Roth could barely draw himself up to his full height he was so weakened with hunger. Jun was sprightlier, having been given food and water by an unknown Meh-teh. Roth had seen and heard him or her come up and bring Jun food and water, but in the darkness, he could not discern who it was. Jun had many who were loyal to him so pinpointing just who it was would prove difficult. What made it more tricky was that if Roth started asking around, it would be known that he was looking for whoever it was, and that person would know that they were being looked for. And if they knew, they surely work that much harder to conceal themselves. Not being able to identify someone who would flout rules bothered Roth’s sense of leadership and threatened his ability to ensure Dania’s safety. He did not relish either realization. But the latter released a rage in him that he’d never known before.
This situation was delicate and must be dealt with delicately, Roth reasoned. At least until he could figure out who it was that had betrayed the Meh-teh and interfered with the trials. At that point it would be Jun and his accomplices necks that would be delicate. But until then, all he could do was gather information and then let the evidence speak for itself. And more importantly to him, he decided he couldn’t let Dania know what was going on. She’d worry. It would make her acculturation harder. It was his to make and he’d made it to protect her.
~~~~~~~~~~
Over the next few cycles of the Moon, things returned to a relative normality and complacency. Roth worked every day to earn back the trust of his former constituency and the Meh-teh once again felt safe. Roth continued to consider who might have helped Jun. Roth and Dania too fell into a comfortable pattern of routine. It did take some time for the Meh-teh to accept Dania as Roth’s significant other, however. They didn’t feel as if she were capable of the political position given that she was not one of them and had limited knowledge of the culture and its customs. Dania eventually proved she was up to the challenge and although she made mistakes initially, she learned quickly and the mistakes became infrequent. She hunted early in the morning before the others awoke to show respect to the Meh-teh’s dietary habits.
While Dania wasn’t Roth’s mate, she was his other, and it was suggested that she should take on the role that his mate would have: Alpha Female. This was a political position which she had not known about when they’d discussed her coming here. In that role she would be responsible for making sure that the women of the tribe were heard and that no injustices were thrust upon them by others, intentionally or not.
This sounded like a wonderful thing, but in reality it wasn’t. When one of the women had a problem with their mates, they came to Dania for advice. When they felt that their workload was greater than someone else’s, it was Dania they came to. Mose of the time her day consisted of listening to complaints and trying her best to offer a solution to the problem. This proved to be dreary work.
Her solitary life, the one before the Meh-teh and one she thought she’d miss, turned out to be an asset to resolving various issues. Because she’d been self sufficient, she expected the other females to be able to be that way as well; but because they’d also grown up in a culture where cooperation was the way to go, working collaboratively was required as well. Further, her decisions were not clouded by favoritism as she had no history with these Meh-teh to draw bias from and she soon had a reputation as one who was fair. Inexperienced, but fair.
Roth was ecstatic when Dania’s work led her to her first friend among his people. When she wasn’t busy with the Meh-teh or with Roth, she spent time with Tiber. Roth would often see them during the day talking and laughing. She says it was Tiber who helped her with things the most. She took time to explain things, sometimes over and over. It was through Tiber that Dania learned much about the Meh-te, and Tiber seemed genuinely interested in Dania and her life before. Roth was please to see that the two got along well. Deep down, he wasn’t entirely thrilled that Dania’s first friend was Tiber, Jun’s mate, but he ultimately decided that she had nothing to do with what had happened during the contest, so his feeling towards her were unwarranted and he decided to be happy for the both of them.
Roth’s feelings about Jun were, unsurprisingly, more complicated than for Tiber. Roth still considered Jun someone to keep an eye on. He knew the depth of pleasure a mate could bring could be life-changing….in any direction. Tiber’s relationship with Jun made him even more of an x-factor to Roth’s mind. On the one hand, Tiber seemed good and maybe she would have a positive effect on Jun. After all, she was a large female and was considered to be attractive by most of the Meh-teh (a real “catch” to anyone but Roth, who didn’t think she was ugly or anything, but in his eyes, she paled in comparison with Dania). On the other hand, whatever their problem was, it was clear that they didn’t relate to each other very well when it came to intimacy. Sometimes Jun would come out after mating looking pleased with himself, but Tiber would follow shortly thereafter with an unpleasant look upon her face. When she hadn’t been pleasured, you could tell. And then there times when they would both come out looking like this. It was at those moments that Roth grinned inwardly for his enemies poor relations, but he also feared that it made Jun prone to acting out. In practical terms, Roth only expressed the conventional pleasure of a Meh-teh leader; that he was proud that two of his people had “found” each other and were mating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roth and Dania’s relationship was anything but conventional. For one, she wasn’t his mate. Dania’s Cat insisted that she already had a mate and she couldn’t overcome the Cat. And the other thing was that the Meh-teh didn’t require that you mate for life. You could be with someone and everything be great….but if you decided to go your separate ways, you were free to mate with someone else. This was not the case with Dania. She’d mated before and was still loyal, even though she had no memory of it.
