A Feral Interlude

Disclaimer: Violence, Gore, adult situations, and graphic imagery. I do not own any aspect or character of the Marvel Universe nor elements of the X-Men Origins movieverse.

Due to you guy's encouragement, this interlude has now become a full on story! Thanks and hope I don't disappoint!
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A Feral Interlude: Ravaging Intrigue

“—you’re telling me your dumb shit of a son swiped one of the most advance pieces of technology to date right out of your safe because he wanted you to sign over his trust fund?!” the former colonel bellowed at the disgraced DIA Director slumped in the steel chair across from him.

Reginald DeLaughter curtly nodded, averting his eyes away from the CIA agent who had far too much seniority for his tastes.

“Tell me, Delaughter, can you even fathom just how much shit you’ve caused because of your inability to: a) Keep your con artist punk of a son in check and b) Safeguard not only one of the most advanced tele-computers, but the batch of top-secret digital documents involving agencies that not even the executive branch knows about?!” the agent rounded the table and gave the man an implacable stare from his one good eye with a scowl.

“I’ll have your goddamned badge!” DeLaughter jumped to his feet and inched towards the agent. “My fucking son is dead; didn’t know what the fuck he was taking, let alone that he would get killed over it!”

Without flinching, the agent shoved him back into his chair and loomed in his face as he seethed, “That’s the problem. Everything on that portable machine you had tossed into a safe instead of secure at the Defense Department like it should’ve been has hundreds of files” he paused and fixed the man with a cold glare, “each of which involves matters of national security that were compiled through hundreds of missions and contacts. Men and women have died to scrap together this intel, and under your watch, someone now has said information for sale to the highest fucking bid. Do you have any fucking idea how many angles the U.S. can get screwed in because of you?!”

When the man yet again looked away, the agent hauled him up and slammed him against the cement wall. “If it were up to me, an asshole like you would be court marshaled and tossed into a detention cell to rot like any other terrorist bottom feeder” he spoke contumely, adding, “but you’re the FBI’s problem now. You have a future of obscurity to fall into now, and if anything happens to this country, you shall be judged.”

Tossing the man back into the chair, the agent stalked out of the room and headed down to brief his squad. They were on the hunt now for the retrieval of as much of the lost intel they could piece together. The hope was to avert any leaks as well as determine what target had the most to lose. He couldn’t wrap his head around just how the spy knew about the computer, let alone about the asshole’s son stealing it and running off to Vegas with it.

The world was a dark place outside of America. Nick could only imagine who wanted the information and what they intended to do with it. Most of those files had no backups. Going digital was supposed to be the ultimate safety precaution, but of course even that wasn’t fail proof. It was damage control time.

With renewed fears brimming inside of him, he marched down and took the elevator down to the sub-levels of the Pentagon, ready to tackle the tyranny looming in the shadows.

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Her Chanel heels clicked mutely across the polished floors of the consulate’s lobby as she crossed the stairs and headed for the bank of conference rooms that required three forms of ID to access. Showing her counterfeit credentials to the guard, she passed through security and headed down the long and opulently decorated hall for the conference suite.

Knocking on the door with the back of her knuckles, she waited until the door clicked automatically open and allowed her entrance.

“Mademoiselle Montecristo” the man with the thick French accent and Armani suit greeted as he rose from the lacquered table by the window, crossing the room to take her hand and kiss the back of it. “Thank you for being so prompt. Please” he gestured her into the room and pulled the chair out for her.

“I trust your superior has gained the information he needed from the machine, Monsieur Basset?” she spoke, getting right to business as she stared at the man across her through her tinted glasses.

Clearing his throat, the man reached for a folder and slid it towards her. “My employer would like to contract you for another venture” he announced as she flipped through the file, scanning the information. “We would pay you the same sum as before—”

“This is a counter-insurgency job. My quote is double the sum” she interrupted, gazing stoically at him while she drummed her red-painted talons over the picture of the target.

“Mademoiselle—I would have to confer with my employer…”

“If the French government wishes to eliminate targets cheaply, they have agents for that. I was told your employer wasn’t directly affiliated with the regime” she countered smoothly, tucking a rogue strand of hair behind her ear.

“He is not. But this mission would involve more than eliminating the target. We need to find direct ties to him and Khomeini. It will help the French government, and ensure my employer’s future ventures in Iran aren’t jeopardized by any...extremism” he stated and sat back stiffly in his leather-backed chair.

Her camouflaged nails halted in their drumming as she stared keenly at the man. “Information isn’t cheap; neither is assassination. When your employer agrees, you will wire the documents to the same bank as before along with a French bond to cover the deposit” she announced curtly, her eyes cool behind the amber-tinted frames that obscured the eerie russet ring around her pupils.

“Understood, mademoiselle” the man gulped and tried to remain composed under her predatory gaze.

Standing, she politely shook his hand and headed for the door, before a rogue thought made her pause. “Ah, monsieur. Did your employer dispose of the machine?” she turned and glanced at him over her shoulder.

“Oui…vendu sur le marché noir” he replied cautiously.

“Ah, bon” and with that, she exited the room and headed down to the crisp November air of the nation’s capital. There was no question that she’d have the job by the end of the day, so she decided to dedicate the rest of the early afternoon to shopping in D.C.

She had completed the job from Vegas the week before and had received her fee, which had been wired to her account in the Cayman Islands. The only reason she had taken the job was to create distance as well as call the Frenchman’s bluff. He had folded earlier than she’d expected, so she had been forced to cancel the espionage job at the last minute in order to head to Washington.

