The clearing had been a torn area of bare dirt dotted with islands of stingy grass. The only interest, the bamboo people and the walls of the clearing with their trees and flowering vines. She’d changed that, transformed it with power beyond the touch of all but a handful.

The clearing was carpeted with lush grass. Searing the air with life, they bled vitality, each blade of grass an emerald unseen in the world of man. Leveled out but for artful hills more beauty than function, the clearing was scattered with flowers. Violet a pastel so pale they were owned both white and purple, blues as deep as arctic lakes, the flowers were striking in their simple beauty. It was a fairy tale done in shades of nature’s glory, a place that teased the soul with the purity of nature stripped of civilization's cancer. More than a field in the middle of nowhere, she'd birthed something sacred. Fey currents of the Great Mother washed over the trio as the charms of the Earth Mother smiled on them with a welcoming tilt to her smile.

Burnt and destroyed bamboo men were replaced with brand new ones, green as the grass, flushed with life. An army ready and willing to give their all for the cause. Taking a closer look, Cesare wasn’t surprised to see they hadn’t been replaced so much as regrown. Anastasia’s fury had done little more than trim their branches. With her customary love for the green ones, Elizabeth had grown them back from the seeds that threaded the ground.

The girls had stooped, as startled as he was by the change. Anastasia’s whisper was loud in the sudden quiet. “I came here just a few days ago. I thought it would be nice, and I … missed you. But the corridor was overgrown, and I wasn’t about to challenge Miss Raven’s power. I didn't know she’d worked on it.”

A deep feeling of appreciation welled up in him as he looked around the training ground. “Raven’s Roost.” His words brought the girls around. “We’ll call it Raven’s Roost.” He saw the name hit them hard, anger briefly sparking in eyes before cold resignation killed the blaze.

“Anastasia, we’re going to start were we left off, increasing the destructive power of your flame. Why don’t you sit down and meditate, then we’ll move onto practicals.” A shadow of anxiety rolled over her face before she turned away with a nod of understanding.

Watching her walk away, his thoughts were on the brief flare of anxiety in her eyes. “As much as you watch her ass, you’d think you’d tire of it.” Alexandra’s dry words brought him around to face her.

Despite eyes that twinkled with good humor, she couldn’t hide the bedrock of distaste she had for the akatharton and his open appreciation of her body. “Every time is like the first time. I promise; I enjoy watching you walk away just as much,” Cesare said with an exaggerated wiggle of his eyebrows.

The anger that always seemed to be there when they were around the Harab Serapel faded as Alexandra laughed. “I thought I’d change into some workout clothes to free me up for our spar.”

She changed into something close to what she’d wore at Viktor’s class. Lush purple sweats costing more than all his clothes put together strained across freakishly muscled thighs before narrowing to a waist of coiled power. A white tank top and sports bra echoed what Anastasia had worn at class. Heavily muscled shoulders and arms were bare, corded flesh rippling with nervous energy. Big hands tightened into fists, hills and valleys exploding into view as potential strength was harnessed from fibrous meat.

Some called her manly for her bulging shoulders and arms, they were fools who didn't deserve the meat they were made from. She was beautiful in the way of a cobra. Death and brutality wedded to a female form; he couldn’t help the surge of lust that flashed from his core as he ran eyes over her tightly packed form.

Her striking face was honest in a way rare in people, sharp green eyes daring the world to push her. Alexandra’s nervous shifting died under his eyes as she soaked in his naked desire. It was an acceptance that went beyond the body, striking to the soul.

Unsure what to do with his feelings, he did the only thing he could and settled into his stance. Disappointment flared briefly in her eyes before dying as she took up her own ready stance. He fell into the moment, losing himself in the now.

The moment pulled them together, both moving in synch with the animals at the heart of who they were. Faster and harder than they'd ever gone before. Punches came fast, Cesare’s body moving to block without thought. Returning each punch in a barrage of punishing jabs, he was constantly testing her defense, angles changing, forcing her to adapt to his chaos.

Kicks snapped out with bone breaking force, only to be caught by Alexandra's causal power. Always in step, the two moved in an ever-changing dance. Sometimes he led, forcing her back with an onslaught of punches and kicks designed to throw her further and further out of her game. Eventually it happened, and a punch or kick would sneak into a window of opportunity, lightly tapping her with a featherlight touch.

