Hesitating, he stopped, some of his anger leaking out as he faced her stricken eyes. “That was unfair, but not untrue. I care, and I’m not going to leave, but that’s far from slaving my time and life to your need. You either trust me, or find another sucker.”

“No one can train me like you do,” she said, truths rawness bleeding into every syllable.

He nodded his agreement. “You're right, no one can.” It wasn’t pride that birthed the words, just simple fact. “But I won’t bleed my life out on someone who doesn't trust me.”

“I trust you more than anyone. I swore I'd never doubt you.” Her sincerity was beyond question.

“Those are words, Anastasia; actions are the only truth.” Cesare suddenly felt old and weary. “I’m doing this for you, and you need to trust that. I’ve brought you this far, and I think I can take you the rest of the way. But if you can’t give me that, we should rethink what we’re doing.” Alexandra came up next to him, adding her silent support.

Sighing, Anastasia's eyes drifted around the deserted hallway, looking anywhere but at him. “I thought it would be different, I thought when you got back we’d … I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought, everything is a fight with you.” Another sigh flowed through her, seeming to drain the melancholy thoughts. Squaring her shoulders, she met his eyes. “You’re right, you’ve brought me this far, and you haven’t led me wrong. I trust you, and I want to continue to train under you. I’ll try to show it from now on.”

He weighed her for a second. Their feelings complicated an already barbed situation. She blamed him for wanting things she wouldn’t give, but she was as guilty as him. He didn’t want a girlfriend or a fuck buddy, he wanted a partner. She wasn’t ready for serious, and he tried his best to understand, but that didn’t stop her from demanding he give her what she wanted.

That was the problem, neither of them would give. Anastasia had always gotten what she wanted and refused to let this be different. Cesare simply couldn't be who she wanted. He wouldn’t stop craving the diseased sweets that called to him. Playing with bleeding wounds, they nursed them for the pain they savored more than peace. Their faces were painted with the claret they milked from savage cuts, each blaming the other for not making them whole.

Underlying that was the driving force of every relationship, power. She was stronger, armed with dream birthing wealth, and connected to immortal powers with an army of influence behind her. No matter what Anastasia said, she knew where he came from and she didn’t take orders from gutter trash. Cesare holding back information and making plays without her permission rasped against her natural instincts, where the strong led and the weak followed.

Miss Raven gave them a long look as they entered before going back to her papers. She was smart enough to see the mine field and wanted no part of it. The ravens had no such compunctions, giving off sleepy caws of welcome, flaring wings irritably as they stretched. Glittering black eyes dissected the trio, and like all things not raven, were found wanting.

Giving them space, Elizabeth left them alone as she focused on other students. But she was alone. The class couldn’t pull their eyes off the three of them, it was harder for them. The same age as Alexandra, Anastasia, and Cesare, they were discarded and forgotten in the trio’s shadows. Where they focused on grades, sex, and having fun, the three outcasts were becoming gods.

Having them in the same class was a twisted thing of raw exhilaration as the school begged stories from them, and searing rage at the casual way the abominations eclipsed them. The group wasn’t dreaming of the power they’d take from the world; they were butchering it from its screaming body in the now. Day after day, the trio left their class behind, gathering power, prestige, and influence, they were destined to rise to mythic glory or die in a blaze of blood drenched agony.

Their success infuriated the other students, resentment hardening into hatred at their meteoric rise. Envy and jealousy hooked into souls, lacerating sensitive flesh until every touch burned with hates caress. Everyone wanted to succeed, but few were willing to pay Charon his due. Fewer still were eager to chance losing it all on a toss of the dice, easier to settle for safe mediocrity than chance the devouring maw of dreams.

Elizabeth stood as the bell rang, sweeping the room with a quelling look that kept everyone seated. “As you know, Anastasia and Blaez have a match to decide if she'll be allowed back into the Thagirion.” The pregnant silence was tinted red with needy hunger, appetites both depraved and diseased leaking into the air. “The faculty has agreed you'll be let out early so the two fighters can prepare.” The students flooded out the door in feverous excitement, words coming hot and fast, looks darting to the akatharton, eyes saturated with greedy sadism.

