Gun cocked, she sprayed bullets.

Not a flicker on her face as bodies dropped like errant flies. Her eyes were hard as she covered Simeon and Ju-long's back until reinforcements could come in. The smashed screen of her comms device was flickering, signalling that back up was on their way which only made the glint in her eyes colder. She wasn't even sure they would be needed by the time they arrived, especially with the ferocity Simeon and Ju-long were attacking in.

She was on a warpath

Rage and malice rooted deep in her heart. Tears trailed down her cheeks but she hardly noticed them, she was too focused on her targets. Her shoulder cocking back in a sweet rhythm, a symphony to her ears as blood flew in the air and screams rung around the room like a sirens call. Luring in the predators to their wailing prey.

Simeon was howling, his thick wolf pelt slathered in blood and remnants of human flesh.

There would be very few prisoners tonight.

Jana dropped to the floor, her leg extending out in a swipe and her arm cocking high as she popped a bullet in the staggering males head. His pupils white as his eyes rolled and he fell flat to the ground, blood oozing from his forehead.

She barely acknowledged the dead body as she climbed to her feet and stepped over him, her feet nudging against his cold body as she began her perusal around the outskirts of the room. Her mind had switched off a long time ago, it could have been the moment she took the first shot of her gun and splattered deep crimson against the marred grey walls. Or it could have been the moment she stepped into the room and saw flesh being torn as men stood by laughing, faces wet as innocence was ripped from bodies so brutally.

Even in the midst of defeat these males had made time to plunder, to pillage and rape. They had made time and now she was making time to pluck them off one by one, making her way around the room to ensure that no little rats could escape.

She didn't see these faces.

The only faces she saw were the tear streaked ones of those females who had scampered from the room in relief. The only faces that replayed in her mind were the faces of those children, the families. Those innocent people down in the basement who had been shackled like dogs and slaughtered like cows in a production line.

There was a cold detachment to her movements. She was physically present but mentally she was somewhere else. Her emotions buried deep inside her as she laid waste to the scampering humans before her.

At another point in time she would have been the female to implore Simeon to spare their lives. To give mercy but not today, not when she had seen firsthand what these humans were capable of.

How they had raped, branded and killed those people in the basement. They were treated like nothing more than cattle to these humans but Jana was a raging bull and the sight of innocent blood had sent her into a frenzy.

She was blind to reason, blind to humanity.

There was none left inside her.

There had only ever been one choice she would make out of the two options, fight or hide and maybe at some point she would have hid. Along time ago she would have avoided confrontation but not anymore, now Jana lived for the fight. For the euphoric feeling of winning a hard fought fight.

She twisted around the room as if she were dancing a dance with death and she was the grim reaper. Even when her bullets ran out, her gun was discarded as if it was nothing and then her fight really began.

Sylvie in her hand, she wielded the weapon like it was another limb. Her and her silver blade were one and the same as she hacked through people.

Flesh flying and blood splattering as she sliced through bodies. Heads lolling and arms flying. She received a few blows of her own but nothing could break her rhythm. She was in a trance, delirium settling over her as she left the earth.

Swaying and swaying

She heard the clashing of doors, the rumble of voices but she kept going, paying little attention to the new bodies in the room. Her skin was drenched with red, her hair slick and damp but she wasn't sure with what. Blood or sweat, she couldn't tell.

Her muscles screamed for her to stop, to just think but she couldn't. The red haze had descended across her mind. She was lucid, hardly aware of her actions as her body moved and her mind shrank further and further away from the carnage she was creating.

She was a blur, whirling around the room and slicing through those army clad bodies. A few males managed to scamper to the back of the room, fighting each other to get to the window.

A chilling grin slid across her face as she charged after them, her blade swinging in her hands as she climbed over the dead bodies. She subconsciously noted that reinforcements had arrived but she was already mentally planning the ways she would kill them. In the end there was no decalitation for the cowards, she had delivered them swift blows. Her body twisting as she missed annulled and twisted around, slicing through stomach intestines and calves.

They dropped. Limbs skidding away as eyes darkened. Climbing to her feet she wiped her blade along her trouser leg beige making her way back into the fray.

Her moves were slot less enthusiastic as her body began to weaken with tiredness. Her limbs felt like rubber as she kicked and stabbed her way towards the door. Sweat gliding down her skin as she charged through the room until she stood by Simeon's side. He was completely in his third form, his snout protruded as he crunched on bones and ripped through flesh.

His eyes were irrdecendt, gleaming with red and oranges.

