CHALLENGE.

PAST.

"You monstrous bloodsucking heartless beast! I will shred you into pieces bit! by bit! from your limbs until there is nothing left of you! Repulsive bastard!" Nehenda shouted in a pained hoarse voice shaking with rage.

"You despicable, shameless enchantress! All you do? Is lure the innocent into your stupid cobwebbed world of illusion! then eventually ending them, without even giving them a fair chance of a decent fight!" Marlon spat furiously boiling beyond volcanic point within, wishing he was already done with the abominable smallish thing in front of him. "I will rip your heart out! And crush it with pleasure." he declared.

"Look who is talking." She fling-back amused. "let me see you try that!" she challenged back.

"Gladly." He responded back in a dangerous whispering tone with eyes steady on her. Alpha Marlon was not a man of many words but action! One! also not to be toyed with. The fact that he even exchanged words with her, surprised him. It took not long for him to transform into an enormous beast with distracting dry leave greenish grey glossy eyes with shinny ebony black coloured fur, which when hit by the sun down rays looks like he was shine sprayed, reflecting the light rays that fell on him in a golden brown captivating colour ring edgy. If he weren't an enemy she wanted to make non-existent she'd say he was a creature of great beauty in deed! She did, though! within but dueled not on it for long; for he was a ruthless monster! Who brought to tat her clan! And she wanted; in fact! needed to put an end to. So her conscience questions her own judgement.

"Why are you even seeing beauty in this ugly beast?" To which she couldn't reply herself surprisingly. She was assertive but to be caught off guard in such a manner making her unsettled just as the attack the beast launched on her coven, was new and she couldn't understand but pushed it aside for the meantime. For there was a more crux mission at hand.

He towered over her to his own satisfaction, standing boldly, tall on all fours with dark eyes ready to put on end; for good to the lineage of the age-old witches clan. A species that he loath most for bringing him so much pain. Many shuddered at his enormousity, even his kind however, he noticed the sorceress moved not a muscle. 'The nickel of a thing! had no thin trace of fear in her eyes and yet still she persisted with that hateful, disrespectful look in her globes! looking me direct in the orbs. Something no one dared do and survived.' He ruminated in mounting anger. This made his rage even more. 'How could she be so brazen to challenge me like this?' He asked inside.

'Oh! You disrespectful thing! when death calls on a weak prey, it makes the fool become defiant in the face of the predator! thinking itself capable.' He thought smugly. "You dare challenge me?! You sickly stick of a person." He spoke authoritatively, furiously with eyes darkening even more snarling. "Be my guest!". He welcomed her to the death ball mockingly within.

The sibyl took a step back without breaking the eye trade. She was no novice to the cowardly impulsiveness of this creature standing in front of her from experience, to avert her piercing fury consumed gaze. It was also a dare to duel. Once bitten? A millions times shy! They attacked a vulnerable peaceful village without a heads up for no pertinent reason. All she wanted to do was bring the thing before her down! to rise no more. It wasn't going to be a phoenix effect rather diminishing. To fall and rise no more.

Out stretching her hands making a 'Y' poster alike to pronounce incantations to the delusion of Alpha Marlon. He could not hold his thoughts from running on guarded but remark.

"Your silly charms will fail you today! I dare say woman." Disregarding her inner energy.

Yet the sage said nothing to this effect instead still maintaining the eye contact, she gently brought her hands down, bent her shoulders lower enabling her stained white linen long sleeve bare 'V' back dress, which once was a symbolism of purity, was now ripped beneath raggedly also figurative of her current state; from the bushes she coursed after being deposed and disposed, slid off her inveigling, slowly as if to give him a strip tease show, which was no where near the reality of the present nor was it the interest of her opponent either. Although, he wouldn't have minded the free show. But If only Alpha Marlon could read her thoughts? He'd shudder ... or knew why her dress was sliding off her body? He'd be horrified! for that which he is soon to see? Was beyond his imagination. She was going in for blood not pleasure. She didn't also mean to come off as what he inferred instead, she was only braving up for the excruciating pain that was to tore through her structure to remold into what she had become for his sake. Yet she need not explain this to his comprehension for the end justified her means wholesomely. If not for the fact that she was of the clan he loathed most? He'd say she was in possession of a devine body. She would have been the most beautiful thing he'd have ever seen in his life.

Mate bonds are not to be messed with truly, even in oblivion and hate, attraction! coated in compliments; one would deny openly yet will be unable to delude conscience wise; was a common grounds for these two.

"She is goddess-like." He concurred within, Wondering how an astonishing beauty such as the one that stood before him could be so treacherous as to kill an innocent lad. His hardened look went a bit soft as he picked up a faint whiff of his favorite scent petrichor! Smoky earth after rain. "What was that?" He asked rhetorically as he sniffed around even harder with divided attention but the smell had eluded his sense of smell. It was as if the wind carried it along and left with it as it blew past. It was not of a station he could go after. That particular scent always sent him to a quiet peaceful paradise out of the chaotic world of the life of an Alpha in which he existed in, as well as his complete existence without his lineage.

Marlon would step out with his mother and father after it had rained to have a dirt fight away from the pack and home. They would run bare foot on the wet earth deep into the woods without fear of the cold, for they could transform at will into their furry self for warmth at will, unburdened with their status quo but as ordinary people; not even in their nature form as wolves. Just a normal family without the weights of their tittles thus the Alpha, his Luna and son ... happily throwing balls of dirt at each other without minding being bruised for their healing capabilities was extraordinary; untill they fell unto the earth out of exhaustion and contended choking on rib cracking jest at each other. They needn't portray any form of self - restraint nor carry themselves in a specific manner. The bed of freedom they found on the bare watered ground came with the comforting aroma of the petrichor, which he'd inhale wholesomely. It was refreshing.