Walking into Viktor’s class, they gave the man a nod of welcome before splitting apart into separate locker rooms. Cesare left the changing room with his mind already working on the problem of how to train the nine-foot werewolf that had gutted him.

The others joined him on the mats. Heat and sweat loosened the hooks of his worries. There were few things he loved more than the smooth play of muscle straining under heavyweight or the tension laden feel of stretching his limits.

Liquid power flowed through him in a hot, steady stream, sweat trickling down his face, soaking his hair. This was when the world faded away in a wash of slick muscle and wet pain. There was no place for worries in this fleshy temple of meat.

The girls kept silent; the time as important to them as it was to him. It was the rare moment when the obsessions that made them great weren't riding their souls. No words were needed; they knew their parts, moving in sync with the unconscious grace of practice.

It was still a strange thing to watch them ignore each other, even when they sweated in the same air. Each waiting patiently for him to move from spotting one girl to helping the other. They'd learned from long practice what order worked best so no one was left alone for long.

Cesare wondered what Viktor thought of them. It was rare for the man to say anything to the trio. Instead, working out across the room with maybe a word here or there to help them improve form. More and more it felt like the man was waiting for his prey to trip itself up.

Washing down after the work out, Cesare couldn’t help but run the percentages of when the dangerous man would make his move. As he passed Viktor on the way out, Cesare put it out of his mind as a worry for another day.

“We’ll meet you after your session with Tamlin,” Anastasia said outside Victors class.

Turning, Cesare faced the girls. “No.” Alexandra glared at the one-word answer. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you two. The trainings between me and him.”

Looking anywhere but at him, Anastasia’s words were quiet. “It’s not that we don’t think you can train him. More than anyone, I know what you can do.” Alexandra nodded reluctantly at the words of praise, it probably physically hurt to agree with the other girl. “We won’t get into the training; we just want to make sure you’re safe.”

Sighing, he wished they could have this conversation anywhere but here and now. “That’s part of why you can’t be there.” Alexandra’s fists clenched as she held herself still, pain and anger twisting in on each other in her eyes. “I can’t train him if I have any doubt I’m in control. You being there will mark me as weak, prey to hunt, not a leader to follow. He has to respect me, fear me, and take me as his superior or I won’t be able to train him at all.”

Shuffling her feet, Anastasia’s voice was hesitant with the knowledge of a person poking an open wound. “You barely survived the last time you tangled with him.” The statement sent a flare of fury through him. “You’ve gotten stronger, but you’re not at his level Cesare, you may never be.”

Alexandra met his eyes, unwilling to voice the words. She didn’t want him to go, he’d been crippled by the Scythian's hunt, and the werewolf was a killer. Cesare could see it in her fisted hands and tightened body, anxiety and fear riding her hard.

“You think this is about my pride?” Cesare asked.

“Isn’t it?” Anastasia asked quietly. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have; she knew how sensitive he was about Blaez. But she’d rather have an uncomfortable conversation than him come up dead on her. Seeing the genuine concern in her eyes, his reflexive anger relaxed.

“I know you're worried, and I won’t say my pride isn’t part of it, but that’s not the big picture,” Cesare said, tightening his duffel against his back. “I know you want to protect me but the more you do, the more tempting I am to the jackals. The reason the Scythians attacked was because they thought they could take me. They’d never have tried with the werewolf. If they think I’m food, they'll treat me as meat.”

They liked it even less because it was true. Alexandra gave him a tight nod, accepting it in the way any knight would a distasteful order. She didn’t have to like it, she only had to do it. Pride, worry, and insanity, created a maelstrom of madness in her eyes, each warring for dominance. Mastering herself, she pivoted and stalked away.

Anastasia waited until the vampire was out of sight before turning to Cesare. “You're sure about this?”

Cesare looked away from her, juggling anger, shame, and determination. “I won’t be someone’s pet.”

