Halone's half asleep, half opened eyes slid over to her still sleeping son, a smile of pure contentment widened her lips as she lazily got to her feet, her bones cracking and popping as she did, deciding to catch some prey for them to eat.

As she stepped out of their small home she was greeted by the sight of an approaching Leiden, his paws padding across the dirt and grass, "no soldier of mine is living in a space like that," he spoke firmly, "is your child awake?" he asked, Halone shook her head no. "When he wakes up I'll have someone show you to your new home, I think you'll be impressed," he stated with authority, a smile beamed across Halone's lips.

"Thank you Leiden," she said warmly, he offered her a crooked half smile before returning to his duties, and Halone returned to hers.

Quickly capturing her prey she dragged it back, half alive and bleeding profusely, back to camp when she saw SIN was stood in the corner of his cage, mute.

A devious, sadistic smile splayed her lips wide. While she had the power and control over SIN she was his God, or rather his devil, and it made her feel incredible. It was a feeling she had been searching for her whole life, a feeling of untouchable domination-she was bulletproof, after a lifetime of torture she could now inflict her pain onto him, purging herself of all her bottled up feeling of weakness, inadequacy, powerlessness and pathetic-ness. Now she was a God.

She suffered, why shouldn't SIN?

And suffer he shall.

As she held the prey between her bloodied claws she began to take its skin and peel it back as it squealed in agony. SIN said nothing, his ears rung with the terrified cries and his nose filled with the scent of blood.

"It screamed just like your friend did when he died," she gloated. SIN's body began to shake with rage, her words puncturing deep into him, before he erupting-launching himself at the bars of his cage that splintered and chipped at his force, in surprise Halone's grip on the prey loosened and it bolted away without her noticing.

"He wasn't just my friend! I loved him, and he loved me!" he screamed, his eyes peeling open with fury as his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. Memories of secret kisses in back alleys shared between the pair of them, his illicit and forbidden lover, haunted his mind and filled his heart with longing, "and every night I beg for him to come back so we can be together for one last time!" he screeched, his voice cracking and breaking under the strain of his words.

"Halone!" Nikolai called out in his usual militant and gruff 'barking orderd' voice, she turned around to face his form of white fur accented with black marking and blonde toes, "Leiden told me to take you and another rebel on a scouting mission on the outskirts of our territory," he explained in a strong, unwavering voice.

She shot SIN a dark glare, he was shaking and sobbing over the rotting, rancid corpse of his lover. Satisfied with his suffering she made her way over to Nikolai, a spring in her step-her first real mission.

Nikolai was stood besides another rebel, Nikolai lead them into an unoccupied clearing so they could speak without fear of being listened in on, "we'll be going on a scouting part, as I said," Nikolai began, "we're going to check for any traces of demon presence. Am I understood?" he said with a firm authority, his words slow and methodical, Halone and the other rebel nodded in understanding.

And with that Nikolai led the pair through their territory, they shape-shifted into their animal forms so they could move quicker, as they paused in a forest clearing to catch their breath Nikolai sniffed at some of the soft fern leafs that had seemingly suspicious strands of fur on them.

"So how long have you been a soldier, and what's your name?" she asked another rebel who was stood besides her.

"My name's cloud and this is my first mission, honestly I'm so nervous I'm gonna fuck it up like I do everything else," he joked, anxious laughter ushering from his lips. 

"Oh my God me too! It's my second mission, I went on a raid with them awhile back," she explained, Cloud nodded along eagerly.

"That's cool, I still feel like an absolute rookie at all of this," he said, a laugh wheezing out of him, "I just want to make my daughter proud, y'know?".

"I do, I have a son, how old's yours?" she asked.

"Five, but she's always gonna be my baby," he smiled warmly.

Meanwhile Nikolai was still trying to make heads or tails of the confusing scent before suddenly it hit him, "this is from one of the last scouting party we sent out here", Nikolai mumbled to himself quietly as he began to follow the scent and the faintly imprinted paw prints, his blonde paws padding faster and faster along the trail.

Halone's head raised, her tongue still out as she panted with exhaustion, and looked to where Nikolai had disappeared off to, "Nikolai where are you going?" she called out, getting up to chase after him-Cloud following suit, trying to suppress his tired panting because he didn't want to be seen as the weakest link.