Miss Raven made her way to Cesare and the girls as they packed up their books. “We decided Anastasia should have a teacher as an advocate, to ensure she was represented. Normally it would be Jerold who'd look after her, but with his current duties, that was a conflict of interest.” Her smile was slight, the words for only one. “I created a separate locker room for her to get ready.”

Cesare laughed as he looked at Elizabeth’s dancing eyes. “Who decided it was a conflict of interest?” Because there was no way Jerold would willingly give up that power. With him in control of Anastasia, he could've made sure she was fucked before ever stepping a foot on the grass.

Her lips curved in a wicked smile. “I did, with a little help from Sarah.”

The reminder of that night had an instant effect on the girls. Anastasia shifting from grateful to blazing fury, heat waves rolling off her. She’d never forget, never forgive the devastation Elizabeth had inflicted on Cesare. Alexandra was cool and deadly at his side, as lethally intent as a starving lioness.

Their anger flowed over Elizabeth like water around a mountain. She didn’t care about them; their meaning went only as far as Cesare’s feelings. She was helping them for Cesare, her private anguish at the words she delivered with casual cruelty wasn’t open for the world's eyes.

“When’s the fight?” Cesare asked, moving them beyond the raw hatred of the real, and back to the sweet lies that made them seem friends.

Elizabeth joined them as they made for the door. “Two hours from now. Enough time to have lunch and head to the stadium to get ready.”

Coming into the cafeteria, a flash of almond eyes held him from reacting with bone breaking force as the woman threw herself into his arms. Swinging her around, Cesare bled the force of Kali's jump, girls scattering back from dangling feet.

Caught in her wild eyes, his laughter tangled with the ancient immortals in a macabre tapestry. Her giggles were champagne, while his laughter bled bitterness, a vicious drink stinking of raw, grain alcohol. She was wild and free, completely, irredeemably beyond human.

Smiling, she locked eyes with him as if he was the only thing in the world. “Don’t think I’m giving up because you're dating my daughter.”

Disregarding the surprise that burst through him, Cesare returned her smile with a weary one of his own. “We’re not dating.”

A hungry light burst into life, lighting Kali’s dark eyes. “Really? You were all she talked about over Winter Holiday.”

Caressing up his arms and onto his shoulders, her hands buried themselves in his hair as she pulled his face down. Heat flared from her hands, a practiced sultriness softening her face. “Her loss,” she breathed into his face, lips inches from his.

Pressing forward, he claimed her lips as passion flared through him. Wantonly meeting his need, she molded her body to his, eagerly welcoming his tongue into her mouth. Plundering her mouth with his tongue, she tasted of raw sex and strawberries, a heady combination that poured through his veins like distilled need. His hands ran down her back, cupping her pert ass and pulling her into his growing hardness.

Fisting her hands in his hair, she darted her tongue in his mouth, trying to take the fight out of her own wet cavern and into his. Feral instincts stirred in Cesare at the war for dominance. She was a sexual sun, radiating sensuality that plucked along his nerves and hardened his flesh. Pushing back, his tongue dominated hers, denying it access to his own territory, a low whine of need spiking through their joining.

Breaking apart, Cesare drank in the sight of Kali's flushed cheeks and fiery eyes, midnight tendrils of hair stark against her pale flesh. Her ass filled his hands, soft and firm, a beautifully perky shape without the hard edge of muscle. “It’s good to see you.”

She was wildly uncontrollable, on his side only when it suited her, but always honest. You never had to wonder which side she killed for, or the amoral hunger that drove her appetites. You got exactly what you saw.

Winking up at him, Kali’s hand caressed across his rip cord hard chest. “It’s good to see you too.” The quiet words were for him alone, spoken so softly they washed over his face.

“I missed you,” Cesare said simply.

