Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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"Come on now, make it worth my time." Talamayas hissed steam that sank with dark magic and rolled along the ground near him. It singed Rodney's fingers and climbed into the opening of his dark shirt to scald the flesh there. If he didn't run, he'd be boiled alive.
It was pointless, but he did it.
Pushing off from the ground, Rodney darted to escape, but a hand grabbed his ankle and dragged him back across the asphalt. As much as he'd been trying to not give Talamayas what he wanted, Rodney screamed when the man's foot smashed through his calf to the bone. It snapped and splintered as Talamayas ground his heel into his leg, and Rodney trembled as the man removed it. Fear that he meant to step on him again dissipated to agony and dread as he knew the man wanted him to run again.
The best he could manage as his leg stitched itself back together was crawl.
That was enough for a beast though, he supposed. Just that futile movement excited the predator into stalking after him. Steam followed, nipping at Rodney's ankles if he was too slow, and he touched the ground to push off with his good leg and get some space. Rodney never made it. A hand snapped out, crashing into his skull, and the world spun as Talamayas brought him into his face. The muscles in Rodney's neck stretched painfully as he was suspended by nothing but Talamayas' hand wrapped around his skull, and it took Rodney a moment to orient himself from the blow to his head.
Nothing had broken, but everything sure was dizzying. As soon as the world was done tipping like a top, his eyes focused to Talamayas' face in his. Rodney's mouth twisted into a scowl and he spit right into Talamayas' face. The blow to the side of his head had him reeling as Talamayas let him go only so he could collide with the ground. From there, Rodney could make out the man wiping his face with a hand. The smile on Rodney's lips earned him a kick to the stomach so hard that ribs cracked at the bottom, and he wheezed as Talamayas grabbed his head again. This time Talamayas snarled when he lifted him, and Rodney was unsure if he should spit on him again.
The man would likely kill him if he did.
But he'd promised Horus he wouldn't give up.
So Rodney used his brain instead, the furiously, pissed off, jaded, and disgusted brain cells he had left. "You're a monster, Talamayas Sol." Rodney hissed between his teeth. "Whatever bottom of the barrel they scraped to make you, they should have burned the whole thing. You're as worthless as the thought was in making you."
Talamayas' lips lifted for a growl that pulled his lips so far back on his fangs that Rodney could see gums. There was truly no expression closer to a wolf before it ripped out its prey's throat, and Rodney had no options left. This had never been a fight that he could win. This had never been a fight at all. It was just amusement for a man swimming in rage and despair who had no other outlet than to brutally murder anyone who dared exist unprotected.
"You're nothing to no one, Echo Silver!" Talamayas snarled in his face, forcing him to hunch his head lower on his neck just to try and escape the heat sizzling the skin of his nose and cheek.
