Her unrelenting screams are drowned out by the rushing wind past my face as I thrust myself ever forward, as far away as I can make my body go, to anywhere but there with her. Was I not right for being angered at her transgressions? I had never professed undying loyalty to her for the length of the winter season—so why did I feel like I was in the wrong too? If this is what it is like to feel love then I don’t want it any more. I had never wanted it in the first place.

My momentary howl of despondency was returned with silence and perhaps that was for the best. She was never physically capable enough to keep up with me and it was for her own good in this instance. I turned to continue on my escape into the wild lands with quivering muscles demanding that I stop—not from weariness but from demands of mental exhaustion. She had drained me of everything but the anger that still boiled so deeply within me. I denied my body and mind their right to rest easy, fangs gnashing at the empty night as I spun around in wild fury.

But if it were not for this fleeting instance of indecision I would not have heard the pained cries in the distance. They echoed through the hills of the woodland and carried loudly within the stillness of the dark night that hung so heavily. Handsomely chiseled head – now marred by the scratch of the one who caused me so much more pain than that – swung around with uninhibited ferocity as I search the darkness for the bringer of such anguish. As if I could hope to see anything from this far away in such obscurity as the night.

My mind is nothing but frenzied disarray as I am barreling in the direction I had just absconded from. I cannot explain why it is that I return, perhaps it had something to do with the love aspect of it, but I do not think of these things as I fly through the landscape toward the sounds of her struggle. Something dare touches my lady of red and black, my Malleah. Mine. Wrath and possession drive me onward as my lungs heave air in and out of their chambers, burning as they work, and my colossal body tears through branches and underbrush once I hit the forest again. My approach was not meant to be silent or concealed; let whatever creature dares to touch what is mine to know that I am the reprimand for such a crime.

Infuriated eyes of black and red scour the opening that I burst into, hackles flared up in an intimidating manner, and tail risen to display nothing but utter perfection and rage in a single being. The scene is quickly digested and my mind begins to fall into a blur of motion, not capable of comprehending what it is that my body does without command. I lunge toward the tawny cat that is so brave to attempt to steal the life from my dark angel. Its figure is nearly as miniscule as Malleah’s in comparison to my own and being a hunter of the predator I am aware of exactly how I must finish this without much thought.

Gargantuan paws are spread wide as I am flying through the air toward the cat as it cranes its neck to look me head on. They make contact upon the shoulder and upper back to instantly push all on-hundred and ninety-two pounds of myself into it and toward the earth. It flails rapidly, claws extended as it slashes wildly at my throat and shoulder, causing thick streams of blood to begin to dribble down. It only feeds the beast, the scent of my own blood causing a roar of vehemence to ignite the night. I struggle to keep the agile feline beneath my grasp, my own claws digging into its flesh to keep it pinned down, only to suddenly dive my massive jaws downward to snatch it tightly around the throat. Its hind legs flex and kick to tear more gashes into my side and hip, urging me to crunch down harder onto its trachea until it releases the very last breath caught within the tunnel.

I lift my head upward, cat still intact between my teeth, and violently thrash it back and forth to spew blood from the punctures and cause the vertebrae to snap in multiple places. I do not stop there, my gruesome actions entirely uncontrolled by my conscious self, and drop it to the earth so that I may place both paws on either side of my jaws. Pupils of blackened hellfire constrict as the behemoth overtakes me and I pull back with malicious intent, tearing the throat open with an audible crack and gush of fluid. I can’t stop. I won’t. Hatred, pain, betrayal; it all sustains my need for this. I must do this so that I don’t do it to her.