River had never fought for her life as much as she did at that moment.

Twisting, screaming, lunging, ducking — she spares Hadrius no reprieve as her body hunches forward and catapults straight towards the behemoth of a man. With a battle cry, she raises her stick, aiming for any open body part.

Hadrius does not move as space closes; if anything his eyes sparkle in thorough amusement at her flushed face. This only sparks fire on her flint of rage.

I’ll kill you, she promises, swinging the stick down towards him.

Hadrius side steps with ease, and the stick passes where he once stood. Before River can regain herself, his foot stretches out and trips her by the ankle. She stumbles and sloppily falls to the ground, weapon almost slipping from her palm as she lands on her hands and knees.

“You cannot fight,” his taunting voice echoes and licks at her salty skin, “Nor can you serve me as a slave. There is nothing remarkable about your mundane features, and I doubt you can bed a man… what do you offer me?”

River clenches her teeth and rises, whirling around before torpedoing towards the warlord.

I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you, she chants inwardly as space dissolves. Hadrius’ head cocks to the side, an innocent gesture, but his smile is severe and as cutting as an axe.

He sidesteps her again, but she anticipated such a reaction. River stops short and turns in sync with his figure. Heaving her arms above her head, she swings the stick full throttle and he seems to freeze — a flash of surprise brightens his eyes as she manages to make contact with his forearm.

The stick snaps in half.

The Lycan doesn’t blink.

In tandem, their gazes fall to the broken weapon in her hand, now a useless stub of wood. A cold hand reaches past her ribcage and squeezes her heart to her spine.

“Are you finished?” Hadrius questions through a rumble and she grits her teeth again, dropping the stick to the leaf-dusted forest floors while her hands ball into trembling fists.

River neither tries to quell her rage nor does she stop the flying of her fist as it surges through the space between them and lands against his abdomen with a thud.

She stiffens.

Hadrius raises a sardonic eyebrow, daring her to throw another.

Blindly, she does. And then another. And another. Her fists fly in flurries of black and grey in the darkness, colliding with skin and cloth and muscle - layers of rippled inhuman hardness that hardly dent nor budge beneath her impotent fury. Perspiration surfaces along her forehead and upper lip; it trails down the nape of her neck and back.

“You are tired,” he states calmly as she steps back to catch her breath.

River shoots him a seething glare. “I’m not.”

Ignoring her antics as she propels into him with renewed vigour, Hadrius tilts his head heavenwards and studies the milk-spattered night sky. With a deep inhale, his lungs expand against her unthreatening downpour.

“Human—”

His head suddenly snaps to the right, a blooming red imprint of her fist just vaguely dancing along his jawline.

River dances back on her toes, hands balled and poised before her face in a mimicry of what the boys in her village once did while wrestling. The sight of Hadrius’ stunned expression proves itself to be a sedative for her fist, which stung with a blinding intensity. She had managed to land a proper punch but at the expense of her split and bleeding knuckles. Pride is all that stills the wail of agony past her trembling lips.

Her heart does its best to shrug off its death shroud and find hope once again. For so long, it had packed up its step ladder and parachute, settling in for guerilla warfare as she stayed alive by obeying, kneeling, submitting.

But now, it shakes off dust and battle debris, glowing with tentative crimson.

The start of a confident smile on her mouth begins to falter as Hadrius raises a hand to his cheek, fingertips grazing over the skin. He works his jaw back and forth, then straightens, a sigh of exasperation escaping him. “Enough of this childish act,” he utters dispraisingly and holds out a hand towards her, “Come.”

“No,” River snarls, blood beating thickly in her veins.

A startled huff of breath escapes her as fingers curl around her ankle in an instant, and with a vicious yank, he drags her towards him. Friction forces her skirt to rise along her thighs, bunching at the waist, exposing her inner garments to the warlord but he pays no attention to her partial nudity.

“Enough.” Hadrius’ command is drowned out by her screams and deafening curse words. She claws at the hand that digs into the soft flesh of her bare thighs and at the hand that grips her waist, radiating heat like the embers of a fire.

On her belly, River pushes up on her forearms and reels her elbow back - aiming to shatter that roman nose. His movements are swifter, more agile, for within seconds, he had subdued her hand and bent it awkwardly along her lower spine.

Her heart thunders against the earth as he pulls at her other hand, locking both behind her back with one large hand.

“What are you doing?” A wildness grows inside her, of terror and dread, at the sound of something shifting and a heartbeat later, she feels rope binding her wrists.

