Inner Predator

Tall Dark & Terrifying

Any similarities to other works are purely coincidental. Also this is my story only shared on Wattpad, please don't take it and use it as your own or post it elsewhere.

Can't wait to hear what you guys think.

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With a big smile on my face, I do a little victory dance on my way to the water fountain. I don't even care that my skin has a slimy mix of my sweat and that of my opponents. Three down, one to go. My most recent opponent's expression is still full of disbelief. He can't believe he got his ass kicked by a girl--at least, by a girl half his size. 

It's probably wrong, but I can't help but take pleasure in his broken nose or the bruise that will make his ribs a disgusting shade of purpleish-yellow. They won't last long. His type are quick to heal. His face and ribs will be good as new within an hour or two, but that's not the point. The point is I'm a freaking badass.

Shifters always underestimate me. Really, they underestimate everyone who isn't their shifter type, but they at least have a healthy respect for the vampires. They like to laugh at me though. All these guys have a good foot on me in height and a solid hundred pounds of muscle on me, but it isn't just that. I'm half Fae, which is really just a fairy but I've learned they--we don't really like to be called that. The rest of me, what I thought up until a few months ago was all of me, is human. Neither are known for their fighting abilities against the Cursed. 

It doesn't matter how many bones I break or how many fights I win, the shifters are always surprised by my badassery. You'd think they would just learn, but they don't. Shifters aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. I frowned a little at myself, knowing that stereotype was mean. I'd met some really smart shifters... but these guys fit the stereotype. 

After cracking my neck I pull my dark red hair back and turn, ready to face my next opponent. Andrew steps forward with a cocky grin certain he's going to beat me. He's wrong, but hey, if he wants to embarrass himself who am I to stop him?

"Morning Andy," I taunt with a sugary sweet voice and smile to match.

"Morning, Aurora." Of all the guys I spar with, Andrew is my favorite. He was the first person to kick my ass in hand-to-hand combat training. Natural talent, that was what he said he saw in me after the third time he'd pinned me to the ground. I thought it was a lame pick up line at first, but no, he meant it. He wanted to train me. 

Of course now the teacher has become the student. Thankfully he, unlike so many others, doesn't let my ability to kick his ass get in the way of a friendship. Or the human thing, it doesn't bother him like it does most people. 

"I think..." I begin, standing in the center of that mat while he circles around me, debating his best angle for attack. "That you should buy me lunch for kicking your ass today? What you think?" I'm only ever this cocky because it gets a draw from them. And that gives them away. Every. Time. 

I hear his predator growl, letting me know exactly where he is before he attacks. Amateur. Thanks to his never-ending growl, I don't need to face him to know where he is, so I slide--gracefully, I might add, out of his path just before he hits. With his momentum thrown off, Andy stumbles past me and then turns around, glaring so that I can't help but chuckle. 

"Oh come on. Have a sense of humor," I tease him because we both know that my last comment got under his skin and made his attack sloppy. "I'll buy you lunch if you win too." He lets out a short grunt, taking time to think his attack through more carefully this time. 

He charges again, this time using animal speed. My eyes aren't as good as all the Cursed in the room but I can track a shifter well enough to know when to defend and strike against him. A vampire would be too quick, but I don't make it a habit of fighting vampires. Maybe it was too many Anne Rice novels growing up or one to many screenings of Dracula as a child, but vampires made me uneasy. Okay, they downright gave me the heebie jeebies.