What they wouldn’t have been called mating, at least none of the Meh-teh would have recognized it as such. For one, Dania’s screams of pleasure could be heard by all. This mattered to her now because she was Alpha and the others would look to her for leadership. Well she hoped they would eventually. Right now they didn’t fully trust her. And if they didn’t trust her, it would make her job much harder. But Roth didn’t like for her to be quiet. He loved the sound of her being pleasured. It was music to his ears. The kind of music that you can’t stop listening to, the kind that just makes you want more of it. So she was not quiet.
If someone asked why she was so loud each and every night, she was to tell them that she was sorry to have kept them awake. If they persisted, she was to tell them that Roth pleasured her in such a way that it was impossible to be quiet. That the pleasure took over and her Cat couldn’t help but let everyone know how good she felt. When hearing this last part, the women of the Meh-teh would either look away or look down at the ground, almost as if they were embarrassed by the candor in which Dania spoke. This, of course, told Dania that they didn’t receive a fraction of the pleasure that she did, and if the weren’t getting the pleasure, the pain that went hand-in-hand with her pleasure was nowhere in sight. Take all of this into account as well as the fact that Roth had never actually penetrated Dania. More than a few were envious of her.
And then there were the mornings when the both of them would come into the clearing leaning on each other, looking as if they’d just escaped death by mauling. In truth, they’d spent the night entertaining Dania’s Cat and its need to hunt and be aggressive. And as intense as these fights between the two of them could be, there was never any malicious intent. Injuries were common and were never serious. Roth’s injuries tended to consist of mostly deept gashes left by Dania’s claws and hers were mostly bruises from where he’d thrown her against a tree or the ground.
The Meh-teh were always confused on these mornings. They had clearly been in a fight with something. And yet they were always smiling and holding each other. Did they fight whatever it was together? Did one save the other? No one knew for sure, but many speculated. The favored rumor that spread was that she had wondered off alone and had been attacked by a bear and Roth had to risk himself in order to save her. Her “carelessness” would cost them one day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is not to say that Dania was without incident. There were times when her Cat would come to the surface and she would be more playful; usually when she was socializing. Roth thought this was, perhaps, necessary for her to be around others. She had been alone for so long. But at the same time, he didn’t find it acceptable for her to forget her place. Usually, her behavior was mild enough that he could deal with her later, in private. There were times, however, in which he had to deal with her in public. Her punishment needed to be swift.
She wasn’t his mate and he knew that she never would be. But she was his other and had taken on the role of Alpha Female. The others initially rejected the idea, but soon saw that even though she wasn’t Meh-teh, she was, by far, the most dominant female. Period.
Dania’s first public punishment came when she was with Tiber and a few of the other females. The winter was soon approaching and they would need to decide where the tribe would go so that food would be readily available. Food during the winger wasn’t a factor for Dania; there would always be game for her. But the Meh-teh did not eat meat….their food sources changed with the seasons.
“Dania, I need to speak with you for a moment.”
“I’m busy, Roth, can it wait?”
“No, it can’t.”
Her demeanor changed. “But I want it to wait.” She stared him directly in the eyes, a small smile creeping into the corners of her lips, and the tip of her tail swishing back and forth slightly. Her Cat had come out to play.
Roth said to the other females, “Ladies, I’m sorry about this.” And to Dania he gestured for her to come to him. He knelt down to one knee and motioned for her to lie across. He let her lie there for a moment, letting the anticipation of what was to come do more damage than he actually would. Finally he began, moving her tail out of the way and stopping to talk to her between each strike.
*Smack*
“Dania, you are here at MY request and serve as MY Alpha Female.