“You don’t even know me.” A note of wistful sadness threaded her words.

Cesare rolled the words over in his mind. “You're right, I don't know you,” he agreed, her blazing joy fading from her eyes. “We don’t hunger for the known, we crave a connection beyond knowing. A thing born when souls see each other across the infinite sadness of life and realize they don't have to be alone.” Tracing her cheek with a finger, his smile softened. “I missed you.” He repeated with deeper meaning, a feeling beyond the carnal appetites of animals.

A smile danced across her lips, wild eyes playing peek-a-boo through sable hair. “I missed you.” Stretching up on her toes, she kissed him lightly before pulling back.

Unwilling to let her go, Cesare's arm looped around her shoulder. Grinning, she snaked her arm around his waist, slipping a hand into his back pocket to get a handful of his butt.

Anastasia watched the scene with a queer mix of shocked anger. “Mom … what are you doing here?”

Lady Kali laughed at her daughter's dazed expression, giving Cesare an amused look. “Still playing those cards close to your chest, huh?”

Shrugging, Cesare ignored the fury on Anastasia’s face. “I needed you for the plan. Telling Anastasia would only have wound her up.”

Anastasia opened her mouth, rages quick need for vengeance on the tip of her tongue. Forcibly stopping herself, she gave the watching crowd an appraising look. Following her eyes, Cesare took in the cafeteria with its awe struck students and wondering faculty.

Warped with envy, jealousy, anger, and disgust, the students faces were wastelands of weakness. Lady Kali’s intimate welcome hadn’t created the blades facing him, but it had added a razor shine to them. He was nothing, while Kali was a goddess, a being of untold majesty, a creature worshipped by her own people and feared the world over as an apocalyptic force. It was an obscenity for him to touch her, but the mass of cloudy disgust they gave out paled next to the raw hatred that hardened around one table.

Mrs. Machete had her own set of tables, populated exclusively by girls. Watching Lady Kali intently, they were a sea of adoring, worshipful eyes. He wasn’t sure why they looked at Kali that way, but when those eyes looked at him, the rage scorched the air between them. If they weren’t enemies before, he’d made them that today.

Lady Kali’s harem was a loose cordon of suspicious, glaring flesh around them, their eyes split between the students, faculty, and Cesare. As much as they revolted at his closeness with Kali, it didn't come close to how deeply it touched the harem. Devoted to the small immortal unto death, Cesare touching her was a sacrilege that could only be washed away with blood.

“They offered me a seat at the teacher's table, you’re coming with me of course,” Lady Kali said, already pulling him along.

A grin stretched across his face at what he knew was coming. It was too good to pass up, and from Lady Kali's answering grin she thought so too. He guessed when you lived for a few millennia; you took happy when it came without looking too carefully at it.

The casual thought stopped him, realigning his view of the woman. She’d seen more ecstasy and grief than anyone he’d meet. Watched everyone she loved die, tortured under times pitiless cleaver. Gloried in the horrors of war, and bathed her flesh in the blood of innocents. Given life and taken it, she was hailed as a goddess and condemned as the apocalypse. What are you left with when you've seen everything?

Lady Kali’s life stretched out before her, century after century of boredom and death, knowing she'd watch death take friend, family, lover, and child. Everyone would fade, while she stood alone in the storm of rotting flesh, unchanged and eternal. A never-ending march of plastic people, forgotten things of flesh, ants in their trillions, gnats that live and die between blinks of her life. If he'd been condemned to her life, he’d hold onto each moment, sink his teeth into it and suck the marrow from its still quivering bones. Because you always got a full helping of sorrow, but joy was precious and never on the menu.

Maybe it was the reason she leapt from bed to bed chasing the small death of orgasm, indulging the carnal appetite of a lustful goddess. Using anything to buffer her soul against the crushing weight of loneliness and knowing, the unrelenting pain of having everything and everyone taken from her. When centuries spilled out in front of you, despair a bitter taste on the back of the tongue, wouldn't you take any sanctuary offered?