* * * * *

"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Simon asked.

Marco looked shocked, "Simon, how long have I been doing this?" Simon raised an eyebrow. Marco continued, "I was able to track down the Arab. Turns out he's just a dealer, a go between. He was the byer who was set up by a Chinese company to funnel blood into their research facility without raising red flags."

"Yes, Marco we get that, but why?" Sophia asked

"Because House Dukart has their own biochemist who has, by the rumors I've heard, come up with some new type of blood pathogen that has some 'strange' properties. Nothing solid on what exactly the pathogen does, but it's got a lot of people very nervous. The Chinese got wind of this and started pumping up their R&D on the same thing. The Chinese thinks this might be a bioweapon arms race. Maybe it is, but not exactly how they think."

Simon looked at his old friend, "And what is the real purpose behind all this?"

Marco looked shocked, "I would think that of all the people in this room, you would have figured that out, Simon. I don't know for sure because I'm not a chemist and I haven't read or got a sample of this stuff that House Dukart might be producing but I thought that it was a dead on bet that whatever it is, it allowed Kenneth to kill Alesandro."

Simon stopped and his jaw went slack as he shook his head in disbelief, "You're saying that whatever this science crap is, somehow it's responsible for killing a vampire, one of the old ones, not as old as the Duces but old enough that he was impervious to even bullets?"

Marco only nodded, "Yes, that's what I'm saying and that's my bet."

Simon shook his head, "I can't bring myself to believe that these people, these cattle, could ever come up with something that would kill us. I won't believe it!"

Sophia slid her hand over Simon's shoulder, "whether you want to believe it or not, Alesandro is dead, and these people who are buying all this blood think it's worth competing against. If nothing else, we have enough to bring to Fumiko. With any luck, we'll find the evidence that makes all this make sense inside Dukart Tower."

Simon looked over at Noemi, "you want to come with to tell our patron what Marco found?"

Noemi looked wide eyed, "why me? I, I've never met with Fumiko before, why now?"

Simon smiled, "Because I think she'll like you, and you're the one who peeled my body off the asphalt the night Alessandro was killed."

Noemi didn't look at all convinced but nodded and walked out the door with Simon and Marco.

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