*Smack*
“I am your leader.”
*Smack*
“You will do as I ask you to.”
*Smack*
“You.”
*Smack*
“Will.”
*Smack*
“Not.”
*Smack*
“Disrespect.”
*Smack*
“Me.”
*Smack*
“Understood.”
Dania didn’t respond for a moment. But finally with her eyes to the ground, she simply replied, “Yes.”
“That’s my good girl, come here.” Roth held her for a moment, caressing her and talking to her; tell her that no matter what, he still loved her.
Roth had his attention so focused on Dania that he hadn’t seen others come to what they thought was her rescue. Upon looking up there were several males and many more females around. There were many shouts of “What are you doing” or “Hey! Stop that!” and “Please don’t hurt her.”
It was Dania who first piped up. “He hasn’t hurt me.”
A needle falling from a pine could have been heard in the following moments. No one could believe that she would say that he hadn’t hurt her after the public spanking she’d just received. In their eyes, she was clearly delusional or living in fear. Dania could see the moment of shock had passed and that their anger was quickly coming back to the surface.
“Things are different for Roth and I than they are for the rest of you. I have given control to him. I didn’t do this because I was afraid of him. I did this because I trust him. This is something I need from him. I can tell…”
“That you do not understand the dynamic of our relationship.” Roth intercepted. “I will be more than happy to discuss anything with you. But now is not the time. There are things…we need to talk about ourselves.” He picked her up as easily as one might pick up a child and walked away.
The rest of the Meh-teh didn’t see what happened next, and they didn’t hear about it. Dania was instructed to never mention it. As far as the Meh-teh were concerned, she’d been punished and that punishment was complete. It wasn’t.
Roth ordered Dania to sit on her haunches with her hands behind her back, with her shoulders back and chest out, with her ankles crossed. While she waited patiently, Roth fashioned a crude structure that was not quite up to Dania’s waste. He had her bend over it and then tied her feet to each of the legs. He placed a collar and leash around her neck (the same one she’d been tied with in the beginning) and affixed the leash to a stake in the ground. At this point, Roth had her place her hands behind her back, where they were tied.
“Do you know what’s about to happen, Dania?”
“N n n nn no.”
“Quit stuttering and talk. Do you understand or not?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you think it going to happen.”
“You are going to punish me.”
“Yes. Now, why am I going to do this?”
“Because I didn’t listen to you.”
“Is that all?”
“I think so.”
“That is part of it. I expect you to listen whenever I tell you to do something. While we are in private, some playfulness is acceptable. In fact, I enjoy it. I might even tolerate a private joke in public; something that only the two of us would get. But I cannot and will not tolerate something in public that challenges my leadership with the Meh-teh. Do you understand how you did this?”
“No.”
“When you said that you wanted something different than what I’d just told you to do. Do you realize what would have happened if I’d gone along with that? I would have lost all credibility with the Meh-teh. If I had gone along with you, it would have told them that you are the one in charge in our private lives, and while that is irrelevant, that would have led to them thinking that about me leading the tribe. Someone would have questioned if it was me leading them in public or you leading them behind the scenes.”
“I understand.”
Roth carefully lifted her tail out of the way and began to spank her. Dania was ashamed of what she’d done to Roth, although she hadn’t realized it at the time. She never wanted to hurt Roth. And so she accepted he punishment willingly. She winced in preparation for the first strike….but never felt it.
*****
Flashback:
I opened my eyes and I wasn’t with the Meh-teh any longer. I was remembering something again.
I found that I was in a room dimly lit by candles with the smell of honey in the air. I loved honey. I closed my eyes and let the fragrance fill me with serenity.
“Dania…..come to me.”
My head turned towards the sound of his voice. My Cat and myself had the same thought: Mine!
He was my mate, my dominant, my master….and so much more. I knew this. I can’t tell you how, but I knew this.
He had his back turned to me so I couldn’t see his face. But we knew it was him. The command in his voice assured us that it was him. I found that my eyes were taking in his body from the bottom up. I hated not being able to control anything here! I wanted to see his face, to see into his eyes.
He had a great body! He looked as if he’d been carved out of granite. Just looking at his body, I could tell that he was strong; and the memory of my Cat confirmed this. And he was tall. His body was very long…..elongated. I was glad that we were finally moving towards him. I wanted to touch him.
