Westenra

Chapter 1: Cinnamon & Teeth

The smell really distracted from the teeth. They gnashed together furiously, getting closer and closer to her sweaty forehead. But in this moment, likely her last, all things considered, it was the smell she couldn't help but focus on. This monster, this beast in the body of what had once been a man...smelled like cinnamon. Huh.

There were worse ways to die, she supposed, than being eaten by something that smelled faintly of breakfast. As far as smells went, it was pretty pleasant one to go out on.

Then she saw it. An opening. The creature had extended its arm to hold her head still, as it went in for the bite, its armpit now fully exposed. A lucky break for a girl who was about to be a headless meal-for-one splattered on the concrete. With her free hand, she reached for her dagger, and managed to stab the cinnamon-tinged thing's rough skin as hard as she could. It let out a surprisingly human scream and retreated a bit, giving her the welcome opportunity to kick it in the jaw as hard as she knew how.

"Alright, I've seen enough!" A voice boomed from behind her, as two armed men corralled the wounded creature to take it back to its cage. Dasha collected herself and tried not to make it obvious how much pain she was in as she stood up to face the voice.

"That was sloppy," the voice said.

"You said to prove myself, I needed to fight that thing. I fought it. I won. You didn't say anything about style points, Viktor," Dasha said. Trying and failing to contain her annoyance.

Viktor leaned forward in his garishly decorated red chair near the front of the makeshift arena. "It's not about style, it's about awareness of your surroundings. You fight with no plan of attack, no course of action beyon-"

"I improvise," Dasha interrupted.

"And it's going to get you killed."

Dasha pursed her lips. On one hand, Viktor was right, that fight was too close for comfort. It could have easily gone the other way. On the other hand...screw Viktor, she'd done what she needed to do. She'd passed the test. That's all that mattered. After an awkward silence, she finally spoke. "So does The Horde accept this as my feat of strength?" The words felt idiotic coming from her mouth. All this ceremonial crap. For what? A chance to earn a few Injex? Not long ago, she took her family's seemingly unlimited supply of Injex for granted. Before school, you took your morning shot and almost always had one more while being tucked into bed at night. The idea that she'd be fighting for her life in the name of getting her hands on just a couple more of the small purple packets would have been unthinkable.

But that was then.

"Hardly the most impressive display I've ever seen, but," Viktor said, pausing for dramatic effect for so long that Dasha could barely keep herself from rolling her eyes. "It will suffice. Your contacts inside Holmwood should prove invaluable to The Horde."

Dasha sighed with relief. They probably all saw that. Ugh.

"And if they don't," Viktor continued, "well, we'll just have to revisit this." He got up suddenly and did an exaggerated spin towards the exit of the arena, apparently in an effort to show off the ridiculous cape he was wearing. It wasn't half as impressive as he probably thought it was, nothing more than a patchwork of brightly colored fabric haphazardly sewn together. But in Westenra, it stood out. No one had much use for ornamentation out here; it marked him as whatever passed for "important" in this tiny camp. In any case, everyone was shuffling out behind him, their eyes no longer on Dasha.

Fine by me, she thought, slowly crumbling onto the concrete. This had been the hardest day of her life, and it had only been a week and a half since her expulsion. Laying on her back, bloodied and bruised, she stared up at the moon, just starting to peek out over the horizon. For a moment she felt something resembling peace. No matter what her family back in Holmwood were doing, they were out there somewhere, maybe even looking up at this same sky, through Holmwood's sparkling dome. It was a nice thought, one quickly ruined by accidentally pricking her tongue against one of her front teeth. It didn't feel great, but the prick itself didn't hurt half as bad as remembering these things, these...needles, were in her mouth now. It hadn't even occurred to her to use them during the fight. Just the thought disgusted her, at that point what made her any different than the creature itself? That Ferran had been human once, just like her. A few months without Injex and now it clearly...wasn't.

Dasha shifted a bit, uncomfortably. It had been two weeks without a single Injex. Give it a few more, and she could easily be the one in that cage. The body is the first to go, to give into vampirism, that's what she had always been told. It appeared her own was well on its way, but the mind was next. Dasha caught herself licking the Farran's blood off her arm.

It's already starting, she thought, panic washing over her, as it had countless times this week. She needed to buy her way back into Holmwood somehow, and she needed to do it fast.