Tommy DeLaughter had been puddy in her hands. All it took were a few touches of rapture and he had adoringly broken into his father’s safe and taken the portable computer out. He’d even written the blackmail letter under her alluring gaze, suggesting what to write in murmurs that forced him to cling to her every word. Once done, she’d taken him to Las Vegas like an overgrown puppy, keeping the rapture active with a few caresses before sending him to book the high roller’s suite with his father’s card while she went to the Stardust to crash the conference. She had calculated that his body wouldn’t be found until the next morning, either by housekeeping or the FBI. She had been right, but she hadn’t anticipated getting ensnared in an encounter, let alone one so…

Sighing, she brooded and stalked out of the car as soon as the chauffer pulled it open for her. Dismissing him for the rest of the day, she strode out and busied herself with idle shopping at all the designer boutiques, absently ignoring the chill while her mind continued to wander.

He’d caught her fancy. Even now, his check was tucked into her vintage Chanel purse—the urge to fish it out and inhale his musky scent an unruly impulse she managed to suppress. She figured he wouldn’t make a move until he had sufficient background info on her, which she also figured was the reason that a week had gone by with no reprisal.

The Sabertooth is on the prowl…

She was sure he wouldn’t find much, but she wasn’t sure if she should take solace in that or not. Centuries of practice and the ravages of time were two of her advantages—ensuring little remained of her origins. If anything did remain, it wasn’t anything sufficient enough to pose her great harm. Besides, Creed didn’t even bother to learn her name, a funny thought to her now that she headed towards the bank. The man was a tempest, made up of keen brawn and cunning, but thinking ahead didn’t seem to be one of his strong suits—or at least nothing he seemed to worry about. She assumed he wasn’t accustomed to letting his prey survive an interlude with him, if they even stayed alive long enough through the encounter, that is. Being mindful of things like his prey’s name was a frivolous expectation to have of him, which somehow added to his charms. His intelligence hidden under the rouse of brute indifference had made an impression on her; it was only a matter of time.

He’d most likely get as far as Berlin, which was really the only time she’d left a trail she couldn’t account for. Thinking back on that time always brought to surface memories she didn’t care for. Sometimes the images haunted her for hours before her mind found something else to anchor to. She’d submerge them, shoving them away into the muddy recesses of her mind until the next spark of light revealed them in the darkness. The biting wind roused her to the soft snowflakes that began to waft down from the graying sky.

She didn’t know what his means were, but knew he was resourceful enough to get the answers he wanted one way or another. Anticipation hummed in her mind; being the mouse meant she wouldn’t know when the cat was near until he pounced.

As she walked into the sprawling bank lobby out of the cold, she submerged her idle excitement and keyed in to find the delivery had been made. Smiling, she made arrangements for a courier to transport her things to the West coast before depositing some collateral into the state of the art vault. She was amused the Frenchman took her for an ignorant fool. Of course she didn’t expect him to tell the truth, but selling a telecommunication innovation on the black market?

Whenever she wondered if she took too many precautions, arrogant bastards like the Frenchman always set her at ease. Well, most of the time they did.

Sighing to herself, she went back out into the cold afternoon—absolutely resolute on taking a vacation once this job was over so she could properly focus on being pursued.

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The pop of kindling blistering in the fireplace snapped Dan out of his doze, dropping the book from the crook of his arm to thud on the carpet. He wiped the back of his mouth and stared out the window. Twilight had passed hours ago in the winter countryside his cozy cottage resided in. Grunting, he got up from the leather chair and picked up the book before stretching and popping his back.

Grumbling to himself, he shuffled lethargically into his study to return the book to its assigned slot among the thousands of other books that lined his walls from floor to ceiling. The light from the fireplace in the living room shone into his study before it was dimmed faintly by the shadow that emerged in the doorway.

“S’been a while, eh Danny-boy?”

“JESUS CHRIST!” Dan Dresner whirled at the voice and practically stumbled back over one of the stacks of books that littered the floor. The predatory chuckle sent a chill down his spine before his mind could recognize its owner. “C-Creed—W-What’re you doing here?! Trying to give me a fucking heart attack?!” he stuttered, trying hard to lower his voice back to his gravelly tenor instead of the nasal octave it had risen to.

Smirking subtly, Victor prowled into the dimly lit room, fingers skimming idly along the book spines that lined the wall as he invaded the shorter man’s space, not bothering to brush the melting snow off his coat shoulders. “Now is that anyway to greet a smiling old face from your past, Dan?” he mocked deviously, his cool blue eyes implacable while the smile expanded to flash his wicked canines. “I gotta say” he added as he glanced around the room with derisive intrigue, “not too shabby a place you got here. It ain’t your style—being holed up so far out in the country.”

Raking his fingers in his eye-length mop of dirty brown hair, Dan tried to smile at the man, but his lips only managed a twitch. “Trying to stay out of trouble. Easiest way to do that is to stay lost” he answered and glanced at his desk drawer, where his revolver was snugly hidden.

Victor followed his glance and sneered a grin. “You wouldn’t even finish blinking, Dan, so don’t be rude” he growled patronizingly and enjoyed the flinch that coursed through the tacto-empath. “I’ve come to call in a favor” he announced as he crossed over to the liquor cabinet nestled in the corner by his desk.

Dan watched as the feral helped himself to his bottle of scotch. “I didn’t know I owed any favors” he muttered absently and immediately regretted it.

Victor’s chuckle heralded his regret. “Oh I beg to differ. You could’ve ended up like every other fuck-stick associate of mine after the Island. Did you really think you got away alive without someone keeping you around for later?” he stated with a sinister edge as he regarded the man over the rim of the glass he took a long sip from.

“What do you want?” Dan queried, his throat tight with terror and looking like a much older Irish-blooded rogue as he realized what Victor was saying.

Finishing his drink, Victor helped himself to another and leaned against the edge of the desk. “I know you were Stryker’s dutiful information source. I need you to get me background info on a…target of mine” he stated, the command irrefutable in his tone.