Just like myself, his body was covered from head to toe with fur. While mine was grey, his was a light brown with it growing very dark down his arms and legs. The brown was so deep that it almost appeared black by the tips of his fingers and toes. His head and tail also followed this pattern.
I half expected his fur to be short and bristly because of how rock solid his body was. Instead, it was incredibly soft and silky. I wanted to run my hands up and down his back through his fur and feel the muscles of his back. And I wanted to see his face and look into his deep green, almond shaped eyes. The other me was taking her time. This was clearly something she was going to do slowly.
Deliciously slowly.
This wasn’t my thought…..well it was in that it was the “me” that was here and now….not to say that I wasn’t here.
It occurred to me that I couldn’t remember his face. The fact that she so clearly knew it didn’t allow me to draw the image into my mind. This was so frustrating.
My Cat, who had been silent up until now, whispered that this was no time to try and be in control…..It whispered that I should let go and enjoy the experience that was being provided for me.
Letting go completely was something I thought I would have trouble doing…but I didn’t. It felt quite natural. The sensations, while strangely familiar, were bizarre, to say the least. The first thing I noticed was that a stillness came over me. My mind wasn’t busily trying to take in everything around me or to force “myself” into looking at his face. I was calm.
All of my senses were heightened. I could feel the ground beneath my feet, even that small pebble that was slightly larger than those around it; large enough to be felt, but not large enough to hurt. My vision was focused on him and everything else was non existent. Every detail of his body etched itself into my mind. In the distance I could hear the murmurs of the Neko as they went about their business, most so encompassed in their own thoughts to give any attention to anything else.
And then there was that sweet combination of taste and smell. His scent was power. Not powerful, put power realized in the physical form of this Neko male who was my mate…my dominant. Just one whiff of this caused me to begin salivating. I could taste him from where I was behind him….close enough to touch the fur on his back, but still far enough away that my eyes were drinking him in. But for me, his scent and his taste were one and the same. They were not separate, but a joining of two senses into one.
Mine.
As the process of letting go completely completed, I found that I was there! I was here in this moment, inside this memory. There was no separation of time any longer. I wasn’t in the present experiencing something in the past. There was no past. And conversely, there was no future either. There was only here and now. This moment. This is all that there was. This was all that I wanted it to be.
I came to him and knelt as his feet. I knew this would be what he wanted and I longed to please him. The tips of my toes were together with my knees spread. I needed to be exposed for him. The weight of my body rested on my feet. My back was straight and my shoulders slightly back. Posture was very important here and I was a good girl….his good girl. Pet. My arms rested on the tops of my thighs with my palms facing upwards. My head was up, but my eyes were down.
The agonizing part of this was that he turned to face me as I got into this position. Agonizing is the wrong word…..It had been a few moments before, but I was now serene. Completely at peace. I made sure that I was posed as perfectly as I could for him and then waited for him.
With my eyes down, all I could see were his feet. I wasn’t expecting him to grab my hair and pull it, forcing my head to angle back, which in turn positioned my eyes slightly higher on his frame. He wasn’t rough, but not exactly gentle either. He was firm.
“Stand.”
A single word. A single command. Until I was up as instructed, that was the only thing that existed in my world.
He released my hair and grabbed a ring on the front of a collar I hadn’t noticed before. I wondered if it was there before. It didn’t matter if it was or not. It was now. And if he’d wanted it on before, I’m sure that he would have made sure I wore it. I was led into another room that I knew to be his private space.
“Down,” was all he said as he pointed at the furs on the floor. I quickly got down on my hands and knees, but I knew this wasn’t exactly right. I needed my face to be down on the furs and my arms out-stretched above my head. My ass needed to be up in the air. I did so.
I expected him to take me from behind like he usually did. Instead he knelt down and straddled my arms. Again, he grabbed my hair and lifted my head. My eyes were wide, wondering what he was going to do.
That heightened sensitivity I’d been experiencing for the past few moments allowed me to feel each of his fingers separately as the were entangled in my hair and the sharpness of the claw of his thumb on my scalp as it dug in ever so slightly. I began salivating again and realized what was about to happen. I was going to get to taste Dod.
His name is Dod!