Her mouth hung wide as she stumbled from her blood induced atupour and took in Simeon in his full glory. There were hardly any of the Resentiam militia left but Simone had yet to shift back. His body vibrated as he gnawed on the intestines of a wailing man. His eyes a pale blue as life began to ebb from his body.

Chucking him to the side, Simeon stood to his feet looking confused for a minute until he was staggering towards her. His massive claws swiping towards her as he collapsed by her feet, his body shaking and seizing.

Jana flew to his side, her knees squelching in blood and remnants of flesh as she stroked along his fur. The coarse hairs shortening and shortening. Bones cracking and screams flying from his mouth as the shift pulled away from him slowly.

"What's happening" she cried, her eyes wide as she turned to find Ju-long.

"He's fine, it's just an after effect of being in the third form for too long" dismissed Ju-long, placing a new shirt over his broad shoulders.

Simeon didn't look fine. Sweat beaded along his skin and he looked delirious as if he could see her but not really.

"It's okay" she murmured stroking along his face, running her thumb along his eyebrow as his black eyes stared back at her.

"I'm here"

//--///

The scent of copper burning her nostrils was what forced Jana to wake, her stomach rolling with bile at the smell of blood coating every pore in her body. Her tongue was heavy and her mouth was dry, her head hazy as she itched and scratched at the dried blood.

When her disorientation began to fade she realised that Simeon was no longer beside her, clearly having recovered. She didn't know if she should find fault in the fact that he hadn't woken her up but quickly dismissed it. It wasn't important.

Staggering from her tent, she ignored all the open stares in her direction and made her way towards the tree line. Traipsing through the forest for a couple of minutes until the small lake she had seen before appeared.

A deep sigh of relief slipped through her lips as she began stripping out of her clothes. Diving head first into the water she stayed under until her lungs began to burn. Water whipped around her as she resurfaced, the droplets pooling in her skin as she scrubbed at her body with her clenched fist. 

Her arms burnt as she swam about in the cool water, the sun setting as the moon began to glow in the sky. She had been out for a lot longer than she had anticipated but she didn't regret a minute of it. The adrenaline had worn off and much like Simeon her body had begun to crash. She had overexerted her body and now she was knackered.

Crawling out of the lake, she hesitated to put her clothes back on as nearly every single item was cloaked in blood. The only salvageable pieces were her underwear and her longlseeve top she had worn beneath her jacket. Even that had specks of blood on it but it wasn't drenched in blood.

She dunked her clothes into the lake, squatting low as she tried to soak out as much blood as she could. When they were as clean as they were going to get, she wrung them out and folded them in her hands. Marching back to the camp half naked and shivering. She clearly hadn't thought this venture out.

Silence descended over the camp as she marched back in a few hours after she had left, in nothing but her underwear, top and boots, her hair shoved up into a knotted bun on her head. Her stride was fast as she made her way to the fire they had begun to build, she pulled up a log and then flung her clothes over it, hoping that they would dry soon.

"Here" said Keith begrudgingly as a blanket came flying at her face. It was small and just about covered her bottom half but it was better than strutting around a camp full of men with her but cheeks hanging out.

"Thanks" she muttered thankful for the blanket but so beyond playing nice with a male who had never really liked her.

"Quite a fight you put up there" murmured ju-long as he straddled the log beside her. "I wasn't expecting that from someone so small"

"I'm always underestimated" she smiled, that coldness seeping back into her eyes.

He merely hummed in response before turning his back to her revealing the fire breathing dragon that snaked all along his back. The dragon was shaded in with so much detail it looked as if it were a hairsbreadth away from leaping off of his skin.

He jumped lightly in his seat as her hands reached out to touch him, captivated by the detail of the dragon. The dragon looked as if he had always been a part of Ju-long's skin, something that had always belonged.

"I don't think the name suits me but this tattoo does" his big brown eyes meeting hers as he looked over his shoulder. Sooty lashes flickering as fire danced along his skin.

"I think it suits you" she murmured her fingers still tracing the dragon. His eyebrow raised in disbelief but she only nodded her head in conviction.

"Yeah, I mean dragons were slumberous right, until they were roused.. I think that's you, calm and staid until someone tries to enter your cave"

Her words only earned her a chuckle from him, his eyes gleaming as his head tilted back in a fully belly laugh and then they narrowed as he caught sight of something over her shoulder.

"It seems as if I am not the only fire breather" his head nodding as he motioned towards a red and fuming Simeon. Fire practically flying from his ears as he stood a few paces away from them.