“I don’t know what Stryker told you” he attempted, but paused when Victor’s cold eyes hardened savagely. “I-I’d need access to databases that are long gone now. The closest thing would be getting access to Department H’s resources, and we both know how shit out of luck that venture is” he stated his case in a quick rush, trying to abate his fear since he knew Creed fed off of it.

“What’s this ‘we’ business?” Victor barked and plopped the empty glass down on the desk as he pushed off the edge to stalk towards Dan. The man backed up against the corner shelf, thumping against the books when Victor continued, “I don’t care how the hell you get the information. It isn’t my fucking problem, but if you’re going to keep dicking around with me then it will be a problem—for you” he snarled, pointing his index claw into the man’s chest so he could watch it lengthen dangerously to prick through his sweater. “Stryker isn’t around to coddle you, Danny-boy, and trust me” he growled and inched closer to bare his teeth, “I’m not the coddling type.”

Victor knew he wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t going to take any fucking excuse. Dan might’ve not been a direct teammate, but he wasn’t a full labcoat. The man had joined the project under the niche of intelligence liaison, which afforded him direct access to the facility’s resources and Stryker’s protection. He figured staying behind the scenes was his smartest bet, so he only worked for and answered strictly to Stryker.

Unfortunately for Danny-boy, Victor knew why the mutant larcenist had joined the project, and it was strictly for self-preservation’s sake. Stryker had kept him tucked in his pocket because he followed orders and never stepped out of line, as well as because he was a figurative fountain of knowledge; knowledge he gained through touch. Dan was a walking talking library of information fit for only his former superior’s unscrupulous scheming. So, there was little clearance given to anyone but the colonel—that is until Victor started doing Stryker’s insidious dirty work. He knew the extent of the man’s mutation and had gotten the details of how he’d ended up mixed up with the former colonel, which was a similar circumstance to how Victor and Jimmy had joined the team.

“W-What’s this target’s name? Who do they work for??” Dan conceded and sputtered, his anxiety so strong that Victor wrinkled his nose at the scent.

Backing down the intimidation factor, Victor strode casually towards the desk and allowed the man to exhale his relief. “Montecristo. Dunno anything else about her; s’why I’m telling you to find out for me” he spoke, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he leaned against the desk. He watched the man’s brows furrowed in bewilderment. “What?” he snapped, his mouth taking on a scowl.

“I thought you were done hunting other mutants, with the Island going down and all—”

“Who said I’m done hunting mutants, Dan? What do you think this will be if you don’t do as your told” Victor cut in, the blistering threat edged into his tone. “And who said she was a mutant?”

“I-I only mean—it isn’t typical for you to be hunting down some broad, so I figured she had to be mutant is all” Dan stammered, edging towards the closest cluttered table for a stray pad and pen. “Montecristo…like the book?” he asked and glanced over at the massive feral dressed in black.

He grunted and raised a brow, cocking his head to eye the tacto-empath. “What book?” he asked gruffly.

“The Count of Monte Cristo. Famous novel by the same guy who wrote The Three Musketeers?” Dan offered and crouched down next to several piles of books stacked by the lamp he turned on. Fishing for a few moments, he found what he was looking for and stood. “The only time I’ve ever heard the name—Monte Cristo. It’s an Italian islet; means “the mountain of Christ”. It isn’t a common last name, but there’s a brand of Cuban cigars named Montecristo” he explained and handed Victor the heavy book.

Looking at the dusty cover and reading the engraved title, Victor grunted and tossed it onto the desk. “Do I care to know what it’s about?” he asked with a cautionary grumble to his voice.

Tensely, Dan sat down on a footstool and shrugged. “Might give you a clue about who this chick is?” he tentatively remarked, and to Victor’s noncommittal grunt, he continued, “The protagonist is a guy who gets royally screwed. Takes place throughout Europe in the early 19th century and Napoleon’s exile from Paris is the background of the plot…” Dan highlights several important elements of the plot while Victor patiently listens, his expression unreadable but etched in the ferocity that characterizes him. “…Dantès becomes the Count of Monte Cristo and lures all the people who betrayed him into traps where they all meet their destructions, revealing his identity to them once his revenge upon them is completed. It’s twisted and revenge-driven, with a few moral allegories in it, but the revenge is the strongest element in the book—!”

“What happens to Monte Cristo?” Victor interrupted, resting his hands along the edge of the desk.

Dan gulped at the sight of his wicked claws fanning out over the beaten wood, answering, “Dumas wrote it so we assume he and Haydée go off together, but the important part of the ending is that while revenge had fueled Dantès, he found peace once he recovered his humanity. As Monte Cristo, he had disconnected himself from humanity and given himself to revenge, but once he allowed himself to forgive he became Dantès again—recovering his humanity…it’s all about realizing God’s Providence and the importance of waiting and hoping that he’ll intervene in the world; punishing the bad and rewarding the good” he paused when Victor’s brow furrowed.

—What’s the point of living like an animal to begin with? Her voice echoed in his mind, triggered by the juxtaposition of humanity and revenge Dan rambled on about. She’d been talking about taking what was willingly given and the uselessness of it—the pointlessness of taking if there hadn’t been a struggle to live, and when taking pride in her struggling prey meant she was in control.

“I’ll be checking in with you by the end of the week, so you better have more than a Lit. lecture for me when I do” Victor announced and pushed off the desk, stalking to the door.

“Creed wait!” Victor turned and glanced sharply at him over his shoulder. “I’m going to need more details than just her name. What she look like? Any scars? Or a picture?” the tacto-empath interrogated as cautiously as he could with the feral man eyeing him so harshly.