"Nikolai this is demon territory," Cloud spoke warily as his eyes scanned the area.

"We need to find what happened to that last scouting party," Nikolai stated with a surprisingly sharp and punishing tone, "Leiden suspects they either defected or were killed," Nikolai explained in a blunt, matter of fact tone, as he pushed on-going deeper and deeper into the demon territory, Halone and Cloud following hesitantly behind him, both desperate to prove themselves but equally scared to go on.

They arrived in a desolate wasteland where not even a cactus could survive, the jagged rocks were sharp on their cracked and bleeding paws, where the trail abruptly ended at the bottom of a cliff.

"I don't like it here Nikolai," Cloud muttered lowly, "I think we should go ba-," he was silenced by a bullet flying into his head, killed instantly as his brain matter and skull pieces flew across the bone dry dust. From the clifftops a hunting party of five demons surrounded them, three pointed automatic guns at the surviving two rebels as Cloud laid dead at their feet, twitching and rattling as his dying breath left his lungs.

"Surrender wanted outlaws," a lead demon announced, "if you do not comply you will be executed."

"Play along," Nikolai ushered under his breath as he dropped to his knees and placed his hands behind his head, Halone copied him as the demons encircling them all closed in, tentatively stepping down the steep, rocky and unsteady path of the cliff.

Nikolai twitched his arm, sending a serrated ninja star to roll down his sleeve and into his hand-with a simple flick of his wrist he sent the weapon cartwheeling through the air, neatly slicing the throats of the three armed demons.

Halone lunged into action as the other two demons scrambled for their holstered pistols, swiftly ripping out their throats, they futilely gasped for air as they convulsed in their death rattles.

"They'll be sending reinforcements soon," Nikolai said as his ninja star flew back into his hand, "we have to go-now," he urged as he set off running, Halone following close behind him.

As they neared the border a shot rang out, before a sharp burn scratched along Nikolai's thigh. He immediately knew he had been grazed by a bullet.

"Faster!" he commanded as more shots ran out, a shot clipped Halone's ear before one landed squarely in the back of her thigh, she crumpled to the floor the second the bullet tore into her flesh with an excoriating sting.

"Nikolai, don't leave me!" she cried out, engulfed in pain, a sprinting Nikolai looked over his shoulder as Halone grew further and further away, spinning on his heel he dashed back to her, hauling her over his shoulder as a hail of bullets hit the dirt and sent dust flying, before he continued to run.

Luckily the next wave of bullets all missed their mark and Nikolai and Halone crossed over into home territory injured but alive, and soon they were back at camp.

As Nikolai and Halone lay in the medical room, bloodied bandages wrapped tightly around their thighs, Leiden approached him, "report," he said bluntly.

"The demon hunting parties are getting closer and closer to the border, we weren't far into their territory when we were ambushed and they killed one of us," Nikolai reported, he groaned slightly as he lifted himself up by the elbows.

"Cloud," Leiden remarked solemnly, "he will be mourned...and his death will not go unpunished."

Nikolai nodded, "good, Cloud was a good man."

"Okay, that's all, rest now," Leiden instructed, Nikolai nodded in agreement and fell back into his bed, "there's a bonfire on later, you should go," he said, a smile warmed Nikolai's face that was pinched with pain.

"Okay," he said, Leiden nodded before leaving.

Later on, at the bonfire, Nikolai found a bandaged Halone and her son sat on a fallen log before the roaring fire, their lengthy shadows dancing behind them-both in their human forms, Halone's long dark brunette hair, with black roots and white tips , flowed down her lithe, ghoulishly pale figure which was clothed in revealing, skimpy clothes that barely covered anything.

The flames licked hungrily at the wood, metamorphosing it into hot ribbons of light and smouldering ashes. It danced rapturously, it's flames leaping wildly as it spat embers and sent up billowing towers of smoke.

He transformed into his human form, a short and tanned man with strikingly haunting blue eyes; he had a head of spiky jet black hair tipped with electric blue, he had the black marking of his animal form marked under his eye as well. 

Taking a seat besides the mother and child, "that's some fire," he commented, Halone turned to him with surprise on her face, her eyes as golden as the flames and ringed with a circumference of hazel.

