They locked onto him as he broke cover. Scythians glared with a pure, almost religious hatred, as if he'd caused this clusterfuck. Anastasia moved to the side, opening an angle that allowed her to cover him if this went further into fucked. Alexandra watched with a sweet smile curving her lips, for all the world as if she wasn’t slowly throttling a girl to death.

The only person who wasn’t watching him was Atalanta. She’d given up hitting the vampire, struggling to break the woman’s steel grip around her throat with frantic hands. Alexandra's grip never wavered, her fingers crushing Atalanta's throat by inches.

Stepping up beside the vampire, Cesare's hand caressed from one shoulder to the other. “Let her go, killer.” Love, affection, pride, and understanding wove into a tapestry that enfolded Alexandra, soothing the fear that Cesare would see her for the insane thing she was. It was an understanding beyond right or wrong, good and evil, sanity or madness. There was simply nothing that Alexandra could do that would shake Cesare's love.

A contentment filled her eyes at the pleasure of being touched. “She insulted you.” Her hand tightened,,, ripping a gagging gasp from the fading Atalanta. “She had the audacity to disparage you to my face, my Lord.”

She wasn’t telling him no; she was stating her reasons, so he had the information before deciding. Alexandra would no more go against his order than she would break her own hand. His thumb caressed her face, meeting eyes that churned with a witch’s brew of devotion, madness, and honor.

“Let her go.” The order was corded steel.

Without a word, Alexandra released her. Falling to the ground coughing and gasping, Atalanta struggled to stay conscious, livid black and blue bruises blooming across her throat in the exact shape of Alexandra’s fingers. A low, hurt sound, whimpered from her blue tinged lips.

Stepping away from the gasping girl, Alexandra moved to Cesare’s side and one step back. Anastasia bracketed him on the other side, hands wreathed in flames of blackest sin.

Silence bled off Cesare as Atalanta's gasping breaths filled the space. Her breathing settled; the low whine of pain dying off. Getting up on her own, she stood as the other Scythians gathered around her. Over a dozen girls glared black death at Cesare, hands caressing leather wrapped hilts.

Cesare met Atlanta’s hateful look. She didn’t blame Alexandra, no, she blamed Cesare. She blamed him for the fight, for the girls turning her down, and for the embarrassment of being strangled like an unwanted kitten. She was right. If he wasn’t there, the girls would have taken the offer. But the Furies wouldn’t exist without Cesare.

“You’ve said your peace. Now take your people and walk while you still can.” The words were quiet with lethal intent. Atalanta met his eyes with quiet promise before turning and leading her people back down the trail.

The Scythians needed the girls more than the girls needed the Scythians. There would never be another Anastasia or Alexandra, scions of power possessing a dark charisma that drew people to them. They had better than even odds of taking the school over. With Elizabeth's backing, it would make an almost perfect storm for the ascendency of women. The kind of platform that came into being once in a thousand years and the Scythians knew it. The three women were going to set the tone for the next thousand years, those at the table would dominate the conversation for the next eon.

If the girls could take the school, they’d be able to command and influence the next generation of leaders. If the Scythians could cement an alliance, they could join the coalition that would include the most powerful and influential Umbrae Lunae of their generation.

With that on the table, there was no way the Scythians would back down. In one swoop, they could make the strides they’d bled centuries for. The one thing stopping them was Cesare. They’d come for him; it was only a matter of time.

Lost in thought, he led the girls through the gray twilight of the corridor of thorns into Raven's Rest. It was only a few feet, but it felt longer under the sharp, dagger sized spears yearning toward unprotected flesh.

Coming out of that walkway into the sun, Cesare breathed deeply of the clean smell, taking in the lush grass and monochrome sparring area with satisfaction. They'd come for him, and he’d be ready. They wouldn’t be the first gang to think they could take him down, and they wouldn’t be the last.

Alexandra peeled off, heading to the sparring area where she’d change while he got Anastasia settled into her meditation. Waking alone with the akatharton, he looked over at her pensive face. “Problem?”

Briefly, she looked at him before looking away. “I shouldn’t have brought them here.” The words were low and intimate. “I should have found somewhere else to take them. At the time, I was excited at finding a group willing to support us. I wasn’t thinking .…” She trailed off uncertainly.

Cesare shrugged as she sat down on the meditation table, legs folding under her. “The place is protected; I doubt even Abraxas could break in.”

Looking up at him, her eyes reflected a worried sadness. “It’s not that, I know how protected this place is.” She hesitated, looking away from his intent eyes. “This place is special, to me, for us. You brought me here when we first started, it was here that I fell … It’s our place, even if I have to share it with her.”