“If I had a picture don’t you think I’d given it to you, jackass?” Victor berated, turning slightly to add, “She’s a reptilian-based feral. Doesn’t look like a lizard, but she has palm green eyes with a coppery ring around her pupils, retractable incisors and fangs that reminded me of an alligator’s, and black talon-like nails that can tear into shit just as good as mine. Her skin shimmers different tones and she emits different types of pheromones she can only transfer through touch” he paused and remembered the shadow of a scar etched close to her womb. “She said she was older than me…dunno how much older. Also said her specialty was espionage, but she’s skilled in killing” Victor added instead, figuring the scar wasn’t prominent enough to turn up on the type of search the man would be undertaking.

Dan wrote everything down in a coded language only he could understand, which was just as fine since Victor expected the fucker to report verbatim for him. “I’ll get right on this” the man murmured and stood, hoping Victor would leave like he came.

“You better. Don’t make me regret keeping you alive this long, Danny-boy” he quipped sadistically and smirked, throwing a wave of departure over his shoulder as he walked out of the study.

Dan heard his footfalls course through the house before the door slammed shut. Slumping down to the footstool, he shivered, and not from the burst of cold air that had invaded his house from Victor’s departure. He knew the fucking animal would be the death of him; sensed it without having to touch anyone to read the writing that was on the wall. As soon as Stryker started finalizing project Deadpool and word got around about James Logan going on a killing spree looking for Stryker and Creed, Dan had gotten the fuck off of the Island and headed north. Not too soon, considering he heard about the devastation on the news a few days later. He’d also heard most of the lab staff and all the test subjects had perished or vanished in the destruction, with a few rumors about Stryker, Logan, and Creed getting away floating around in the aftermath.

With Victor confirming as much, he knew he was fucked if he didn’t comply with the brutal feral’s demands. Dan knew there was nowhere to hide. Creed would track him down, probably enjoy torturing him to the edge of death before bringing him back and starting from scratch. Resigned to his fate, Dan prepared to revert back to his nefarious trade from before he was a mutant operative, except instead of identity theft and white-collar crime he would be invading for knowledge for the sake of his own well-being.

Shit…wouldn’t dear ol’ Ma be proud…

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“—when can I expect him to be eliminated?...bon. See that the documents not get out until after he’s dead. Has she asked again?...she isn’t a fool Basset. See that l'information trickles to the right parties. It would be preferable if she be éliminé simultanément. Je veux qu'il ressemble à un mauvais allé par incursion…Oui, as soon as the news breaks and the deal is assured, come back to headquarters…Très bien. Maintenez-moi signalé” he hung up the rerouted line and headed away from the bank of pay phones, making his way out of the platform up to the surface of the sprawling train station. His chauffer was waiting at the curb for him, opening the door for him to slide into the back of the opulent Rolls-Royce. The swarthy Parisian businessman stared placidly out of the window, allowing his thoughts to untangle.

That fucking femme fatale thought she could get one over on him? It was laughable. Her smug ignorance would be her undoing.

Armand de Lioncourt was not a man to be trifled with.

He hadn’t built his telecommunication empire because he was an imbécile. Like any other entrepreneur, he had paved his way on the backs of others, most of whom were ash under his Italian leather loafers—with their innovations becoming Armand’s intellectual property. Nothing would stand in his way; not Khomeini, not the meddling U.S. government, and certainly not some mutant femme too arrogant for her own good. When his head technician told him the tele-computer showed signs of driver duplication, Armand had fumed, ordering the man to extract the information and proceed with his research. He couldn’t afford having the woman possess delicate evidence of his criminality, especially when the computer had confidential intelligence of one of his Middle Eastern subsidiaries that would lead to a direct connection between him and Iran for the authorities to trace.

Everything was a delicate process. The theft, murder, and concealment of said dealings were of optimum importance. Basset new that, so when he told him the woman had asked about the computer, Armand knew it was a silent gloat; I have you in my pocket, Frenchman.

She had come highly recommended from a Russian cohort, attesting to her skills but unable to shed any light on her mutant prowess. Truth was, she was so good at what she did that no one lived to reveal just what her talents were. Those who did live never knew what happened to them. The rumor was, she had some form of hypnosis—ensnaring her victims so completely that they handed over information and even walked off balconies they were so utterly devoted. No one had any knowledge of her age or the level of her mutation. Hell, no one even knew where she’d emerged from; most background checks hit a wall at three decades ago, leaving many clients to speculate on just who or what the fierce woman was.

Regardless, as soon as she and Nagarajah were out of the picture, Armand could relax and focus on his future investitures in the fledgling global-telecommunication industry. The computer would be the crowning jewel of his empire, a victory he would flaunt in the world’s face. With any luck, the raid would be so precisely messy that agencies would be pointing the finger at each other for months, allowing him to coax the right people into action and solidify the next phase of operations: gaining a foothold in the Middle East before the Americans did.

Smiling pleasantly at nothing in particular outside his window, Armand headed for his meeting in Paris’ financial sector, assured that by the week’s end he’d be known the world over as Armand de Lioncourt, and not just the Frenchman.

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He was going to unscrew Dan’s head off his fucking shoulders. The fucker had ordered him to come down to this library, refusing to wait for Victor at his place out in the countryside. At first the nerve of it had astounded the ruthless feral, but the indignant fury that followed had made him hungry for mayhem. No one had talked to him like that. Not even that motherfucking bastard Stryker! He was still reeling from the bristling rage as he stalked through the massive public library, hunting the tacto-empath down through the tall and robust stacks and wings that reminded him of a dusty mildewed-smelling maze.

“Goddammit Creed, you’re not going to harass me in my own fucking house! Either meet me at the library or do your worst. Nothing you could do scares me enough to fuck with these people!” Dan had seethed from a combination of trepidation and reckless bravado before hanging up on Victor.

He had called the Irish mutt to let him know he was coming so he’d have his wits about him and got an earful instead. But under the other mutant’s mouthy audacity Victor had sensed his hysterical fear. It was that sharp scent that he was tracking now as he rounded a quiet cluster of stacks and study lounges that allowed for more isolated privacy from the rest of the tomb-like library.