"Oh I thought you would still be in the medical tent," she explained, her features softening to a more neutral expression, "and yeah isn't it beautiful? I love the warmth of it, so deadly but so nurturing," she said, awe filling her voice.

"Yeah it sure is something," Nikolai replied before dug his elbows into his kneecaps, his head lowered into his open hands and his nails pulled at the skin of his face, he stared longingly into the flames, "handsome little man you got there," he said.

Halone laughed and patted her son on the back, "he's my little legend," she beamed, the corners of her eyes crinkling in pure delight as her son buried his face into her side, hiding away.

"Aww," Halone cooed sweetly as she looked down to her son before returning her gaze to Nikolai, "he gets shy," she explained, he nodded.

"Wanna know something interesting about me?" he asked.

"Sure," she nodded.

"I eloped with royalty," he grinned, Halone laughed in disbelief, "it's true!" he exclaimed, allowing a rather shocking display of outburst from the man who was always cool headed and cold hearted. "I was born a peasant and a peasant marrying a royal was outlawed but love conquers all, right? So the plan was to elope, but in the end it didn't work out," he explained, his eyes lighting brighter than the fire as he allowed himself to remember the deep, true love him and the royal princess had shared.

"Oh you can't just not explain how it ended!" Halone cried, "tell me," she whined.

"Okay, okay," Nikolai started, "we had to keep everything secret but when word got out her family sent the royal guards out to kidnap me, they took me to a remote place and beat me to within in inch of my life. I survived, but I knew going back would mean certain death. So I left behind the only lady I'd ever loved, and I started anew here-I fell in with Leiden and worked up the ranks and here I am."

"I'm so sorry they almost killed you, but nobody can say you haven't led a full life," Halone commented dryly, "you should be proud of yourself for following your heart, most people spend their whole lives too afraid to do that," she explained, he looked to her and nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, well, the heart wants what the heart wants," he sighed heavily before he returned his gaze to the flames, "if only we could've run away together like we always planned, how different things would've been," he spoke with a forlorn tone.

"Life is so much more than the past, all the past does is hold us back from our true potential," Halone explained as she too gazed into the fire, "yesterday is gone, all we have is this one present moment that we are all living together."

"It's easier said than done," Nikolai replied.

"I know," Halone said softly, "I know."

"My past can get the better of me sometimes. I didn't have it great either, they took a toddlers innocence and beat it out of me," she said, she looked down to her son and noticed he was dreaming peacefully, a single strand of drool hanging precariously from his lips, "the love I had inside me as a baby was destroyed. I gave them my love and they gave me their abuse. Every day my mum would put out her cigarettes on me and slap and mock me if I cried, she would punch and kick me to a bloody pulp if I stepped out of line or in any way challenged her. When she bathed me she would fill the bath with boiling water just to laugh as I screamed from the burns."

She paused for a moment, heavy sigh ushering from her lips. Telling her story was exhausting, threatening to burn her out, the trauma was too much. But she preserved nonetheless, "every night my dad would climb into my bed to rape me, he would choke me unconscious while he done it, I learned to cry and scream because it got him off quicker."

"Wow," Nikolai said after a pause, "Halone, I had no idea, I'm so sorry," he apologised profusely.

"Everyone's always sorry," she said, "it would only mean something if they were sorry. But that'll never happen, it's why I ran off to join the rebellion-because I wanted to punish the bad guys," she said before she quietly glanced down to her sleeping son.

"I've gotta take my boy to bed," she said, gently picking up her son and letting his head rest against her shoulder as she carried him back to their quarters, slowly placing him on his bed and cocooning him in soft, warm blankets.

She returned to the raging fire, sat beside Nikolai.

"You're one brave girl, stronger than I would've thought," Nikolai said.

Halone smiled awkwardly, "I don't really believe that but thank you all the same," she said before suddenly a lightbulb went off in her head and she quickly blurted out, "and you're a class traitor punching way above your weight for getting with a royal!" she exclaimed.

Nikolai chuckled lowly, and Halone giggled, before the pair fell into silence.

"That was quite a blow today," Nikola begun, breaking the silence, at he watched the flames dance, "losing Cloud I mean."

"Yeah, it was," Halone said, "before he died he told me he had a daughter," she explained.