It was far from one sided. Her power let her take control with frightening ease, breaking through his guard to tap him just as lightly. She had power and speed on her side, with a lifetime of training backing her every move and thought. Even if he’d reached for the Kundalini, he couldn’t match her natural strength. And that wasn't counting the scarlet power of her vampiric gifts.

The dance was played out in flesh, but the fight was on a level beyond it. She met his wild side head on with her own, his needs echoed by her own, both of them hungering to dominate and kill. To stand over the broken body of a failure, revel in superiority bought in pain and blood. It was there in every punch broken and every kick tossed aside. They were friends, but the animal didn’t care, it wanted the win.

Twisted with bloody need was a sexual thrill that set his eyes afire and soul to a slow burn. He liked fighting her in a way he’d never felt with anyone else. He wanted to take her, to beat her down and show her he was worthy. To sate himself in her blood and flesh, either with his fists or manhood. His hunger called with the voice of wind torn nights and slaughter under the full moon. Cesare met her at every opportunity, desperately trying to prove he was worth her best.

Alexandra’s eyes slowly filled with savagery as walls crumbled under blood lust, the vampire tearing through the tattered illusion of sanity. Her strength came into play in every punch, shattering through every attempt to lock her down. Cesare could only throw himself out of the way of her strength.

The small tones of his alarm had Cesare stepping back from the spar. Alexandra surged forward, eyes burning with sudden focus, ready to exploit his retreat before she caught herself, forcing her body to relax. Panting, they locked eyes in understanding.

They’d wanted to kill in that dance. The truth was a discordant howl rushing through their souls, a sound of unholy need, to tear the other down, rend flesh and shatter bones, carve their names into the other's blood soaked meat. They’d met each other’s true selves in the wasteland of twisted passion. The world rejected who they were, flinched away from the grotesque beauty of their diseased souls. Two of a kind, they’d come together in an orgy of depraved passion.

“You’ve changed.” The quiet words whispered through the air with the import of a declaration of war. Alexandra’s eyes burned hot with rage threaded hunger.

“No, I only became more myself.”

Searching his face, a strange, fey satisfaction came over her. “You’re like me now. I can’t want something without needing to hurt it. Passion braided and barbed with sadism. A monster among monsters, incapable of love.” It was a statement born in despair, hammered into a child birthed different, too terrifying to love even by its family. We all secretly believe we’re not worth loving. That only by being something else can anyone want us.

Stepping forward, he was enveloped in her cool scent, her fey nature reflected in corpse pale skin and overwhelming physical power. Fingers steady, he traced her chill skin down razor sharp cheek bones. “Those are the words of people who never understood you. Love isn’t one size fits all. It’s strange and untamed, unwilling to be caged. We can’t love without wanting to control. To hurt and bleed, to feel the pain so we know the love is true. You bleed to know its worth bleeding for. No gentle love for you, only ferocious, uncompromising, wild love. A tormented, horrific love, that maims and cripples. A terrible thing that consumes and kills those unworthy of it.” Pushing strands of gold that had come undone behind her ear, his words dropped to a whisper. “I’m not proud of many things, but I take pride in being like you.”

Her radiant smile and blazing eyes said more than words could how much it meant to her. They’d stepped over a boundary tonight, something they'd tiptoed around had broken beyond repair. A rightness found its way into their souls as they met in the fight. A rightness they’d never found with anyone else.

Turning away from the vampire, his eyes fell on Anastasia as she got to her feet. She must have taken the time while he was sparring to change. Unlike her earlier shorts and tank top, she was back in the clothes he was used to.

Her pale legs were bare, letting his eyes drink in every line. Black spandex hugged her thighs, leaving her creamy midriff gloriously exposed. For all her super model looks, she was powerfully built, with a toned body any fighter could wish for. A black spandex bra fought to keep her breasts compressed, a deep valley of milk pale cleavage hooking his eyes.

“My plans to build on the foundation we put down. We’ll work on growing the raw strength of your Ebon Flame, through meditation and training,” Cesare said, grinning at Anastasia. “Then we’ll work on the Serpent's Flame. The goal is to make your first strike so savage, so destructive, that it ends the fight before the jump.”