His feet thudded as he stomped over towards her, shooting Ju-long a mutinous glare before he sidled up beside them. Ju-long merely chuckled in response, his hands rising as a sign of retreat even as his eyes sparked with mirth.

"Jana, can we speak" her long lashes flickered as she peered up at his towering form. Her hands subconsciously picking at the blanket along her lap.

"Umm sure, take a seat" she motioned awkwardly to the log next to her, hastily grabbing at her clothes to make space for him.

"Alone, if that's okay"

"Oh, uh yeah sure, let me just.."'she stuttered, flustered by the weird vibe he was emanating.

At first he had seemed furious but once Ju-long had put some space between them, he had stopped bristling. Now when she looked up at him all she could see was a soft sheen of affection and that had her confused and feeling awkward. Simeon didn't show affection, not on a normal day. She'd have to be suicidal or hysterical for him to show her some care and even then it was always done in a burdensome manner. He was always detached and she was always left wanting.

She quickly dumped her clothes back down and hastily stood up, grasping at the blanket last minute before it fell to the floor and revealed her half naked state to Simeon. That would surely state a riot.

She waved all the staring spectators goodnight before she followed him into the tree, her shoulders dropping as if she were a reprimanded child. He stopped for a minute to retrieve a bad and some things before he was heading into the teees. Jana shuffling slowly behind him so as not to trip over her blanket.

"Just here," he motioned towards a tall tree that shaded them from the wondering eyes from the camp, they were far away from them but not too far in case of an emergency.

She collapsed along the blanket he had placed on the ground, rearranging herself so that her legs were covered by the blanket and her back was to the tree.

"I wanted to talk to you before but the timing wasn't right"

A light went on in her head at his words, realising that she had somehow managed to be cornered into the very conversation she had wanted to dismiss.

"I don't think there is much more to say. I think we gave this our best shot and it just wasn't meant to be," her words were soft, ladled with defeat as she accepted all that she had lost and would continue to loose.

Loosing Simeon wasn't the worst thing in the world but by loosing him she would loose Zo and all those childish dreams she had held in her heart but had never let see the light of day. Loosing Simeon was nothing compared to the pain she had suffered, was still suffering because she could have her own child. She would never have a child that depended on her for survival. That loved her unconditionally.

She would never have that bond.

When she thought of all she had already lost, loosing him seemed like nothing but still there was this part of her that kept going back for more of him.

When would enough be enough.

"See, I disagree," her head shot up at his words, her jaw clenched in annoyance.

"I didn't give this my best shot because I didn't want to take the risk of loosing you and so I just pushed and pushed you away. I know I ran hot and cold, I gave you nothing while you practically showed your soul to me. I know I was no good Jana"

She bristled at his words.

No good was an understatement. No good was having cold tea or a soggy biscuit. No good was having a chipped nail or having split ends. No good was having a hole in your sock or missing your favourite meal.

Having a cold and emotionally bereft mate, a somewhat abusive and selfish mate was more than just no good. It was beyond words!

Her jaw twitched in annoyance even as his words gentled and he got that odd gleam in his eye. The same one that had been in his eyes by the fire, the one that resembled affection and love but surely couldn't be that.

"But being out there today, seeing you in the middle of that and knowing at any minute you could be hurt... it put things into perspective for me. Nothing in this life is guaranteed and so we should really take each moment we have and make it the most"

"I've been living in my past for sometime and there are still something's..." his pale lashes covered the darkening of his eyes, clenching tight as his yes shut and his jaw locked. A tear trailing from beneath his eyelids, his past haunting his memories.

"...Somethings that I can't let go of yet but I want a future Jana and I want that with you and Zo" he croaked, clearly overwhelmed by emotion.

Her lips pursed as she stared at him in anger and frustration, "Why is it always about what you want? You pull me about like I'm some puppet on a string and it's not fair Simeon" her voice had started as a shout but the fight had left her towards the end. Only being replaced by deep hurt.

"You hurt me! You hurt me and all I was trying to do was warn you, I just wanted you to see that Zo needed you but you didn't care.You only care about you! Why are you so selfish?" She was sobbing, the stress of the day taking over as she cried into his chest.

Feeling as if she belonged but resenting him even more for the feeling he stoked within her.

Her body shook as he clutched her to him, rubbing at her skin as he murmured his apologies and his pleas of forgiveness. He whispered his promises and hopes for the future all the while he rubbed her tears away, slowly laying down as she curled into him.

Her cheeks still damp and her body still trembling even as sleep took over.