Hadrius fists a handful of her hair and jerks her head back, the strain along her neck causing a mild whimper of pain to leave her pink lips as his face hovers directly above her own. His eyes grow black, dark as the night above, but far more jagged than the stars. “If you wish to be treated like an animal,” he growls, the grains of his lips seeming to rest a hairsbreadth from her slightly parted and panting ones, “I will see that you are whipped like one.”

Pressure spreads hotly along the back of her neck and her scalp prickles from the firm grip he had on her hair. River’s eyes narrow in dark defiance: if she was going to die, let it be known that she tried clawing her way to freedom, however futile.

“Do it,” she grits out, and his beautiful, marred face cracks with the start of something cruel. His nostrils flare in rage, lips curling in indignation as he regards her for a painfully drawn moment.

Fear leaps in her throat, choking her for but a moment, but she maintains her outward rebellious demeanour. Hadrius exhales deeply, his warm breath fanning her face in frustration before he withdraws. The grip on her hands lowers to her waist and with the ease of lifting a pebble, he rises and throws her over his shoulder.

“Oof,” River huffs, staring upside down at the world before her. The ground blurs past her hazing vision, and finally his clothed back. For a moment, the anger and fear that swells beneath her skin involuntarily strays as her gaze sweeps over his toned derriere.

She considers biting it, digging her teeth into the firm flesh, drawing skin and maybe blood, but that would require dangerous stretching on her part.

Still, it would not hurt to try.

Fingers dig into the flesh of her back thighs, a low rumble of warning reverberating from his chest. “Do it,” Hadrius dares in a dangerously hushed tone, “And I will take pleasure in ripping your spine out.”

River’s lips press into a thin, indignant line.

The walk is long and rather tedious. Her lower abdomen digs into the blades of his shoulder and vertigo soon starts to settle as blood rushes towards her head, swirling like a basin of warm bathwater. She focuses on her shallow intakes of air; the treading of his feet; the sound of animals rousing all-around as the first light breaks in the eastern sky.

“Please don’t kill me,” River finally whispers, her voice extinguished and mild. As the rush of adrenaline and anger begins to subside within, the fog of red that misted her vision now dissipates and all she sees is her inevitable end. A girl among other girls. A body among other bodies.

“I know you may think of me as useless, but I can be useful if you tell me what I have to do- train me, or teach me medicine to nurse your men... or-”

Use me.

River grits her teeth, blinking angrily as an unfamiliar burn spreads along the bridge of her nose, the back of her eyes.

What was she doing? The facts of their status, her position and his - so glaring and stark. River feels like a fool to have even bothered begging him. It reduced her to nothing but a piteous thing. And did he not hate humans for their weakness?

“Right,” River mutters and stares at the ground sullenly. “If you’re going to kill me, promise me that it will be quick.”

Still, he does not answer.

She cannot bring herself to speak as pressure swells inside her skull, a vein straining against her temple. River groans aloud, “Could I at least walk upright? I might die in this position before the real death.”

A fraction of time passes like an eon, and River starts to speak again when something loud and shrill cuts through the atmosphere.

Incongruous cries and spine chilling screams erupt from the space before them.

River angles her face sideways, catching sight of a girl rushing out a tent. She clutches at a bloodied sheet wrapped across her torso. Fear and terror ghosts her eyes as she glances over her shoulder desperately at the man that follows close. Within seconds, he is on her like a rabid dog, inhuman claws ripping from fingers that close around her throat, easily tearing out her trachea.

River inhales sharply as something acerbic and sour rises in her throat. Tremors palpitate in her chest as more slaves rush about like lost sheep, and wolves descend on them in an instant - men and wolves. Throats are sliced clean, bellies ripped open and guts spilled like marbles, painting the earth red and red and red rust.

River stiffens in Hadrius’ hold, and the confidence that had helped her face death now scurries into an unknown corner - leaving her, once again, mortified.

Hadrius suddenly draws to a halt and shifts her off his shoulder. River shuts her eyes then, expecting for him to set her down and step away as her ears echo with the screams about her, allow the wolves to have their share of her.

But her feet do not touch the ground. She lands with another startling huff on her belly and her eyes snap open, staring at the ground far beneath her. He binds her hands to her ankles, the rope running under the horse. Like she was a saddle.

Hadrius tugs at the ropes firmly, and once assured that she could not wriggle free, he walks away.

Leaving her alive, as the world burns all around.