The Discarded

Alone Chapter 17 - 2

Crouching next to him, Cesare waited for the boy to get his breath back before talking. "If I teach you nothing else, you'll learn to fall." Taking his hand, Cesare boosted the boy up. "In a fight, if you fall wrong, you're dead." Sweeping the listening kids with a look, he pulled them into the lesson. "You need to tense your muscles and roll with the impact, create a rounded surface with your body instead of a flat board. Once you hit the ground, you're on a timer, the man coming for you won't wait for you to get your shit together. Roll as far away as you can to open distance, get your weapon in place, reform your guard. Only the dead stay still."

Cesare watched the lesson take hold in the boy's eyes. "Your turn, hit me as hard as you can."

The kid didn't hesitate, taking up his trident he spun around, taking power from his feet, doubling it with his core. The staff hit Cesare's chest with a crack of power. Rocketing backward, Cesare's body tensed, his back curving in preparation. The ground hit him along the shoulder's, rolling him head over ass. He flowed to his feet already in his ready stance.

"Did you see that?" Cesare asked, taking in not just the boy in front of him but the others watching. "After we finish, I want you to work on it. Go back and forth until you can fall and come back up in a defensive stance." Stopping, his words came quiet and slow, drawing the students in. "You don't come up onto your feet and into your stance. You come up in your stance."

Everyone's eyes turned to Blaez as the Cherries left the ring. The girls had taken a place across from the werewolf, and no one thought it was by chance. Cesare was jealous and possessive. He didn't own them, even the thought was ludicrous, you couldn't own a tiger. But they were his friends and that said it all, they were his. He didn't want to share, least of all an arrogant werewolf that had history with one of them. The girls were his wild patch of beauty, purpose perverted with obsession, if he shared them, he'd lose them. There was nothing special about him or what he did, if the girls looked around, they'd find someone better.

That was the personal reason and he knew they'd weighed it in their choice. But that wasn't their only reason. With them behind him, they were in the perfect spot to intervene if his game with the werewolf went wrong. Image mattered as much as anything, they not only wanted to be behind him, but to be seen backing him.

Blaez never even looked at the vampire or his ex, focusing on Cesare. A spreading stain of yellow told the story of surrender to a torture birthed in flesh. His weight doubled, skin bursting like overripe fruit as muscles tore through the fragile human illusion. Bones snapped, meat and tendon reforming before Cesare's eyes as the wolf shed his mendaciumto become his authentic self.

Scraps of skin hit the ground, rotting in seconds, turning to black sludge absorbed into the grass. Gaining height along with mass, the low, pained cries went from human to animal as the change engulfed the boy. Only seconds had passed before the werewolf was fully changed into the Kveldulf, nine feet of killing temper and psychotic need.

Blaez glared out of the yellow eyes for a second, years of breaking the wolf had honed his will into a weapon he wielded with brutal authority. If you don't know you're going to win, then you're already halfway to losing. The saying that every dog pushed too far will bite was only half true. They bite to escape, to get away, vengeance is something only man knows.

It was still a wonder to see that wolf like face with its serrated teeth lacerating lips, dribbles of blood tainted saliva flowing down its hairless, scarred skin, desperate human eyes shining back at Cesare. Because Blaez had to give up control, to force himself to let the wolf take over their body. Had to do it, knowing the wolf had every reason to keep its supremacy and no reason to give it back.

As the human faded from the eyes, wild instincts and the fey nature of a predator rushed into the void. Cesare knew the other side of Blaez's personality. Not as a person with character and reason, but as an animal. The wolf wasn't human, didn't think like a human or rationalize like one. That didn't mean it wasn't smart, it just wasn't going to conform to what a reasoning being would do. It followed the instincts burned into its bones; the truth laid out by nature long ago.