Barging into a study room tucked into a poorly lit corner, Victor slammed the door behind him and narrowed his eyes at the man who jumped out of his chair and pressed up against the wall. He was clutching several notepads to his chest and staring at the larger mutant with terror, looking like a disheveled conspiracy nutcase.

“Who the fuck do you think you are” Victor seethed through his bared teeth and slowly advanced around the table towards him. “Did you think by making me come here that I wouldn’t gut you and splash this whole fucking library with your entrails, you goddamned fuckwit!? You better start talking before I crack your fucking head open and see if you’ve really got a brain in there!” Victor hissed and cornered Dan who’d backed into the wall and stammered up at him.

“J-Jesus Creed calm down I-I didn’t mean any fucking disrespect I just couldn’t stay at my place—c’mon I’m scared shitless already just give me a fucking chance to explain before you go berserk on me!” Dan sputtered and held up his notes as he pleaded his case.

“You’re tone’s all fucking wrong, Danny-boy. Get it together before I pull you the fuck apart!” Victor snarled in the man’s face and loomed imposingly over him.

“S-Sorry—I’m sorry” he inhaled shakily and lowered his gaze submissively. “This shit you got me looking into is really heavy, Creed. You didn’t tell me this woman had so many strings attached to her” he babbled and inched away from Victor to grab a stack of papers strewn out over the table.

Raising an eyebrow, Victor watched him collect his notes and lay them out in some unique order that only he comprehended. “Start making sense, Dan. You’re tap-dancing on my fucking last nerve!” he snapped and yanked a chair out to sit across from the skittish tacto-empath.

“Okay, okay” he murmured conciliatorily and pushed his hands through his hair before staring at Victor. “For days I couldn’t find a goddamned thing on this broad. I ended up breaking into a government installation just west of here, and still the only intel I got on her was a blip in South America. Seems she was a rumored operative for Pinochet in ’73, and since the U.S. had backed the military junta, they have a really flimsy file on her” Dan explained as he sifted through some files and found a page. “This is the only picture I’ve found” he slid the black and white snapshot towards Victor, who snatched it up and stared at it as Dan continued, “all they know is that she’s strictly freelance and not affiliated to any regime or any special ops. She has absolutely no allegiances and that’s what was on file…up until two days ago.”

Glancing at Dan, Victor tossed the blurry picture of Montecristo entering a military-occupied headquarters into the mess of papers on the table. “Quit the suspense bullshit and get to the fucking point” he growled at Dan and fixed him with a glare.

Unflustered by Victor’s impatience, Dan pressed on, “I heard through the covert grapevine that a tip came from D.C. naming this jackoff Malik Nagaraja as a co-conspirator of Ruhollah Khomeini, some theocratic extremist exiled from Tehran. Rumor is Nagaraja is orchestrating some sort of coup that will get Khomeini into power and royally fuck everyone else doing business in Iran. If these guys get their way, Iran will revert to conservative theocratic power. Khomeini and Nagaraja are working this from the outside; the first is in Paris and the other is here in the states. Nagaraja got put on the most wanted list at three government covert agencies and Khomeini is under surveillance by the French…but what’s going under the radar is that a person of interest linked to Nagaraja is your target.”

Victor’s shoulders straightened at the last part. “What’s the order?” he asked coolly.

“Order is to secure her and Nagaraja to be taken to some hush-hush unit in Washington. This is black ops shit. A special outfit put together to be under the command of an intermediary representing the three agencies. The brass has no idea how she’s involved, but they know enough about her to go in with lots of gear. This is all top-secret, so you’re probably wondering how I found out about all of this” Dan attempted with a tentative glance towards Victor.

“Oh, enlighten me” Victor grumbled humorlessly.

Leaning over the table as if to impart something sacred, Dan announced, “All of this is a smoke screen. The word is Washington’s getting played big time and no one’s the wiser because they’re following the wrong trail. Some big shot in Europe set this all up to create a domino effect. Montecristo was hired by this guy to kill Nagaraja and get a smoking gun linking him to Khomeini, but for some reason he decided to throw her to the wolves too. Whatever the reason, he’s setting it up for her and Nagaraja to get taken out by this black ops outfit. It’s probably in order to deflect attention from something else, but there’s a huge problem he didn’t count on…”

“I swear to fucking Christ Dan—!” Victor growled in exasperation before Dan continued.

“She can’t be taken out” he cut in quickly. “The file I got on her is shit, but it helped me track down other leads” he explained as he pointed down at his coded notes. “She’s been involved in half of the skirmishes throughout South and Central America in the last two decades. The junta’s know of her, the guerrillas know her, and none of them fucks with her. She’s worked both sides, depending on which suited her interests at the time, and she falls off the radar until something else comes up. Because of her vicious reputation, she earned the codename La Vibora” he paused when Victor seemed to perk up, if his gaze intensifying and his jaw clenching with intrigue could be called ‘perking up’, “it loosely translates to ‘the Vipress’.”

The image of her lips tightening and her expression smoothening after he called her viper the first time stood out to him and caused a wry smile to creep across his lips. Dan looked at him nervously. Victor snickered to himself. “It fits” was all he confided to the other man as he leaned back against his chair. “Beyond her busy work life, what else has the little viper been up to” he mused, pursing his lips wryly at the weary stare Dan gave him before he plopped down into his own chair.