I was so overcome with the excitement of remembering his name that I nearly choked when his cock entered my mouth. He wasn’t terribly large and I was able to take him entirely into my mouth. Not paying attention to what was going on around me distracted me. I would need to not do that again. I closed my eyes and sealed my lips around his shaft, using my hand to keep the sheath out of the way.
I began to move my head so that I took him in and out of my mouth. He thrust his hips slightly so that I knew what pace he wanted.
There was something primal about his taste….gamy. I recognized it as similar to how my food tasted, only this had lust written all over it. I could feel the veins that stood out on his cock and the velveted mushroom shaped head tickled the back of my throat. I had to be careful that I didn’t let my canines scratch him. He only liked that sometimes and hadn’t indicated that he wanted it now. I hoped that the roughness of my tongue felt as good to him as it felt to me. I was in heaven.
I became completely lost in the moment. There was no sense of time as the minutes passed and he approached his release. There was only here and now. No tomorrow, no yesterday, no “back in my own time.” Only now.
I never felt his orgasm. I was only aware of turning into a warm ball of goo with a tiny ball of “warm” in my belly. The world faded away and the ground fell out from under me. I felt like I was flying without ever having left the ground….the ground that was no longer under my feet. I was vaguely aware of his praise and the embracing of his arms as he held me tight. I knew that I was purring and trying to bury my head deeper into him. He began to pet my head and I soon fell asleep.
*****
Having witnessed one of these blackouts before, Roth wasn’t as overwhelmed with this one. When she blacked out, he simply untied her and laid her on the ground. Relief washed over his face when she began to smile in her sleep, if this was, in fact, a kind of sleep. If it was relief he felt before, what he felt when she finally awoke was something altogether different.
“Roth, I’m a Neko.”
“I . . . . ,” Roth began to say.
“I know you’re curious, but I can’t talk about this just yet.”
~~~~~~~~~~
The public spanking was the first instance where the Meh-teh witnessed; it didn’t prove to be the last however. Curiosity was common. Every Meh-teh seemed to want to know all about their relationship. Roth left it up to Dania to explain things to the females, and he would handle the males. Of the females, Tiber seemed the most receptive to the idea of someone being submissive. But even she, Dania’s closest friend, could not fully understand. This was a concept foreign to them. But as a whole, the females accepted that Dania was a little different, but she was their Alpha and they did not lose any respect for her. There were some who gained respect for having that duality: Being submissive to Roth, yet still being their Alpha.
The males had an equally difficult time accepting that someone would wish to be submissive. To them, it sounded like something a weaker person would do. To them it was the embodiment of weakness. But they recognized that Dania’s own strength of character was anything but weak. Roth did his best to explain the levels of trust and respect that had to be there to make their relationship possible. To make it where they could both be happy and not hurt the other. Eventually, most came around to his reasonings.
Roth went on to explain to them that just because Dania was submissive to him, that she was not submissive to anyone else. And that she had been instructed to defend herself accordingly. At least one of the males was taken aback by this. Roth had the feeling that he would have tried something with her, not knowing the trouble he would have gotten into, from both Dania and himself.
As Roth watched Dania integrate herself into the group, he could only smile with pride at how well she was progressing. There were still times where she was lost. But she had gained a confidence that showed itself in everything she did. He was confident that she could handle any situation that arose.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was customary for Dania to go out hunting before the Sun rose. As much as she was accepted by the Meh-teh, they still found it uncomfortable to see her eat meat. So for their comfort, she would have her main meal early. This morning was no different. And as usual, she spoke with Roth to see if he needed anything before she set out. As soon as she was gone, Roth set out to ready the tribe for the final preparations before they would move for the winter.
The morning was filled with tasks such as gathering food they would need for their journey, paying respects to the Forest, and making sure that there was no trace left of them. Roth knew that they would be able to find food along the way, but to stop give the Meh-teh a chance to get comfortable and it would only take that much more effort to get them moving again. Roth would keep them moving until nightfall, and they would sleep and then be up and off with Sunrise the following morning. It would take them about one full cycle of the Moon to make the trip.
The tribe had been gathering food for nearly a half cycle and as Roth inspected the stockpiles around mid-morning, he was satisfied that there would be enough to last. Now the task of dividing the food out to the families was something he wasn’t required to do, but he still liked to oversee the process all the same.