“I don’t look at you that way.” Sad and quiet, the words rested in the air.

Shaking his head, Cesare refused to look at her. “You love power, it's woven through your soul and dreams. When people look at you, they see strength and beauty. It’s who you are. You might not look down on me now, but as you ascend into the halls of power, I’ll disappear.” Taking a deep breath, he met her eyes. “When that happens, if I’m relying on you, I'll fall with no one to catch me.”

She looked away, unable to admit the truth. She loved power, the feel of it against her skin, the thrill of knowing she was in control. She lived for the adoration of her followers. More than anything in life, she wanted to be like her mother, her own Imperium, revered as a Goddess by slaves and devotees. Ruthless and practical, she admitted to herself, that if it came down to her dream or Cesare, she'd always choose her dream. Which was why she couldn’t be his.

He watched the play of thoughts across her face as his words led her to truth. She despised weakness, manipulating that fatal flaw to twist people into devoted slaves. Anastasia liked having thralls, but pawns were the ones the queen sacrificed, not the other way around.

Cesare watched her walk away. He loved her; she was a mercenary soul using him for what she could tear form his flesh, but that had always been factored in, so it changed nothing. As long as he was the swiftest way to power, she'd be by his side. If a better offer came along, she'd leave him with nothing but memories.

Feeling the cold tides of melancholy pull at him, he struggled free as best he could. He knew he'd never be more than a steppingstone for Anastasia. He could love her, bask in the ecstasy of her fire, thrill at the touch of her hand, but memories were all he’d keep. The others thought he was a sex addled loser licking her boots. Silencing those voices meant less to him than having Anastasia in his life.

Opening the door to Tamlin’s room, the wolf’s yellow eyes wiped the last of the melancholy from him. Wild and primal, its emotions flooded his mind, shoring up his fading self-confidence. Clean and pure in a way mankind had thrown away long ago, it was a diamond in a world of warped glass.

The wolf was a mountain in the fading mists of the world, concrete and whole in a world made of parts, breathtakingly alive in a land of rotting meat. Cesare ran his hands through its silky fur, burying his fingers into the luxurious pelt.

A wolf was honest without trying. Beyond abstractions, it didn’t care why it was happy, only that it was. No right or wrong, pride or value, it loved and hated without guilt. He let go of the ravening thoughts that had besieged him, rising above the battlefield of his self-worth and into the moment of peace the wolf guided him to.

Thoughts weren’t actions, they were demons masquerading as truth. Only this moment mattered, living, fighting, eating, not the thoughts that corrupted the purity of life. Reflections were for humans and philosophers; living was for the wild and free.

Tamlin’s steps were quiet as they slid across the wooden floors with only the squeak of the mat to betray him. Reluctantly turning away from the wolf, Cesare met his teacher halfway.

The moment wrapped around him, a feral thing of clinical detachment and painful awareness. Deadly patience and cold instinct, a straight razor cutting along his nerves. Cesare let himself go, past, future, even the present, falling away in that place of nothingness. Thoughts were serpents that drew attention away from the now.

Moving in on him, Tamlin’s fists darted through the air. Weaving and dodging, Cesare’s hands moved on their own, striking out at the micro windows unseen and unknowable to the mind. Thought was too slow to see them, the mind unable to fathom the pattern, but he felt the openings in Tamlin’s form. Flowing around the strikes, Tamlin pushed Cesare all the way to the bleeding edge of ability.

Cesare embraced that timeless place of emptiness, his body dancing to the rhythm of the fight. In the void of the moment, there was neither want nor attachment. He didn’t anticipate winning or worry about losing. All that existed was the moment filling the space of his wants and needs. Driving him across the mat, Tamlin’s face was locked into a merciless mask.