“That’s just it, Creed. There is no record of Montecristo before 1950. She’s a ghost; hasn’t ever left a trail, other than the few tidbits I scrapped together. This unit in D.C. is what I’m worried about; there’s talk in the underground that they’re organizing some bureau that’ll round up mutants, nothing like what Stryker was doing” he paused as he tossed his scribbled pad onto the table. “It’s all one big set up, though. They don’t know about this other guy, and he thinks they’re going to do him a favor. He’s got some flunky setting it all up in D.C., which is how I found part of this stuff out. The guy—Basset—talked to a buddy of mine about getting help disappearing with a huge trunk of secrets, so to speak. Little does he know him and his boss will probably find themselves strung up by their heels and gutted like slaughtered pigs…which is supposedly one of Montecristo’s calling cards. This chick is no joke—!”

“I want you to keep digging” Victor cut in, as irrefutable as before.

“Are you shitting me?” Dan balked at him. “After all the shit I just told you you’re still going to go after her?”

“That’s just the thing” he growled and crossed his arms, “you haven’t told me much of anything, you dumb fuck! Just a bunch of hyperboles and spook-talk. It’s only made me more curious. I want to know everything about her” since she’s worked so hard to bury it all, “like for starters, what the fuck’s her first name?”

Dan sat back in his chair and rubbed his temple. “I thought you didn’t bother with such trivialities, especially when a broad’s involved” he muttered bemusedly.

Glaring at the weary mutant, Victor rumbled snidely, “Have you ever been skull-fucked by a fist, Danny-boy?”

Stiffening with fear, he stammered, “N-No—!”

“Then this’ll be your first time if you don’t watch your fucking mouth” he snapped. “What the fuck is her name?”

Dan gulped before telling him flatly.

Victor repeated it to himself, as if testing it out while he recalled her in his mind’s eye. Mental snapshots of her devouring that DeLaughter kid, lying sprawled out on her side before him—wrapped in his arms and pressed taut against him, her eyes hooded but preternaturally glowing up into his under the light. Her name as well as everything else Dan found fit her.

“The intel you get enough for a profile?” he inquired as he lazily cleaned under his claws with his car key before extending all five nails of his right hand up to the light.

He smelled the apprehension saturate Dan’s scent as the man tentatively spoke, “She’s suited to hostile environments with severely high temperatures. Probably has a voracious metabolic system, but is most likely a poikilotherm—which would force her to avoid certain frigid environments or seek a heat source, regardless of her fast metabolism. She probably has an abnormally high regenerative trait as well as an age suppression factor…that’s about all I can think up—”

“I expected a helluva lot more than that” Victor snapped, his expression surly as he leaned forward in the chair. “I’m starting to think I was wrong about you Danny-boy. I don’t like being wrong. If I am ever wrong, I rectify things until I don’t care about being wrong” his lip curled back in a slow and nasty grin as he added, “usually, that means stringing the problem up and peeling the flesh off of it until it’s a tangle of bloody screams and tendons. So tell me, was I wrong to count on you, Dan?”

The blood drained from Dan’s face while his hazel eyes went wide with horror. “N-NO! Of course not!! You know I’m good for it—just give me a couple of days and I swear by that time I’ll have everything on her there is! By the time I’m done you’ll know everything from her favorite movie to her cup size” Dan assured in a gush of words, sitting stiffly and trying not to make any sudden movement as if he sat across from a starving mountain lion.

Victor snickered sardonically, musing privately that he damn well already knew her cup size: a large C. He guesstimated as much from how full her perky tits had been cupped in his massive hands. He submerged the leering smile as he shoved his raunchy memories away to fix Dan with a sly look.

“Keep digging, and get back to that country shack of yours. I’ll be checking in for more dirt, and you better have a lot more for me when I do” he stated gruffly and stood. Bewildered, Dan nodded and began collecting his notepads. Victor turned to stride out the door, but suddenly whirled around and prowled down around Dan, slamming a huge hand with lengthened claws down on the collection of papers the tacto-empath was about to gather up. Stiffening, Dan balked in terror at the feral when he inched nose to nose with him and snarled, “Oh, and the next time you ever cross me, or get insolent with me again, you’ll fucking wish you were dissected and under a microscope somewhere, cuz that’ll be a fucking reprieve from just how fucking berserk I can get. You fucking understand?!”

The breath wheezed out of Dan’s throat when he attempted a response, his fear spiking when he thought his inability to respond would get him gutted. Instead, Victor took his petrified expression as his response, smiling mildly and patting him on the shoulder roughly before resuming his exit out of the room. Still racked with panic, the tacto-empath went about doing as he was told, too scared shitless to even think about doing otherwise.

Stalking through the library, Victor descended the wide staircase across from a sitting area in the main hall before passing the librarian’s unoccupied desk, his mind preoccupied.

He was amused that the lofty bitch was getting set up, but couldn’t help find commonalities between her situation and his own. It reminded him of Lagos. That one fucking assignment had changed everything, tearing things asunder between his brotherhood and his thirst for carnage. Before Victor knew it, he had become Stryker’s pawn; his fucking hellhound at his every beck and call. Becoming the Sabertooth wasn’t something he could completely blame on Stryker—no matter how much the beast told him so—but the manipulation had widened the fissure between him and his brother, and Victor would have to live with it, rescind to the rage and betrayal he held towards Jimmy instead of the nagging conscience that blamed otherwise. He submerged it like everything else that didn’t matter anymore. That gnawing curiosity of his would always pester him, however, which is what got him involved in this cat and mouse game to begin with. He wondered if Montecristo had become a pawn unknowingly or had rescinded herself to it like he had. Whether Dan’s fears were warranted or not didn’t matter to him. He still owed the ‘Vipress’ for the humiliation and nothing was going to stand in his way, especially not some covert human bullshit.

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It was snowing outside, the night sky turbulent and heavy with wintery gloom. She absolutely hated snow. It made her feel claustrophobic and weak, desperate for any form of warmth in which to take shelter in. Whipping her wet hair back, she let the preternatural locks air dry while she laid out her gown on the bed. She turned towards the vanity to pick up the teardrop necklace and faced the full length mirror. Fiddling with the clasp, she stared blankly at her reflection, taking in her nudity with idle practice. The overhead light caught the shimmer of her skin, which was reflected in the mirror.

