BLOOD DREAM (Ongoing)

1.1: Chained Hound Salivating

Blood dragged across the ice. Steaming red smears converged on their origin, a mass of cuts and bruises disguised as a man, rasping. Theron knew this would happen, and still he set foot in the trap.

His girlfriend smoldered with victory. "Oh, giving up so soon?" Her voice clawed through the lowlight like a dragon out of its mountain. Sadie loomed at his feet, gold eyes alight and fingers flexing. Her three cronies closed in around them.

Theron sat up, cupping his hand over the jagged cleft missing from his neck. He should hate her for this, but he didn't. That was why he was destined to lose tonight. "Just get it over with and kill me," he said, smirking groggily behind the blood on his face.

Sadie's lungs clapped with laughter. "And waste the opportunity to torture you? This has been a long time coming, Terror. I intend to relish it." Her sneakers smacked closer until she stepped on Theron's chest and pushed him down. The ice rink's dim after-hours lighting haloed her bangs, her yellow ponytail slipping over her shoulder as Sadie leaned in. Every inch devoured between them made his heart slam faster.

Instead of hating her, he loved her. He'd always been in love with her, but it was never enough to forgive what his family did to hers. His pack of wolf shifters had assimilated the two pumas, Sadie Nieves and her mother, when the wolves raided their territory. Sadie became the promised mate of Theron de Lascaux, Alpha's son, as an offering of peace—only for it to dissolve the moment the wolves' Alpha killed Sadie's human father. Sadie's mother starved to death months later. From this emerged the vicious cycle of Sadie fleeing, trying to survive on her own, only to suffer and come crawling back. Theron waited patiently for her every time. It was inevitable she'd return to him, even from this latest escape, four years after she finally murdered his father and vanished into the night.

But if she didn't kill Theron here and now, then she didn't intend to. He knew her that well. This was just their twisted destiny—games dressed up in blood and sex.

She crushed his chest until he coughed.

"You're getting arrogant," said Theron.

"For good reason." Sadie smiled thinly.

Theron clamped his hand on her shoe. "Do your friends know what you've gotten them into?" He needn't look to know that her cronies exchanged glances.

Sadie clenched her jaw and ground her heel into him. "I'm not worried about you. You and your pack are easy targets. You've been living soft here in the city, so you don't know what it really means to have to fight for your own life."

"I wouldn't call slitting a man's throat while he sleeps fighting for your life," said Theron. He took care not to sound bitter.

"Depends on the man." Sadie kicked his hand off her foot and stepped away, then swung her foot into his ribs. Theron gasped and withered. "Sometimes he necessitates it when he kills your family, or mentally, physically, and sexually abuses you until you're a shell of yourself hellbent on revenge," she said.

"I would've known if he did that to you," groaned Theron.

"That wasn't him." Sadie booted him again.

Reeling in a smog of pain, Theron tipped onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. Blood poured down his neck. "Don't you think you're being a little melodramatic?"

Sadie burned, wrapping her fingers in his black hair as she jerked his head up. "I'm done taking your shit. I didn't spend four years carving out a name for myself just for you to put me down as melodramatic. You're going to feel how I felt watching my family die—powerless."

Her blade of anger threatened to slit him open. Theron shuddered with excitement, but still after four years, he translated her violence as foreplay and disregarded the consequences. "Yeah? You're gonna murder them all, are you?"

"I am."

"That's funny."

"Funniest joke in the world, watching me slaughter your sister," Sadie growled above his head.

Theron's stomach curdled. "Funnier if it was my mom, though."

"Too bad she bailed. Must've known what was coming for her."

Good thing she was gone. He wished his human mother had taken his human sister away with her. Maybe then Sadie's threat wouldn't feel so worryingly potent.

One of the cronies rumbled for Sadie's attention. She released Theron's hair, smacking his brow against the ice. In the silence, they all heard it: the distant, metallic clang of a closing door. "Wonder who that could be."

"I came alone," said Theron.

"As usual." Sadie sneered and stepped over him.

The slow, predatory pacing of Sadie's followers churned the air, sucking the smell of the intruder into the arena. She and Theron recognized it at the same time.

"Two Lascauxs in one night? This is funny," said Sadie, drawing the knife from her belt.

If his stomach had curdled before, now it was downright sour. He reached for her ankle. "She must have followed me," blurted Theron.

Sadie effortlessly stepped out of his grip. "I really thought I'd have to work harder than this."

She wasn't serious. Was his sister really next on her list? "Kitra didn't do anything to you. She's not even part of the pack," said Theron. His vision grew spotty as he sat up, motivated by urgency he hadn't expected. His sister wasn't supposed to be here. Kitra had no place meddling in the affairs of the Dire. Why was she here?

Step by step, Sadie's blazing heat retreated from him. She became intangible once more, long legs clad in blood-soaked denim, dirty t-shirt tucked loosely into her belt, deadly grace omnipresent despite her wilderness. The distance apart didn't make her any less enticing, and nor did her ruthless white knuckles clutching the knife. Sadie ignored him until Theron panicked, "She's off-limits!" Then she turned, gazing at him with hooded disdain.

"Oh, baby. Nothing's off-limits anymore."

Her smile was stinging embers. With a snap, she gestured for her cronies to handle him, crossing the rink and leaving bloody shoe prints behind. Theron's chest whistled in agony, but it was nothing compared to what awaited him.

Heavy footsteps quaked the ice. Theron held his breath as two massive timber wolves stalked toward him. Their teeth and eyes flashed, grey fur vicious on their spines, hunger merciless; then they lunged, taking hold of his arms, fangs in his flesh and saliva spitting. Theron howled for Sadie, but even if he fought back, there was no escape. Behind the two wolves pulling his body apart, Sadie's third companion loomed bigger than any Dire he'd ever seen. Small-eared and flat-headed, fur white as ash, eyes like coal: the bellowing polar bear rose on its feet, a titan killer on Sadie's command.