To give anything less than Cesare's best, would end with him being punished until he bled. The air cut his lungs, sweat blurred his sight, just as his body was giving out, nausea surging up from his gut, Tamlin shifted gears. Stepping forward, his hands bound and trapped, the slapping of flesh sounding like gun shots in the space. This was the only break the man gave, not rest, only a change in focus. From striking to holds, from bone breaking, to submission.

Tamlin was the master here. Only when the man stepped back, was Cesare allowed to fall bonelessly to the floor, panting and sweating with the room dipping and wobbling around him. There was no way for Cesare to call a halt to the fight, no words that would change the man’s intentions, no injury that would stop the lesson.

The scarred man was the teacher of pain. When he paralyzed Cesare’s legs with strikes, it was so Cesare would know how to fight while crippled. When Cesare’s arms knotted into useless meat, Tamlin focused on his ability to dodge. Every injury, pain, or bruise, hardened Cesare to combat, teaching him that no one cared.

Spasms rocked his body with each gasping breath, exhaustion a physical thing tearing at his guts. “Only one man can protect you. Yourself. You have to constantly improve, if you pause for even a moment, your flesh will feed their need.”

Tamlin’s footsteps faded into the distance. It wasn’t fair that everyone was stronger than him, but it wasn’t supposed to be. He’d chosen this life, violently opposing anyone that tried to make him leave. This was the price for that choice. When the headsman came to collect, the least you could do was go with a jest on your lips and coin for the butcher.

Sponging himself off, his thoughts went to the werewolf he'd train. With a last caress for the midnight black wolf, he was off. His steps never deviated from the well-worn path down the hallways, even as he turned over the problems of training a killing machine with no self-control.

Students stepped out of his path, a few of the forgotten and cast off one's ducking heads in respect. Small and pudgy, long and gangly, ugly or weird, they walked with the hunched shoulders of the broken. Discarded by the majority, they lived on the fringes, never accepted or welcomed. Those bowed shoulder's straightened as Cesare passed, his presence granting them the courage to give him a quiet nod of respect. Bound up in his problems, Cesare didn’t notice, mind consumed by a quiet stillness that would only register a threat.

The crowd thinned when Cesare reached the corridor leading into Ludus Noctis. The guards came to attention, shoulders going back, eyes locked forward. The boy’s uniforms were pressed and sharp, identical short hair and rigid postures marking their desperate need to be accepted.

They were the rejects, those that hadn’t even made it into the Cherries. Some couldn’t meet the physical requirements; others Jerold just didn’t like. They hung around, hoping an opening might open due to injury or death, desperate for life to save them.

“I'll be receiving a guest today,” Cesare said, looking the guards over.

Swallowing, the boys voice was breathy. “We’ll take care of it, sir.”

Neither had any experience with fighting, they’d never been on the hurting end of a punch. If they ever made it into the Ludus Noctis, they’d be Cherries.

“It's Blaez.” The quiet words brought both boys eyes whipping to him.

Looking at each other, something passed between them, both coming to attention, snapping face front, stiffer, more formal than before. “We’ll take care of it, sir.” The words were different with a new layer of respect.

Walking into the Ludus Noctis he eyed the Scythians. Grouped together, the first one to notice him nudged the others. Rippling out in a wave, the girls turned to watch him.

Anger surged; a black tide that swept through him, pure as babies love. Staring at the hunters, his steps stilled without conscious thought. They’d hunted him like meat. If he’d been slower, or taken one misstep, they’d have butchered him for their dogs. He’d never fucked with them, but they’d still hunted him for control of the prodigies.

The place had gone quiet as Cesare lost himself in his hate. His shadow spread across the ground, its gentle darkness deepening with every beat of Cesare’s spiteful heart. Cruelty wove into the air, a palatable force chilling the day with soul deep cold.

Practice was forgotten for the chance to watch a fight. Most hadn't believed the rumors, but no argued that the leaders of the Scythians were shattered like porcelain dolls. Or that the rest of the Scythians were walking on cat silent feet around Cesare was something everyone had noticed.

