The spray of blood, hot and fresh, was like nothing else. It didn't even matter whose it was; a monster's, a knight's, a red-eye's... The sight of bright red, the coppery scent of it, there was just - nothing like it.
Before that first spurt of blood, a fight just wasn't the same. Wasn't as - raw, wasn't as fierce.
And even better than the first time they got in a hard hit was the first time one of them tooka hard hit. That sting, that sharp blow, the feel of metal or claw or tooth catching unwary skin...
It wasn't the pain.
Yuri kept telling himself that, but it wasn't always easy to be sure. Everything just kind of blurred together after that first deep cut. Adrenaline made fear and excitement hard to tell apart.
But when he turned his head to see her on the other side of the battlefield, leaping on their enemies like a predator, her eyes a bright and dancing ruby red, it was - intoxicating. His mouth went dry, every time, and something inside him... stirred. Something just as wild, just as crazy, just as hungry as her.
Something that maybe, just maybe, didlike the pain.
Watching her fingers play over the shaft of her spear - the muscles ripple in her arms as she brought it down with so much force that the arrow tip went through her victim like a hot knife - wokethat something so hard and sharp that for a moment Yuri could hardly breathe.
He turned away, wetting his lips, but he couldn't turn away from the pounding of his own blood, and somehow he was smiling; a wide, manic grin he wouldn't have recognized on his own face because he'd never seen it there before as he brought his own blade up for a strike that was too fast, too hard, the hilt of the sword dangerously loose in his hands.
It would've been so much easier if it hadn't felt so damned good, teetering on the edge of that cliff with nothing below him but the fall.
He could catch himself. He could reel the wolf back in, collar and cage and chain it down, but there was still the part where he didn't completely want to. There would alwaysbe the part where he didn't completely want to.
Judy was so beautifulunfettered, her smile full of bright white teeth, wrenching her spear from the monster's haunch and then leaping back to come down on another knee-first, the movements fluid but still rough and frothy like a rushing river. She was hypnotizing. Spellbinding. Or maybe he was just hypnotizedand spellbound, drawn to her by nothing more and nothing less than the same thing wild on his insides that recognized the wild thing on her outsides.
She made him want to.
Her eyes caught his, full of heady excitement, full of breathless pleasure, and Yuri wasn't sure whether he wanted more to join her here, like this, or up against a tree with just their skin and sweat and her body rocking against his, her fingers knotting in his hair, the same legs that were so lethal now cinched tight around his hips to keep him in place.
When she looked at him like that, the rest of the world went dim and dark.
You'll like it,her eyes promised him.
And of course he would. Would have. Would.
Karol's voice will bring him back, breaking with just a hint of nervous relief, and Rita's sarcasm will help. The old man's melodramatic pleas for a slower pace and nicer food and a real bed to rest his weary back will completelyspoil whatever strange mood might have been left. Then all he has to do is bend down to meet Repede's eyes while Estelle worriedly casts First Aid and it'll be fine. He'll be fine. Normal again.
The wolf tethered again.
But it was never quite enough, was it? Even with the blood drying and his heartbeat slowing, all he had to do was make the mistake of lifting his head when he felt her hot gaze, and he'd be right back there again.
Yuri didn't have to go over the edge, but he could never really step back from the cliff. The cliff was always there, in her blood-red eyes.
She lingered at his back when the others went on ahead, already planning lunch and where they'd stop for it, and he almost followed them because his throat was still dry - but he didn't.
"Well?" Her voice was playful, dangerously playful. "How did I do?"
He laughed, startled, and hesitated. The urge was there to turn around, to meet her eyes. He didn't dare. "...Beautiful," he told her, honestly. Hisvoice was husky and low, and that was honest too.
Judy took a single sinuous step and pressed a smile against the back of his neck that felt like a knife. "How very flattering."
The field around them reeked of blood. They were both probably streaked with it, even if they weren't bleeding anymore, and he ached all over.
It would have been so much easier if any of that had turned him off in the slightest.
Her arms wended their way around his waist, her fingers slipping comfortably inside his clothing, and Yuri shuddered, letting his eyes - shut. He was so aware of her, of the heat of her body and all her generous curves and her fingertips on his bare skin.
"They might - hear us," he managed.
He felt her lips part, wet and hot on his neck: a widening smile. And then he twisted in her grasp, pulled her to him so that he could kiss her deeply, bruising-hard, and that only seemed to make her hotter.
"They might," she agreed, her voice and her mouth both hungry for his lips. "But then again, they might not."
His last clear thought was that if he fell into her, maybe she would catch him and somehow slow his descent.