Kneeling, Cesare's fingers brushed against her scarred, leathery face. Her eyes slowly rose to his, a desperate question in them. “It’s special to me too.” The words were the soft caress of velvet along skin, the sliding coolness of silk over heated flesh, the clean burn of desire. “You’re special to me. Touching you, being with you, seeing you here with me, and knowing it’s where you want to be. That's special to me.”

Leaning forward, Cesare captured her scarred lips. Slowly, his tongue slid across Anastasia's coarse lips as she opened her mouth. Pushing into her wetness, he tasted her heat and passion, tongue tangling with his. Reaching up, she ran her hands through his hair, holding him in place as the day heated with desire.

Loosening control of her aura, a sexual tidal wave crashed over Cesare. His pants tightened as need sharpened, the slow burning of his desire bursting into an inferno. The aura plucked at his thoughts, opening doorways to perversions never meant for the light of day. Barbed and jagged, forbidden horrors coiled up from inside his soul at the touch of her power.

A low growl rumbled from his chest, body struggling against the black serpents that slithered down his veins. Her tongue taunted and teased, birthing images that cavorted madly through him. Anastasia on her knees, mouth working down his length, wicked eyes black with heat. Bent over the table as he pushed into her welcoming, wet heat, the feel of her ass against him as he sheathed himself in her body. Her breasts filling his hands while her core tightened around him, eyes promising oblivion. Need sliced along Cesare's nerves in a pain that was ecstasy.

With a wrench, he pulled away before desire overturned sanity. Dark eyes smoldered up at him, a teasing smirk curling her lips into a tempting smile. Shifting, she drew his eyes down her porcelain neck with its tortured landscape to the creamy swells of her breasts.

“Dangerous, so very dangerous.” Cesare growled, lust surging into a tsunami around him, reddening the worlds edges.

Her smile widened into wickedness that smoked with promise. “I’m not teasing, Cesare.” Throaty with a husky undertone, it was fleshy hunger given wanton voice. Leaning forward, her uniform opened displaying magnificent breasts. Contained in a black lace bra that strained under their size, they were soft as newborn sin, silk beneath his calloused hands. The remembered taste of her skin flooded his mouth, a desire to roll her hardened pink nipple in his lips spiking through him. Kissing him lightly, she ran her tongue across his lips before pulling back so only an inch separated them. “I’m offering.”

“As long as I play second string so you can keep your eye out for number one,” Cesare husked, eyes following the sensuous movements of her lips.

She didn’t lose her smile, but her eyes glinted like obsidian. “I’m not saying that. I can’t promise you permanent, and I won’t lie to you. Maybe if we start out temporary, it'll turn permanent. There’s no saying I'll ever find someone that can offer more.”

Cesare watched her breath hitch at the wild thing that stared back at her. His lips twisted in a snarl of feral want. “I can’t.” Black as midnight, twisted and barbed as mother’s hate, the words tore their way from his charred soul. “I want to skin you alive and wear you. To bathe you in my blood and feed you my quivering flesh. I hunger to hear your heartbeat against mine, to have your breath wash across my face as I lap up your sweat.”

Cesare opened his heart to her revealing the weeping wound that was his need. It went beyond love or obsession; it was a void in his soul that ached and bled. Looking into that black wasteland, Anastasia trembled as she beheld something beyond sanity. “I’d rather have nothing, go to bed aching and bleeding than watch you walk away. I can live this way; I can survive the insanity of my needs and the horror of knowing I'll never have you. But I could never live if I touched you, only to have it taken from me.”

She held his gaze for a long second, memorizing the bloody thing staring out from his eyes. She’d find others who could fuck better than him, men who could offer her money, cultured, pretty, smart, and polished, but she'd never find someone who loved her more. He'd die for her, cut himself to ribbons to make her happy, slice his soul to shreds to feed her appetites.

She was a petty, selfish woman, uncaring of the ones she hurt as she hunted her dreams. Cesare understood her in all her flawed glory, and even with that painful knowledge, he'd still feed her the best parts of himself. No one loved her more than him, and no one ever would. With a wrench, she understood her mother’s obsession with him, he was truer than anyone else. His devotion was pure and red as hearts blood, his love a thing of simple, wild beauty, devoid of artifice or guile.

Cesare held her eyes as she looked into his soul and quivered at what glared back at her. Flowing to his feet, he set the headphones on her head. Turning away from her, he let the conversation fade into the past.

The angry shine of Alexandra's eyes let him know she’d watched them. Tight yoga pants molded to her legs, showing off powerful thighs and a sculpted butt. A pink tank top left her muscled shoulders and arms bare to the world. Her braided hair was a river of gold running down her back, brushing the top of her ass.