"Leiden will make sure she is well looked after," Nikolai commented solemnly before they fell into silence again.

"I've heard what you're known for," Nikolai said in a suggestive, leading tone.

Halone quirked her brow with intrigue, "and what would that be?" she asked.

"That you can make people orgasm in ways you wouldn't believe," he purred softly.

A smirk teased her lips, "I've been doing that since I was six," she said playfully.

The continued to flirt, him coming on stronger and stronger, till eventually he led her back to his home.

His lips were all over her neck, sucking and biting, as they fell into his bed in a mess of tangled bodies. He tugged at her clothes, ripping them slightly as he tore them off, earning an amused giggle from her.

"What?" his breath was hot and heavy in her ear, tantalisingly so.

"I like a man who can take charge," she explained in a sultry whisper as he slithered out of his hoodie and slid his fingers down to her entrance where she guided two of them inside of her walls and he began to vigorously pump, "oh yeah, do it like that," she moaned, throwing her head backwards and continued to moan softly, driving Nikolai crazy with desire.

"You're so wet and tight," Nikolai said under his breath as he pulled his fingers out, licking them clean.

"Put another few big fingers in me," Halone whined.

"Will do," he answered, a devious glint in his eyes as he took his open hand and put in one finger. A moan. Another. A louder moan. Till his entire fist was inside of her, he could feel the warm wetness and simply textures engulfing his hand before he slowly began to slide it in ankle deep, earning a garbled mixture of a scream of pleasure and pain that made him hesitate for a moment, slowly retracting his fist.

"No no no don't stop," she urged, her eyes rolling back as she used to creamy thighs to guide Nikolai in elbow deep, she moaned and spasmed, "so painful, pleads I deserve it, I need it," she spat off breathlessly.

And with that Nikolai pulled out his arm now covered in her juices, mischief in his eyes as he eyed Halone, who was still recovering from the pain, she laid back with her limbs sprawled in every direction.

"I want you to taste yourself ," Nikolai commanded, "you will taste yourself," he stated bluntly.

Halone's tongue began to swipe up and down Nikolai's arm, savouring the taste of her own bodily fluids on his arm, mixed with his own sweat.

And once she was done he spat up a wad on her face, his erection throbbing. He had waited long enough.

"I deserve a good hard fuck and you're the dirtiest bird out there-so obey," Nikolai spoke, his voice demanding as he flipped Halone over, clambering on top of her as he suddenly shoved his member inside of her, she jolted with shock before relaxing into the rhythmic swing of his hips.

"So big," she uttered breathlessly as he continued to go deeper and harder, she dug her nails into his back as with every thrust her perky breasts bounced, Nikolai's rough hands played with her nipples, bringing her tantalisingly closer to orgasm, "raw is always so much better" she commented, "I wanna be bred by you."

"I haven't be fucked like this since I was six," she said breathlessly.

He grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling it taut and she winced from the erotic pain of it, "please daddy no don't rape me," she blurted our in between the slamming of sweating bodies.

"Ah rape play," Nikolai said, clearly impressed before his eyes narrowed again and he tugged her hair again, "once I've bred you with my rapist seed your body will swell with my child, and you'll be mine forever, just my slave to bred, I'll suck on your engorged breasts."

"But first daddy is going to have is way with you all night long."

An hour later they came together and Halone fell asleep in the warm embrace of his arms.

A few hours later Halone woke up abruptly, her eyes looked big and innocent under the silvery moonlight that filtered in. They welled with tears, they began to desperately search for a blade, anything to release their emotions without shedding a tear. She was back to being a child again-frightened and helpless. 

Her eyes landed on the shimmer of Nikolai's hunting knife, and soon enough she found herself slitting her wrists, tears threatening to fall, before she was packing the wounds with dirt-hoping against hope she would get an infection and die, anything to escape her unbearable pain. She felt the dull ache where someone had been inside of her and felt dirty, disgusting and degraded.

Nikolai felt the coldness of where her body was missing and sleepily rolled over to see where she was, when he saw her slumped in the corner of the room with his knife he sat up, thinking it through carefully about what to do.

"Halone?" he called out in a soft voice. His voice jolted Halone, who began to tremble as she faced him with petrified eyes.

