The pupils within such hellish eyes contract as her svelte figure pivots around furiously at my sudden motion to cease her movement. With Malleah, it could be anything that had set her off, be it the bite of my fangs or my words. Either way, blood pumps ferociously through my form as she turns aggressive and I prepare for any damage control that I must do.

She yells, screams at the top of her tiny lungs even, and yet I do not alter in expression or offer any form of speech until she is entirely finished. The previous quirk in my lip, which had threatened to morph into a snarl, eases back down as I only stare at her blankly. Pupils of pure abyss now return to their normal size as a state of paralysis seems to come over me while I wait for her tantrum to cease.

But it is not as simple as that, with Malleah it never is, and as my defenses are settled she swings her front paw at my face and happens to make contact. Dulled claws rake against the thin flesh below my eye and a small cut reveals itself from the sheer force of it alone. As soon as my eye reopens I only see her rear end as she dashes away from where she had instigated the quarrel. A rage far hotter than the fires of hell ignites within my very soul as she flees from me and it is within seconds that my long, muscular legs are soon barreling after her.

It does not take very long to catch up with her, being that my strides are far larger than her own, and within minutes I am leaping into the muggy air of the night. My body makes contact and it is a wonder how I cannot do any damage to her in this whirlwind moment as we both tumble through the brush of the forest. Once the world came to a dizzying stop, I righted myself and immediately stood over her crumpled form. My features were not disfigured into a vicious snarl, nor did my throat vibrate from the tones of a threatening growl, I lingered in an eerie silence that was far more terrifying that either of those two things. My eyes betrayed very little of what anger truly brewed within my soul and my voice filtered through in a flat timbre.

”You, out of everyone, should not be accusing me of any misdeeds,” my breaths were heavy as I began to regulate them from the exertion of energy and spoke again. ”Tell me, Malleah, why your abdomen has not grown twice in size or why you have not brought children into our world?” It is true that my companion has gained weight in the first few weeks of winter yet she did not exceed such girth thereafter. ”What’s entirely… amusing is that you believed that I would fall for such a scam. Darling, I did at first but that’s not even the best part,” it is voiced in a spoken whisper toward the end. Anger, betrayal, emotional anguish – it all falls upon me like the weight of the very world as I mull over my next words.

”I actually fell for you. Not the real you, no, because the real Malleah is a deluding, self-centered, monstrosity. My heart bled for the Malleah that craved my very existence, whose sighs in the night revealed her most personal self, who waited patiently for my return each day for a meal,” a heavy sigh punctuated the sentence. ”But maybe that was all a lie too.” In the throes of heartache there is little else I can comprehend and if she were to speak it cannot be said that I truly even heard her words. I had kept her safe, fed her, warmed her on the coldest nights and this is how I am repaid – a broken agreement and no legacies to pass my culture down to. I cannot even look at her in these moments as eyes of black and red turn away. ”You know what I have to do…” they are words spoken solemnly as the rustle of spring winds flies through the undergrowth that we had landed in.