Alexandra's face was a wasteland of starving hunger, cheeks hollow as a Holocaust survivor, skin stretched parchment thin across her skull. Pointed and wasted, her nose was a blade of cartilage covered in drum tight flesh. Hollow eye sockets shadowed fierce green eyes, possessed by the demons of hunger.

Power bloomed in his soul at the sight of her true form. Strength flooded his body as the Kundalini opened his Root Chakra. Reality ripped apart along its fleshy, rotten seams, Aleph splaying it's secret bits out for Cesare. Beth wrapped around him in a covering of protection, shielding him from the world with her own body.

Cesare slipped between the black roots of the sparring ring, Alexandra darting for him before he'd straightened. The kick snapped forward, air whining with a hurt sound, it was one thing to see a kick coming, and a whole different thing to be fast enough to escape it. Ramming into his middle, it threw him back against the fence, hardened roots digging into his back. Dropping low, Alexandra's fist hit his floating ribs, pain lancing through his body.

Cesare danced to the side. Alexandra could barrel in and bang it out. She was stronger, faster, with the ability to shrug off hits that would kill him. He'd never be that kind of fighter, sliding around her, Cesare's punches knifed into flesh, each a darting thing of quicksilver.

Thought was left behind; the moment, a cold predatory thing around him, only the heat of his instincts beat in this place of nothingness. He was better, but she was three times as strong, faster than stolen car. Her race gave her advantages he couldn’t match. So, he didn’t try, he played to his strengths, forcing her to fight his way. Staying on the edges of sight, courting her flanks and blind spot, constantly moving, he was never still.

Snapping and biting, he harried her, irritating and infuriating the vampire. Never letting her pin him down, frustrating her attempts to use her immense strength. She was a war hammer with all its devastating power, and he was a stiletto quick and vicious.

The constant blows eroded her control, fury slowly building, a fire that consumed skill, leaving only brute force. The fight devolved into a primal battle for dominance. Saturated with sadistic need, her smile was a savage thing of sexual arousal and twisted desire. Alexandra wanted to hurt him, needed to see him bleeding and broken on the ground. She hunted that satisfaction the way a man does the pleasure of a woman’s thighs.

Cesare met her savagery for savagery, lips peeling back in a snarl of hunger at each flinch he tore from her with his barrage of cruel blows. He wanted to see her humbled before him, to strip her bare of her pride, to own her flesh. Seeing her shield her bruised side, stirred a dark stew of arousal in him. Her hunger was matched by his need, the infernos devouring each other in a battle for dominance. They caressed each other with painful punches and tearing kicks, showed their love by rupturing flesh.

Stepping back, Cesare ended the spar, body still ready. Just because he signaled they were done, didn’t mean Alexandra wouldn’t go for his throat. Taking a step forward with a low hiss of anger, madness and fury crested in her eyes.

Cesare met her hiss with a low, rumbling growl, its naked threat saturating the air with malice. More than sound, stygian as the depths of the ocean, as enduring as the blackness between the stars, it was a physical weight in the air. Capturing her eyes with his, the promise twisted the air between them. If he showed weakness, she’d kill him, in her madness she'd pounce and tear him apart.

The madness slowly ebbed from her eyes. It was who she was, the madness was her, the way a man’s anger is both a part of him and separate. Out of pools of insanity she watched him with fragile vulnerability. She knew she was mad, bad, and dangerous, and expected him to run every time she lost control. She could kill him, most likely would kill him, but he was still here.

She relaxed her stance, meeting his eyes with crawling gratitude. She’d never be able to express how much it meant to her. Not because she wouldn’t try, but because no words could convey the depth of how she felt. No words could ever hold the soul searing joy of having a dream you'd given up on come true. He knew because he felt the same.

“You're better than me,” Alexandra said as the last of her readiness drained from her body.

Cesare gave her a twisted smile. “That would mean more if you hadn’t told me this wasn’t something you were good at.”

She nodded at his words. “That’s not what I said, it’s not what I excel at. I’m better than most knights, but if we get into hand to hand, we’ve already screwed up.”

It boiled down to simple facts. He wasn't winning, he was only losing slowly. Her natural gifts made it impossible for him to level the playing field. He could trick, irritate, and infuriate her, push her out of her game, but it only delayed the end. It wasn’t fair to measure himself against a girl that had held Viktor to a standstill, but if Cesare wanted to be the best, he had to have something to push against.

Anastasia leaned on the fence, watching them. They’d adjusted the program so her meditation ended a little before the sparring, it gave her time to change and watch the end of the spar. Cesare suspected Anastasia had pushed for it because she had thought she could stop the vampire if she lost control.