"D-daddy?" she asked hesitantly in a high pitched, childish voice. It was Halone as he had seen her before when they rescued her from the demons, it was as if she had regressed.

"No, it's your friend," he explained gently.

"I-I have a fwiend?" she asked, fear still ringing in her words.

"Yes, a good friend, and he doesn't want you to hurt yourself," he said, slowly getting up from his bed and taking carpus stepping towards her, as if he was navigating a minefield.

"But I need to let my wrists cry," she explained in a plodding voice like that of a toddlers, "then I'll bandage up their tears."

He noticed she was growing ghostly white as the blood was soaking his floor. She must've opened a main vein, he thought to himself.

"Please just give me the knife," he pleaded, slowly outstretching his arm and watching her flinch in fear, she scrambled so her spine was pushed up against the wall, the tears still about to fall.

"I-I can't," she stammered out, her body shaking violently, "I'm so sa-sorry," she cried out.

"I promise I won't hurt you if you give me the knife. Please, let me help you," he was begging now. Usually by now he'd been wrestling the knife away but this was Halone, and she was too vulnerable.

A single tear slid down her cheek as she fearfully handed him the knife, he cast it into the dirt and immediately began applying pressure to the wounds.

As Halone sobbed hysterically while Nikolai frantically cleaned out the wounds before bandaging them: she was crying about how she doesn't like how dad touches and chokes her, weeping about how it hurts when her mum blackened her eye till it swelled shut. He knew from the pure terror in her wide eyes, quivering lip and trembling body that she wasn't herself-she was a child again, weak and powerless.

He knew he had to comfort her, bring her back.

He looked her dead in the eyes, "you're okay," he soothed in a delicate, caring tone.

"I'm never going to be okay!" she cried out in agony, her voice beginning to mature back to her usual self as her pose became less of a cowering child and more grown up, tears continued to flood her flushed cheeks as snot run out of her nose.

Nikolai placed his hand on her trembling shoulder, looking with pity into her puffy, bloodshot eyes, "I'm going to tell you something Leiden told me," he said firmly, "you can be broken and led astray, but if you follow your heart, it will always show you the way."

"But why do I keep waking up to awful things? I find notes in my den describing the most twisted things in handwriting I don't recognise, but I know I must've written because who else could it be?!" she exclaimed through desperate, aching howls.

"Ignore all that," he said, "focus on the moment, he instructed, grabbing her bloodied hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"How do you feel?".

"I feel like I wanna die."

"No, not like that, what do you feel on your skin?".

"Blood. I wish I was dead."

"Don't you feel the warmth of my hands, how do my hands feel?".

"Rough and big, your fingertips are kinda stubby," she explained before a babyish giggle escaped her lips, "stubby fingers," she repeated in a silly coo.

A crooked smile carved itself upon her face, then he noticed a slow and subtle change in her. Her eyes were overcame by a darkness, a darkness that eclipses them, replacing her hazel ringed eyes was a blood red colour that ignited like a burning wildfire, scathing and flickering with a sadistic intensity.

This was the Halone that slaughtered all of the demons at the banquet table. At once he was in awe and aroused-this was the kind of untamed Halone he knew would make a good lay.

When she spoke her voice lost all its softness, darkening to a harsh and snapping tone, a slithering sultriness lingered in her words as she spoke, "I know where I'd like to put those fingers", a smirk curling her lips as she held his hands, leading them down her bare chest, blood smearing across her breasts as his fingertips brushed against her nipples that grew hard in sensual anticipation.

Nikolai was too stunned by the transformation to react, he simply complied as he felt blood rush to his member-she quickly shoved his shaft inside of her, desperate for the release of orgasm, gritting her teeth as she clenched around the girth of his shaft she continued to moan, the sound filling his ears and driving him rabid with desire, the tougher motion of his fingers causing her back to arch and shivers of sensuality to shoot down her spine.

"You're so tight, I need some lube," he spoke, a cruel smile glimmered across her lips.

"Use my blood," she moaned, breathless.

He obliged, too horny to question it, running his wet fingers along her self inflicted cuts, lubricating them in sticky, thick blood before sticking them inside Halone followed swiftly by his throbbing member.

"You're so fucking hot, I thought about fucking you for months, ever since I laid eyes on you I wanted you."

"Shut up and fuck me good and hard."