Vladya was a dirty, rotten, worthless shithead of a coward. He deserved to die. He had earned the right to croak where he stood with maggots eating his eyes. He carried no honor, no courage, and no purpose upon his broken back. The single wolf he had ever respected loathed his putrid guts with horrifying passion. There wasn’t a single lover, family member, or friend waiting in the wings to pick up the crumbling fragments of Vlad’s decimated self-respect. For all intents and purposes, the ex-warrior once known as Vladya “Blood-Eye” Claw-of-Kershov had died a long, long time ago.

Thus, the obvious question: why was he still alive?

Months in the past, the pathetic brute had tried to end his own life. It was a half-hearted, laughable attempt at suicide: he’d hiked his way up the side of a cliff in the snow-blown mountains, crazy as hell and hounded by the slavering jaws of acute and humiliating paranoia, driven to the precipice by his own wretched fear. Fear of being caught. Like a fucking prey animal. Predators did not shiver in terror at shadows; they didn’t run themselves ragged trying to cover their trails or seek higher ground; they most of all did not regularly find their bodies frozen in a brittle rigor mortis, unable to move, unable to so much as twitch every time they sensed that sickening feeling of being watched. Vladya the ludicrous rabbit-hearted wolf had stood with his toes gripping the ice-slicked edge of the rock and realized all this with a suddenness that almost made his retch. He was . . . broken. Everything strong within him had been shaken by that final tundra war, the one that had torn Kershov’s gang apart, and those endless weeks of post-bellum freedom had insidiously poisoned Vladya against ever returning to his Alpha’s side.

The wind had drawn its frigid claws through Vlad’s ratted fur. It howled into the white valley below, a winter void as deep as eternity. He had leaned toward that gasping abyss—knowing it would be better for himself and the whole world if he was just gone—until a nausea so intense it slashed blackness across his vision thundered up his stomach and into his throat and he was down, shuddering uncontrollably and still very much alive on the cliff in the middle of fucking nowhere.

He hadn’t even been able to take one measly little step.

Seriously—who fucks up their own death?

Shortly after that retarded escapade into madness, Vladya was captured by none other than Kershov himself, the wolf Vlad had so earnestly attempted to escape. Awesome, right? And now here the fallen gladiator slumped, all alone and bleeding from half a dozen wounds that would never begin to hurt like the punishment Vladya sorely deserved.

Listlessly, the scarred mutt lowered his muzzle toward a laceration on his shoulder. Like the other cuts currently riddling his ragged hide, this one smoldered a lurid red. It looked similar to a leering smile carved right into Vlad’s alabaster pelt. With a noncommittal growl, Vladya opened his maw . . . but instead of licking the wound clean, he dragged his lower canines along the edges, inviting pain to come stinging to the surface and drawing up fresh rubies of blood. There. Kershov is so shitty at torture, I could show him a few things. Dumb bastard. Does he call this a scratch? His fangs scored deeper. The muscles in his shoulder jumped, involuntarily sparked by tormented nerves. And when that didn’t hurt enough, Vladya stubbornly lurched to all fours. He forced weight onto the wounded stilt, grimacing when the limb complained under pressure. Too damn bad. Abendrot’s most useless prisoner was going for a walk. Fuck it.

It only took the cur an hour to find her, waiting limply just outside the territory gates. Kobato. There. Right there.

And so tired . . .

Why?

He hadn’t seen the bubbly young she-wolf for moons. Naturally, Vladya assumed Kobato had gone on to bigger and better things, kinder wolves that wouldn’t snarl at her for trying to start a conversation or for getting into their personal space. She shouldn’t have been around him . . . He told himself he didn’t give a fuck, that she was nothing. Just a stupidass kid in over her head. An irritating fool. Yet the smallest touch of her perfume on the wind was able to lift his spirits . . . wait. No. Something was wrong. Vladya had paused in confusion when he first glimpsed her pastel form leaning against a dark-limbed tree, but abruptly he became aware of the uncharacteristic slump of her shoulders, the defeat chained to her bones, the horrible way her caramel windows stared unseeing at the world. Dead eyes. Vladya’s heart stopped.

“Kobato?” hissed the haggard dog. His pyrite lanterns glanced furtively around the forest, petrified that someone might see the two wolves and demand an explanation. Then, when no one could be discovered: “Kobato!” His voice detonated in a single furious bark. Because that’s what Vladya did when his heart was tearing itself in half—he got fucking pissed as all hell. His panicked glare noticed that Kobato wasn’t leaning against the tree to rest: she literally could hardly stand, and the wooden sentinel was the only thing keeping her upright. For some reason, that set Vlad off like a rifle. He rocketed across the invisible boundary line, every hair spiked like a coat of icicles, eyes blazing. Without a word he shoved the tired princess roughly to the ground and forced her to take the burden from her paws.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you crazy, STUPID bitch?! Are you retarded? Did somebody drop stones on your head? What the FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” His voice rose hysterically. In his rush to knock Kobato off her feet, he’d spilled some of his own filthy blood on her dusky robes. A thunderous sound ripped through his chest. “LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO! I GOT FUCKING BLOOD ALL OVER YOU! ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW?!”



{{OOC: So I haven't written him in a while and all of sudden my muse was like VLADYAAAAAH. lol thank you for that}}