Cesare moved behind her as they reached the range, hands hesitating. It had been over two weeks since he’d been here. Long enough to seem another life, back then she'd been blind and in need of constant care. It was normal, even expected, that she’d want him to hold her as tight as possible, even form a twisted, cancerous bond with her caregiver. But she wasn’t blind anymore, and they’d been away from each other long enough for that weed to die.

Setting his hands on her hips, he kept the old distance between them. For a second, Anastasia stood with muscles tight as piano wire. Taking a deep breath, she took the half step back until her body was flush against his. Her soft ass pressed into his growing hardness, warmth spilling across his body in a wave of welcome heat.

Ravaged, pitted, and scarred, her hands joined his on her hips. “Did you think two weeks would change so much?” She asked, pushing his hands down along her hips until his fingers were only inches apart. A shiver of desire twisted through his body as he felt slick spandex under his fingers. He knew it didn’t feel any different from the spandex on her hips. But somehow his fingers being on the edge of her sex, hands flat across her inner thighs, made it different.

“You needed me. I could understand if … your feelings had changed,” Cesare whispered, breath drifting across the cavernous flesh of her ear hole.

Holding his hands in place, her own breathing relaxed as tension bled from her body. “Nothing’s changed for me. I still want this.” The words settled something in him as his own body loosened, stress he hadn’t noticed uncoiling from around his neck.

He couldn't face the bare truth of her words, any more than he’d been able to face it with Alexandra. “Call your Ebon Flame. Let its hunger blight the world and devour its innocence.”

Holding her hands palm up with an air of reluctance, the flame coiled around pale fingers in black snakes of wickedness. Twisting in on itself, the flame flared to life, rising from her palms. Black and deadly, the flame beat at the air, dancing in a foot-long tendril of foulness, its hungry heat greedily feasting on the world as it struggled against her grip. For all its lethal majesty, it was a shade of the killing flame she’d called before Winter Break.

The flame guttered out as Anastasia hunched her shoulders. Unconsciously responding, his own body wrapped around her, trying to shelter her from her own insecurity. “I thought I could make it through Winter Break with your Desiderium. Maybe if I hadn’t trained so hard … but I didn’t have you there and I needed something. I had to feed, Cesare.”

His fingers tightened as anger and possessiveness fought for dominance in his mind. “Who?” The word grated out as images of bloody retribution ran through his head.

“One of my mother’s harem. It wasn’t much, just a quick taking with him prepped for me.” Her words slowed, earnestness breaking against his anger. “It’s going to happen, Cesare. I am what I am, and you won’t always be there. I wanted to feed from you. If you’d been there, I would have.”

It was stupid to feel as if she was his. But feelings didn’t answer to truth. She’d been his for two months, to feed and care, to bathe and wash, to love and caress. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, throw that away. But her hunger would be part of their lives for as long as they were friends, and he’d have to deal with it. That didn’t mean he had to deal with it today.

“It was my Desiderium that gave you the power boost?” Cesare asked.

Sighing, Anastasia rallied. “Maybe, I talked to mother but without trying it herself, she can’t say. But we couldn’t come up with any other explanation for the sudden exponential jump in power.” A rush of satisfaction pulsed through him. That she could only get that power from him, that he was better than the faceless others.

“Do you need to feed? We used to feed you twice a day.” His need pulsed wetly under the words. He wanted to rip the prana from her soul, strip the smear of violation from her darkling beauty. He needed to replace it, hungered for his prana to claim her body and soul, its caustic malice devouring the weakness of the other.

“I wasn’t honest, Cesare,” Anastasia said, the halting words stumbling over each other. “Even training, I don’t need it that often .…” Taking a deep breath, she continued in a rush, “Even if I didn't need you, I wanted you.”

Cesare nuzzled her neck, feeling the ridges of tortured flesh rasping across his skin. “If you want me, I want to be there."

Shivering under his breath, her voice was breathy. “I’ll need you next week.”

Hands flexing along her hips. “Wednesday.” Command and plea twisted into one word. He couldn’t hold her like this and know another man’s energy swam in her soul.

Her laughter was smoky, arousal flashing through his body at the heated sound. Rocking back into him, her soft ass surrounded his hardness. “I like having you in me too much to complain.”