Goddamned artificial light. It’d been a pain in the ass since it became the new advent of the 20th century. Candlelight had always been too faint to reveal her physical mutation, so she’d never had to worry about someone catching the shimmer of her skin until electricity and artificial light became the mainstream.

Securing the necklace, she eyed herself and went about brushing her unruly straight hair. It had a tendency of cascading without any wave or kink according to how it was rooted to her scalp, making it an aggravation to deal with. Leaving it loose was out of the question for the event, so she had to tame it into an upward twist, causing it to fan out like silky tendrils down their fastening at the back of her head and for the usual rogue strands to escape and dangle from her temples down to her clavicle.

Huffing at herself in the mirror, she punished her hair with a can of hairspray, hell bent on having it stay in its configuration for as long as possible before it unfurled and snapped free of its styled bondage. For the hundredth time she thought about hacking it all off, but was again reminded that even if she did it would instantly grow back, just like a lizard that loses its tale immediately grows a new one. Sighing, she moved on to applying her makeup before inspecting herself in the full-length mirror again. Her hourglass shape never betrayed the strength and savagery that hid inside of it, which made her the perfect agent for the kind of work she’d been doing for centuries. No one ever suspected her of being anything more than a beautiful gold digger, at best. It suited her intentions just fine, but every once in a while she wondered if things for her could’ve been different.

The shadow of the scar etched close to her womb always made her think of him. All the possibilities that slipped out of her fingers when—

She stared blankly at her reflection when a triggered memory flashed vividly into her mind’s eye. Staring into the mirror, the memory played out for her in the reflection. Her hand lingered over her flat belly as she cocked her head to the side and pensively stared at her reflection. He had come up behind her, snaking his massive hand around her waist to rest over her navel as he swept her hair out of the way in order to murmur something in her ear. His pale skin clashed with hers, but seemed to radiate a heat harnessed by his blood and flesh, all of which he’d pressed cheekily against her before gazing at her through the mirror. She saw his glacier blue eyes staring back at her with the joei de vivre glint in them that unnerved everyone else, especially when accompanied by the roguish smirk he flashed at her before he ducked down to nuzzle her neck.

She didn’t feel the heat of his skin; couldn’t remember what it felt like nor recall the gravitation she had once felt when he held her possessively and teased her with his steely voice. The memory being reflected back at her began to fade, and no matter how much she willed it to last, it flashed away, the only image lingering briefly was his temple brushing hers and his blond hair dangling out of place when he muttered something and smiled.

Only the words remained, ghosts in of themselves to her hollowed out memories. Izzie…Make your pick: Sigyn, Idunn, or just Valkyrie. Whichever you are matters not because you are only mine.

Staring at her present reflection, cold and alone, she still remembered what she had responded coyly over 30 years ago.

“Just because you fancy yourself to be Loki doesn’t mean you can sway another immortal, Eirik…”

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Like most conservative practicing Muslim men, Malik Nagaraja was a boorish, misogynistic, and horny skirt chaser with an affinity for exotic models and a penchant for liquor. Currently, she was providing both as she laughed softly at his cheap jokes and toasted to the night. The sprawling ballroom was packed with elite guests from all walks of life, many of which owed each other favors or came to ask for them over champagne, hors d'oeuvres and snobbery. Along with the gala guests were a slew of armed bodyguards tucked in and around the atmosphere, precluding her from simply snapping the man’s neck and getting it all over with. All she had to do was tempt him into touching her bare skin, and then he would beg her to go back to his suite in the hotel. Basset had received the proof linking him to Khomeini, so all that was left was to kill him and disappear.

Meanwhile, a waiter clearing a table of empty champagne bottles took the opportunity to speak into the microphone concealed in his shirt cuff, confirming the presence of the Vipress and Nagaraja. He went ahead with his cover and went unnoticed, ducking out of sight to play eagle eye for the outfit waiting to pounce in the interior stairwell of the building.

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It hadn’t been hard to track Nagaraja, especially when his name was listed as a guest to the new hotel’s penthouse ballroom. Security was tight and so was the guest list from the looks of it. With all the bodyguards decked out head to toe in black, Victor figured he blended in just nicely. He figured the opportunity was too good to pass up, even if he was going in half-cocked. There was no question that some sort of ravaging intrigue had possessed him at the idea of cornering her in a room; watching her aghast expression blaze her gorgeous face before her scent betrayed her to him. The short term was what mattered at the moment, so he didn’t think too long on the impulse, and now here he was, prowling a gala. He breezed through the bustling main hall, avoiding the blue bloods and pompous dicketry of the scene in search for who he assumed would also be attending the formal social event.

The smells of colognes and perfumes mingled together with the scents of alcohol, starch, and tension that hung in the air. His keen nose wasn’t picking up the desired scent, so he crossed the hall to enter the main ballroom. The sumptuous art-deco designs were illuminated by a massive crystal chandelier that had the marble floor gleaming with light that poured down from the ceiling. Tables topped with expensive linen cloths and china darted the ballroom, leaving a wide space in the middle and by the snowed in veranda doors and windows for people to dance and mingle.

He really hated theses fucking things. He could smell the stink of old impotent men and fat bitch women as they got sloshed all around him, the carrying on of the rich and the corrupt a pointless spectacle he was tempted to bring to a screeching halt by gutting or twisting someone’s head off for the hell of it. The image of carnage sending people into hysteria made a wry smile quirk his lips.