Roth became so engrossed with all of the chaos that the Sun was directly overhead before he noticed that Dania had not come back from her hunt. She should have been back not long after sunrise. He wondered if she was back and he just hadn’t seen her. As much as he would hate to have to do it, he would need to find Jun and ask if Tiber knew where she was. Jun beat him to the punch.
“Roth, have you seen Tiber around anywhere this morning?”
“No, have you seen Dania?”
There was something about the inflection of Jun’s voice that Roth didn’t like. The flatness of it. As if he were only going through the motions of asking where his mate were. Almost as if he knew where she was. So if he knew where his mate was, and he was asking for her, he might know where Dania was.
Jun hadn’t responded, he just sat there with a dumb look on his face. There could have been a hint of a smile at the corner of his lip. But Roth couldn’t tell.
“Jun, I won’t ask you again.” Hatred rose into his voice.
“Roth, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Again his voice was monotone.
“If you know where she is, I suggest you tell me.”
“Roth, I came to you because I don’t know where my mate is. I’m worried about her.” This time there was pretend concern in his voice.
Roth had a sudden thought to snap Jun’s neck. But he knew that would do nothing more than make him feel better for a few minutes. And besides, if he knew where Dania was, he needed him alive.
With a thunderous voice Roth called to the people of the Meh-teh. “Come my people. Dania is missing! We must find her.”
One of the elders, Dak, responded, “Why should we look for her? We must get ready to move. Winter will be here soon. If we stop to look for her, we might not make it ourselves. And besides, we’ve seen how she’ll go wandering off in the night and you have to go rescue her. And you both come back bloodied and bruised!”
“Dak, once again, you speak when you don’t know the whole truth. I say again, we need to find her! I can guarantee that whatever has her will be a danger to all of us! She is a more fierce warrior than anyone in this village, myself included. If something is a danger to her, its a danger to us. If we don’t take care of it, it may take care of us!”
Roth was desperate. He didn’t think some animal had her, but he couldn’t come right out and accuse June and Tiber of having anything to do with it. After all, Jun had come to him looking for Tiber.
A few of the males came to Roth and offered to help look for her. The quicker they found her, they believed, the faster they could get back to their preparations. They quickly set off in all directions into the Forest looking for any sign of the Alpha Female. Most of the rest of the Meh-teh eventually followed suit. There were a few, however, who stayed behind and kept on with the preparations. Roth despised them for it, both as someone who was missing a loved one, and as their leader.
Roth was searching furiously and was having no luck. He knew that he couldn’t panic because then he would miss something.
“Roth,” it was Gynon, “I think Jun knows where she is.”
“What makes you say this?”
“I’ve heard him and Tiber talking a few times. They really don’t like her. I’ve heard Tiber say that she wishes Dania were out of the way.”
“Gynon, I can’t thank you enough. Continue searching as if nothing is wrong. I’ll follow Jun. If all of this is true, then he’ll go to her eventually.”
Gynon smiled and went on his way while Roth zeroed in on Jun. It didn’t take him long to find him. Jun was literally searching in a circle. He did this for quite some time and then headed off toward the setting Sun. Roth followed him at a distance, careful to not make a sound. With ever step, his anger grew. He would kill Jun once Dania was safe.
They finally came to where Tiber had help Dania captive as the Sun set behind the mountains. Dania and Tiber were locked in battle. Jun would have called it a fierce battle. But Roth recognized the look in Dania’s eyes. She had let her cat out and was playing with Tiber. Tiber was furious and had all but lost control. No attack she tried had an effect on Dania and Dania did not attack at all. She just dodged them with ease. Jun seemed ready to interfere.
Roth opened his mouth to speak, to let Jun know that he was there. But before a word could be said, a large branch hit Jun across the back and Gynon and another male, Feruk, grabbed him. Roth had never heard them following him. He’d been concentrating so intently on Jun that everything else had been blocked out. Roth looked around to see over half of the tribe already there or approaching.
Even Dania and Tiber had stopped to look over at them. Tiber knew that she and Jun had been caught in their plot to kill Dania.
“Roth, you told me I wasn’t allowed to hurt anyone so I didn’t attack her back.”
Roth smiled, “That’s my good girl. But I also told you to defend yourself. She has threatened your life. Defend yourself.”
“Can I kill her now?”
Roth didn’t speak, but slowly nodded his head.