The girls met his eyes despite their fear. He hated them for that, they'd done something that could never be forgiven. Something he’d had to excuse so he could use them for a greater need. There would be a time when he could strike back, when it wouldn't cost him the gains he’d pulled out of his butchered flesh. But that time wasn’t today.

The first step was hard. But after the first one, it got easier and easier. He'd take his pound of flesh, carve his name into their screaming souls. Glut himself on their blood and agony until the gods of pain were fat with torment. But not today.

His students watched him come from the edge of his area. There was a readiness to them he hadn’t seen before, a commitment wedded to blood and bone. They’d watched the standoff, ready to back him. For them the rumors were gospel, they had no problem imagining a group of kids hunting Cesare. The Cherries exchanged looks as he passed through them before falling into step behind him.

They’d known him for only a short time, but he’d shown them who he was. Merciless, driven, cruel, and supremely capable of anything. They hated him for what he did to them, knowing it was a burden he’d gladly bear if it gave them what they needed. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about them, it was that he cared so deeply he was willing to be hated if it birthed their dreams.

The group had never talked about it, but each had come to the same truth. You couldn’t have a man beat you into the ground day after day and not make peace with it. He tore them apart in the ring to build them into what they wanted to be. Intimately holding their most vulnerable parts in his hands, his gentleness at odds with the vicious nature he gloried in, he remade weakness into strength.

Cesare took the center of the ring with an air of command that made it his own. Yoshisune followed behind him. Cesare was never sure who would be the first of the day. It was something the students worked out on their own. As the boy walked toward him, Cesare looked at the knife in the boy’s hand.

Yoshisune was the weakest of the group. Out of shape, the boy had the slim body that was more lack of food than dense muscle. With no previous experience with weapons, Yoshisune shied away from working with live steel. His nature wasn’t suited to being a fighter, but that didn’t matter. It was his choice to be here, and that meant he'd get Cesare's best.

Cesare wondered why he’d chosen a knife. Could be the boy wanted something he could carry with him. Or getting ambushed by the Hounds had left an impression. Cesare didn’t know and, in the end, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t his job to chart their way in life, only to help them carve it out of their flesh.

Cesare put the boy through his paces, always pushing but never so far that he bulldozed through Yoshisune's guard. It was a fine line that Cesare walked with the softness of a baby’s breath, a delicate thing, pushing hard but not breaking them. They were fragile, life had scarred them, damaging hearts and souls in inescapable ways. Victims of hidden wars fought over the pitted surface of their souls, old abuse slaughtering newfound worth.

As Yoshisune switched out, Cesare adjusted to the new kid. Each was uniquely special in the way only the walking wounded could be. He changed to fit them, never pressuring them to adjust to his warped otherness. They might be stunted, but with the right training, they could grow into something magnificent. That was the heart of it, he could help them grow into what they craved, but he had to guard from breaking them into what he wanted them to be.

Blaez walked up to the fence as Cesare was working with the second student. Kids shied away from him, eyes shifting between Blaez and Cesare, hands tightening on wooden weapons. They settled when he didn’t make a move to challenge the killer.

That didn’t mean they welcomed the boy. He was a symbol of everything that had fucked them over. Strong, popular, with money to burn. He was a known bully, more than one of them had been on the receiving end of his sadistic temper. Blaez had grown up strong, the kind of kid parents wished their children were. The well-adjusted kind of guy that maimed kids hated.

When the last of his students had picked himself up off the ground, Cesare turned to face Blaez. The werewolf wore simple black sweats without a shirt. His scarred torso drew a satisfied smile from Cesare, the deep trenches and gouged flesh proof of Cesare’s unwillingness to lay down and die. The tan helped hide the massive damage to its face, but it could only do so much to disguise the patchwork quilt of irregular flesh. He’d been handsome, drawing looks from girls and woman, now he was a caricature of that man. And there was a big part of Cesare that enjoyed that.