-1Disclaimer: Characters herein are not mine, I am making no money off this.
A Dance Between the Flames
She could feel his eyes on her. Piercing, burning, as hot as the ember whose colour the matched. The growing flames cast long shadows over them both, throwing his face into a mask of contrasts and angry red lines. What a brave and stupid man, this Ishablite with a taste for blood. How many times had she cut him now? His blood clung thick and sweet to her fingernails, dripped down his flesh in thick red rivulets. He was wounded fiercely, fiercely enough to kill a smaller and weaker man. And still he came at her as the library burnt around them, the thick smoke stinging their eyes and hiding them at turns as they leapt and twisted in their deadly dance.
So foolish, really, to think that he could win against her. Even that charmingly destructive right arm of his was no match, amusing as it was to watch him wield it. They would burn, soon, if this wasn't ended. It was almost a pity to have to kill the man - there was something about him. His strength, perhaps, or his anger. His resilience. He was unlike the other men Lust had killed, weak and arrogant men who fell to her razor sharp claws like gazelles to a lioness. But this Ishablite Alchemist killer was different. He was strong, a worthy opponent despite the fact that he could never best her. No man could. He would fall to her as all the others had, and would burn after he was gone.
And then he was gone, as the flames stretched higher on their fuel of old books and leather, slipping into the sewer like a wounded animal, leaving burnt blood and a gaping hole in his wake. The flames closed in and Lust made her own retreat, the heat scorching her pale skin. Perhaps he would die in the sewers, but she doubted it. Not a man like that. He would live and he would continue to kill as surely as the sun continued to rise.
No matter. She could kill him some other time. He was easy enough to find if need be. And if he was bright and stayed out of her way there was no need to kill him at all. And some small piece of her mind, beneath the rest and clouded in smoke of its own, was pleased that he had escaped to fight another day.