That hope was nothing more than fairy farts. The akatharton possessed immense destructive force. But she wasn’t even a shade of Alexandra’s stygian glory. Honed by over a decade of tortured training, every minute given to hammering her into a weapon of murderous intention, the vampire was on a radically different level. Her speed made her a ghost to all but the most gifted, she hit with the power of sledgehammer going 60mph, and was wedded to the morals of a rabid lion.

Alexandra collected her things before heading to the table to work on Cesare’s latest ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. Anastasia followed the vampire with narrowed eyes. “She’s insane.” The words were weighted with truth.

Smiling lightly, Cesare ducked between the twisted roots of the sparring circle. “That she is.”

“She’s deadly Cesare, a rabid thing,” Anastasia said, eyes never leaving his face. “She’s a bomb with a loose fuse, a threat to everyone around her, that includes you, no matter what she says about loyalty. She’ll turn on you, and when she does, there won’t be anyone that can save you. She’s more dangerous than any of the Thagirion because you’ll let her close, thinking you can control her.”

Cesare looked over at the akatharton, meeting her intense eyes. “I know.” The simple words threw Anastasia off her stride. “There will come a day when she attacks, and when that day comes, she’ll kill me.”

“Why?” Driven by fury, the word exploded into the air.

Cesare looked away, choosing his words carefully. “If a man's lucky, he gets to decide what he dies for. More often, we're taken for reasons that aren't our own, disease, accident, or the wasted lives of men who never find a reason to live.” Darkness pooled around his feet, his shadow deepening, taking on a depth that spoke of hooks and chains in dangling in midnight, blood and agony across silken sheets.

“I’ve never had anything to live for, death only ever meant giving up. Until I found you and the others. Once I had that, I knew what I’d die for.” He met her sorrowful eyes. “I only have one thing in this life worth a damn, you and the others. Alexandra's madness will drive her to kill me. When I go into the final darkness, it'll be because I chose to die for a friend. That’s the only thing I'm willing to die for.” Shadows trembled at his words, wavering under their power.

Anastasia opened her mouth, closing it with a shake of her head. Cesare didn’t expect her to understand. She came from a world where she’d mattered, brought up on the knowledge she was special and valued. Anastasia would go places, college, career, harem, kids, she'd change the world through power and will. Cesare didn’t have anything but them, he’d go back to being nothing when they left.

Stopping at the range, Cesare opened his arms. Still struggling with the grim prophecy, she gave him a long look. Finally, she returned his smile with a sigh before backing into his chest.

Molding to his body, her soft curves flowed over his hard, angular form. They’d spent hours like this, with him pressed into her yielding softness. Breathing in the intoxicating smell of jasmine that hung around her, his growing hardness pressed into her ass. Heat bled into the air at the raw sexuality that flared to life between them.

Anastasia drew his hands across her bare midriff, fever hot skin kissing his flesh. Pressing one of his hands flat against her taught abs, she pulled the other lower. Cesare’s heart jumped as his fingers ran over the stretchy spandex of her shorts, fingers stopping on the crest of her core. A low, satisfied purr came from the girl as she held him on the edge of cupping her sex.

“I love you.” The words were quiet, carrying a lonely, forlorn quality that made Cesare ache. “More than I’ve ever loved any boy, some days I think I love you more than I love anyone. You’ve done more for me, supported me, carried me when I fell … no one's ever been what you are to me. If I had to pick a person to share my life with, it would be you.” Her hands ran over his in a soft, lingering caress.

“But I can’t live for today, I have to plan for the future. What I want now, won’t get me what I need later. That doesn’t change that I’m more devoted to you than I am to anyone. It’s not what your giving me, but it’s the best I have.” The words were a whisper swirling around them.

Holding her close, Cesare sighed. She was trying, she was doing everything she could to meet him halfway, bending more than he ever would. If he wasn’t so needy and stubborn, they’d be together. Yet he couldn’t give up what he wanted. His wants and needs were the only thing he could call his own, maybe he was cutting his nose to spite his face, but it was the only way to be true to himself.

“We’ve worked on techniques for the past months,” Cesare said, his tone smoothing out with no sign of pain. Anastasia relaxed at the familiar, smoky words, the trance rolling over her as he continued, “Techniques are short cuts; the bastard brother of true skill. We focused on them because we didn’t have the time to cultivate the real thing.”

Pulling her tightly to him, his words dropped to a whisper that ran hot across tortured skin. “Even the techniques you have are rough and incomplete. A thousand days to develop, and a thousand days to polish. We need to weaponize those techniques so you can use them in a real fight.”