Page 57 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

I was fast, faster, so I parried his first strike, then the next, our swords whipping through the air in a way others had told me looked like a blur. Clack, clack, clack, swipe! I chanced a strike at him, cutting across his chest with the blunt point even as his sword scored down my arm.

“That’d open you up wide, lass!” a man shouted. “You’d bleed out before your next strike.”

I knew that, found my teeth locking together to stop myself from shouting it out, but Nordred shook his head.

“Steady, lass. You can do this. Everything you need is inside you. It’s always been there. Reach for it now. You can do this.”

I nodded and then without thought, launched myself at the only man who’d ever truly cared for me, intent on slicing him to ribbons.

Faster, I had to be faster. He had a longer reach than me, had more power to throw behind his blows, so I had to cut him off before he even laid them. I moved more acrobatically now, my feet dancing across the sands until it felt like they hovered above it. I slashed and parried, my sword moving faster and faster and right when my muscles should’ve been about to start burning from the effort, something else kicked in.

“That’s it, lass,” Nordred said, sweat dripping from his face, his grin fierce. “There it is.”

What was ‘it’? I had no idea, but I knew its feel. Something flamed inside me, hot and wild, but the blast of it was channelled somehow, condensed down to make it burn truer. Shouts went up around the training ground as I attacked harder. Nordred’s sword got nowhere near me. I was parrying before he even moved, knowing exactly where he would aim and cutting him off before he could make his strike.

But I couldn’t be contained to merely defensive fighting. The hunger was upon me, my eyes burning bright in my sockets. My mouth fell open, not to pant, but to reveal my fangs.

“Gods, she’s going berserk!”

That cut through into my consciousness, but for only a second. Whatever fire burned inside me, it swallowed any questions, any regrets, and focussed solely on the job at hand. In this state, I was a wolf on the hunt, a beast that ruled the plains, and someone had dared stand against my might. I noted the signs of age on my enemy, the way his body was slowly beginning to falter. I forced error after error, knowing his energy was beginning to run low. I would outstrip him and then—”

“Peace, lass!”

I stopped where I was, feet rooted to the sand, breath coming in light and even. My body was still strong, vital, coiled and ready for more. But my combatant wasn’t.

Nordred sank down on one knee, dropping his sword to the sand, his arms stretched out wide in a position of surrender and at that I spared him the smallest of nods. But my grip on my paltry sword didn’t loosen.

“More, Nordred,” I growled, my voice resonating with the tone of battle.

“I know,” he said, “but not from me.”

“And not from my men either,” the officer said, striding across the sands. “What the hell are you playing at? I thought you had a highborn lass you wanted to play at swords with, not… this. Look at her! She’s teetering on the edge of berserk. How the hell did you intend to explain to the princes that you’d—?”

“How is he going to explain what to the princes?”

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