sharpen up your teeth

Vesper · 04-23-2012, 09:02 AM

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HE DED.

Vesper had never liked fighting in such close quarters. Hers was the technique of her mother’s ancestors—leaping in and out again, tearing and bleeding the opponent, never staying still long enough to get caught. Her secui form heralded her wolf blood, however. With her added muscle mass and fearsome teeth, she could afford to stay in close and tear into the foe. His dagger was no longer a problem as the Praetorian jerked his arm and knocked it aside, and the Optio grinned wickedly down at him.

“Do you give up?” she asked, blood dripping from her mouth with each word. Redness had darkened the side of her face where her ear was gone, her cheek slashed.

The wolf’s red eyes only burned hatefully back at her, and he spat a curse—something about burning in hell, something about the eradication of her species—but it didn’t sound like he would yield. There was some hesitation as she looked at Myrika out of the corner of her eye, but she fell upon his face again, snapping, one paw flying at his muzzle. She twisted his head and slashed her teeth across his throat.

As the wolf jerked, his life welling out of him, Vesper breathed heavily. Two, she thought, but it was easier now, easier to see defiance and abhorrence in this one’s eyes to the very end. She swallowed copper and looked at the mahogany-haired woman, her eyes sliding to the hoof-inflicted wound on her thigh. She’d leaned forward to give it a lick before the squeals of the horses caught her attention.

“Ithiel,” she remembered, glancing at her friend before turning and cantering exhaustedly toward where the archers had been fighting. She dreaded getting trampled by a horse or shot through with an arrow when she’d defeated one opponent, but she pressed on anyway. They couldn’t rest until they were all safe.

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