The New World Ch. 03

Ahote sat there for a moment trying to think. Matteo tried again with all of the languages he knew.

"De l'eau potable? Wasser? Apă? Water?"

Understanding flooded Ahote's face when Matteo said it in English. "Ah, Water!" And he rushed off.

---

Matteo drank clear cold water from a drinking container made out of a deer's stomach and a piece of reed for the nozzle. Ahote was attentive, making sure not to give him too much water, and wiping his mouth if he spilled any. Ahote tried to speak to him in English, for they both knew a little of it.

"I not know that White man... be wolf?" His voice was low and throaty, and Matteo liked it.

"Oui...Yes. Entire groups...home."

They had barely spoken this when a group of men came from the encampment and Matteo moaned a little with fear. Ahote was trying to explain what was happening but he couldn't find the words, and the men were getting closer.

The alpha was a massive middle-aged man with a body as hard as stone and a harsh intelligent face. His eyes were as cold and sharp and black as polished bits of flint and his mouth was a harsh frown scarred into the lower half of his face.

"Ahote!" He spoke more, but Matteo couldn't understand a word.

Ahote was suddenly furious and arguing, yelling in the alpha's face. If he was a wolf he would have been bristling and snarling. Matteo let out a weak startled cry when one of the nearby braves lifted a hatchet and walked towards him, raising it high to crash it down on the terrified boy's head in a killing blow.

Ahote knocked the hatchet away and argued. Matteo moaned, his face was so pale against the fur wrap.

The boy thought he was going to die, but whatever Ahote was saying, it was swaying them over, it was changing their minds. The men and women were talking amongst themselves and the alpha was looking at them both with that same frown.

Matteo flinched when the alpha threw back his head and laughed long and loud.

Ahote looked relieved for a moment, but then the alpha untied the end of Matteo's rope that was attached to the pole and held it in his hand. The chief uttered a command, and Matteo got up, shivering when the fur wrap fell from his naked body.

The chief tugged him gently over to one of the shelters, and the others had dispersed, all except for Ahote. Ahote followed them, brow furrowed with concern, and that terrified Matteo.

---

The inside of the shelter was small and cozy. A small smoky fire kept it warm while the smoke trickled out of a hole at the top. A lean wolf-wife with grey in her hair was weaving dyed porcupine quills into designs of black and yellow and red. She gave the naked shivering boy a disdainful glance and swept out into the snow.

Matteo cried out with surprise and fear when the chief threw him facedown onto the pallet of thick furs. He saw bare flesh out of the corner of his eye and then closed his eyes tight. He tried to separate himself from his body, to not feel the rough sensations and the terrible hurt.

The alpha was not like the young man who had done everything in his power to hurt Matteo, but the alpha was a strong man, and he was hung like a horse. It was an old ritual of emasculating strange males into the pack, a way to show them that they had no chance of overpowering the alpha.

Matteo was very brave, and he clenched his teeth tight, determined not to make a single sound while it felt as if he were being torn in two.

Matteo let out a very small whimper at the end when the alpha grunted and squeezed his skinny hips in powerful hands and thrust very hard into his tight little ass. He had only used saliva as a lubricant and Matteo could feel that something inside had torn, and he was bleeding.

The alpha laughed hoarsely and gave Matteo a little pat on the shoulder. He called Ahote's name and the man came in, his face stony and emotionless. Ahote picked up the shivering little pup on the bed and carried him across the village to a small wigwam that he had built himself.

Matteo shivered and buried his face into Ahote's warm chest. The wigwam was tiny, and undecorated by even a dreamcatcher. The pallet was small and rough with only one coarse bear hide on it.

Matteo tried to speak but Ahote shushed him gently. Ahote fed him strips of cold cooked venison and flatbread, and he put the exhausted little beast on his bed.

Matteo's eyes were already closed and dreaming. Ahote ran a calloused but featherlight touch over the numerous scars on Matteo's frail body. The small shiny weals all over his ribs and abdomen, burns. The three white puckers on the scant swell of one buttock, gunshot. A twisted dimple on one inner thigh, puncture. Torn and shiny lines on one shoulder, the original bite. That wasn't including the dozens of fresh bites and the mangled left hand.

His thin face was careworn and pale and tired. He was so young, but he looked far older. Ahote eased in next to him and smiled a little when the fragile little pup huddled into his side for warmth.

"You're safe now." He whispered this in the native language of the Nipmuc Indians, a tongue that was not his own."

He certainly hoped that this was true.

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