The male uses my distraction, twisting in my grip. His spine bends at angles that shouldn't exist, bringing his rear claws up to rake across my chest. The scales there are thicker but not impervious. Four parallel gashes open from my left shoulder to right hip. Deep enough to scar.
I slam him into the wall again, using all my mass. Feel ribs crack under the impact. His but not mine. My tail wraps around his throat, squeezing while my lower hands maintain their grip on his legs. My upper hands are free now, claws seeking soft spots. Joints. Eyes. Throat.
The den becomes a chaos of destruction. Every move we make destroys more of what I built. Seven days of preparation scattered in seconds. The nest tears under our weight. Water containers shatter. Food stores crush beneath thrashing bodies.
The male's strength surprises me. I've killed shadow cats before, but never one this large, this motivated. Protecting cubs makes them lethal beyond normal capacity. His jaws find my upper left arm again, teeth sliding between scales, finding meat. I feel tendons tear. That arm weakens, grip failing.
Three functional arms against six legs.
Behind me, crashing. Something wooden breaks—the drying rack for meat. Zia snarls, sound purely animal. Then a wet sound. Blade meeting flesh. She still lives. Still fights. The knowledge floods my system with something beyond adrenaline. My cocks pulse despite the violence. Or because of it. She fights beside me. Not cowering. Not running. Fighting.
The male tears free, leaving scales and flesh in my claws. We circle in the confines of the den, both bleeding, both looking for advantage. His one eye weeps fluid where I nearly gouged it out. My left arm hangs less responsive, tendons damaged.
He feints left, goes right. I'm ready, tail snapping out to tangle his front legs. He stumbles, and I'm on him, using massand position. We roll, crushing more supplies, splinters from broken containers embedding in my back.
“Left!”
Single word from my mate. I don't question, just dodge left as something glass shatters where I was. One of her fungi bombs. The spores cloud the air, making both cats sneeze, eyes watering. Making my skin tingle where it touches exposed wounds.
The male's grip loosens. I capitalize, spinning him, slamming his skull into the carved storage niche. Food scatters everywhere, grains mixing with blood on the floor.
But he recovers faster than expected. His rear legs find purchase on my chest, right where he already opened gashes. Claws sink deeper, finding the soft tissue between ribs. I roar, pain finally breaking through adrenaline. My blood flows freely now, enough to make the floor slick.
Movement behind me. The females—mine and the cat—moving through the space in their own battle. I catch glimpses when the male's attacks allow. Zia bleeding from parallel marks down her torso. The female cat limping, favoring her left front leg. My mate's knife flashing in the dim light.
The male makes another attempt at my throat. This time I catch his jaws with my upper hands, holding them apart. Dangerous position—leaves my torso exposed. He takes advantage, all four free legs raking my sides, my stomach. More scales tear away. More blood flows.
But I have position now. Leverage. My tail wraps tighter around his throat while my lower hands find his spine. The angle I need for a killing break. Just need to maintain grip despite the pain, despite the blood making everything slippery.
The male's struggles intensify. He knows death approaches. His claws find my wounds again and again, deepening them, trying to make me release. My purple blood mixes with his redon the floor. Both of us weakening. But I'm larger. Stronger. And I have more to lose if I fail.
My mate still fights behind me. Still lives. Still needs me to win this.
The male makes a desperate twist, nearly breaking free. My damaged arm can't maintain grip. He gets his jaws partially free, snapping at my face. I pull back, barely avoiding losing an eye. His teeth catch my jaw ridge instead, tearing scales.
We're both slowing. Blood loss and exhaustion taking toll. But I feel it—the angle finally right. My tail constricts fully while my functional arms pull. The male realizes too late. His good eye widens.
“Down!”
I drop flat without thought. The female cat passes overhead—thrown or leaping. She hits the wall where I was standing, hard enough to crack wood. Falls badly, struggling to rise.
The male tries to use my prone position, but dropping flat gave me the leverage I needed. My tail and arms work together. Pull and twist and?—
Snap.
The crack of his spine breaking echoes through the destroyed den. His body spasms once, then goes limp. Six hundred pounds of dead predator on top of me. I shove him aside, struggling to stand on blood-slick floor.
Across the den, Zia has the female cat pinned. Her knife plunges into the cat's throat with precision that speaks of practice. Professional. Clean despite the chaos. The female cat thrashes once, then stills. My mate stays crouched over the corpse for a moment, ensuring death, before yanking her knife free.
She stands slowly. We face each other across carnage.
Blood covers her. Hers. The cats'. Four parallel claw marks from left shoulder to right hip, deep enough to scar. Smallerwounds on her arms, her thighs. Her destroyed sports bra hangs in tatters, providing no coverage. Her chest heaves with each breath, pupils blown wide with combat adrenaline.
Beautiful. Lethal. Mine.
She takes inventory of my wounds with soldier's eyes. The gashes across my chest, worst damage. My damaged left arm. The dozens of smaller wounds leaking purple-tinged blood. Nothing immediately fatal on either of us. We'll live if we tend the wounds.
But tending isn't what our bodies want.