A waiter scooted past him, but not before Victor snatched a champagne glass off his tray and guzzled it quickly as his eyes scanned the huge room. Loping over to the bar, he glanced around before his eyes honed in on a woman in a backless gold dress socializing with an arab-looking asshole. Watching them, he gestured for the garçon to top him off, not even bothering to give him a look when he hesitated at the sight of his retracted claws. He watched as the woman laughed and her profile came into his view. There’s the little viper.

Leaving his empty glass at the bar, Victor strolled casually over—picking up another full glass of bubbly as he went—and getting the tail end of their conversation when he came nearer.

“—would like very much to see your portfolio. I know an associate of mine is looking for fresh new talent” the man offered smugly.

“A diplomatic figure as yourself? I wouldn’t dream of imposing” she flirted and sashayed closer to him, giving the man a better look at her supple cleavage in the Gucci grecian-styled gown. Victor saw the hunger in the bastard’s eyes and—as he anticipated—saw how his hand hesitated at his side, a clear indication he was aching to touch her silky skin. Oh, she planned on using rapture on him to lead him out of the gala, eh? He was savage with smugness as he came up behind them just as the nefarious fuck was about to caress her shoulder in a gesture of wanton intimacy.

She was smiling into the man’s dark almond eyes when she felt someone approach out of her line of sight. “Well, fancy seeing you here, Isabela” the gloating purr of a greeting sent a chill up her spine and caused Nagaraja to pause and look peeved at the tall feral before she tensely turned to stare incredulously at him.

Her look was priceless. She looked taken aback, surprised and rancorous once awareness set in that he had interfered in her hunt and was blowing her cover. The idea that he would catch up to her before her mission was complete never even factored into her considerations. She had grossly underestimated him, and the viciously proud look in his crystalline blue eyes antagonized that fact further. Before her mind tangled up in her contingencies and musings on just how Victor Creed had tracked her down so quickly, her heart skipped when she realized he’d referred to her by her Christian name.

“Victor…what a pleasant surprise” she spoke after a few seconds of silence, in which Nagaraja glared back and forth between them. “It’s very nice to see you again” she spoke smoothly, her cool mask recovered as she turned to face him fully and took a sip from her glass. His nostrils flared before forcing his sneer into a smirk. No matter how cool she played it, he knew he’d rattled her. Could smell it in her scent. His cock hardened at the pungent shift while he took her in with a leering glance. Her long hair was fastened up with a few long tendrils dangling across her collarbones. The teardrop necklace hung between the swell of her cleavage, which was a mouth-watering sight. All in all, she looked like one of the Greek furies incarnate wrapped up in the gold silk that left him itching to tear it off of her.

“And who are you?” Victor glanced over at the haughty bastard who was glaring him down.

“Oh, do forgive me Mr. Nagaraja, this is—”

“Victor Creed” he cut in before dismissively turning his gaze back to her. “Didn’t think we’d run into each other so soon, eh?” his smile was implacably vicious as he ignored further pretense.

“How do you know each other?” Nagaraja interrupted again, his face puckering in sharp disdain.

Jesus you’d think she had his balls in a purse somewhere Victor mused before interjecting for her, “Isabela and I go way back. You might say I discovered her and took her in all sorts of poses” he chuckled and finished his glass, the raunchy implications causing her to press her lips together and her eyes to hone in furiously on his while Nagaraja looked confused .

“Yes” she hissed softly, “Victor was a photographer I worked with. His work is very good. He might not look it, but he’s supposed to be a master in our industry.”

The double entendres of their verbal jabs was lost on the supercilious man, who huffed at Victor before glancing at one of his bodyguards. Victor caught the glance, and couldn’t help but grin. “You keep praising me like that and I’m liable to blush” he mused surreptitiously. “But I digress. I just came by to say hi, and see if Isabela would like me to shoot more loads in her—”

“Oh Victor, you silly puss” she interjected with a deprecating chuckle, her nostrils flaring in a fronting gesture only the two ferals understood, “we can talk business later. Why don’t you go to the bar and accost someone for another drink?” She stepped back into her target’s blind spot so he wouldn’t see her skin shimmer copper before adding, “I promise you a dance if you mind your manners.”

Victor barked a laugh, which caused several heads to turn in their direction, along with the approach of a few stout bodyguards that Nagaraja silently gestured for.

From across the room, the waiter watched the display and simultaneously spoke into his cuff, “Vipress and Nagaraja still present, but there’s another bogey on the scene.”

“Getting visual confirmation” his earpiece responded as the hidden camera in the frame of his glasses took snapshots of the threesome and the bodyguards that were slowly making their way to them through the crowd. “Fallback, repeat, fallback. Bogey identified to be codename Sabertooth. Tagged as target, be advised, Sabertooth is now a target. Fallback, we’re coming in. Over and Out!” Putting his tray down and heading towards the exit, the agent’s chance to escape was thwarted when all hell broke loose in the ballroom. He fell dead to the floor along with dozens of others as a flurry of gunfire erupted in the penthouse ballroom.

---------------

“If by dance you mean the horizontal mambo, then sure” Victor quipped lasciviously. “Been kicking around the idea of taking the fee you stole out on your sweet ass” he growled and stalked towards her when he was suddenly grabbed by the shoulder.

“That’s enough, ‘fella! Now come with us or we’ll carry you out” a big brawny bastard with a swarthy face ordered, to which Victor glanced at with sadistic amusement and tossed his champagne glass aside.

“Well, ‘fella’, if you don’t get your hand off me, you won’t get it back” Victor hissed and deliberately flashed a fang. Balking at him, the bodyguard hauled his arm back to turn Victor towards him, but when the feral mutant didn’t budge, he dug his beefy fingers into his shoulder and tried yanking back again. Snorting, Victor grabbed the guy’s thick wrist, snapped and pulled. The sick crunch of bone and tendon snapping and tearing apart was followed by a gush of blood and a shrill howl of agony as the man crumbled to the ground, cradling the stump of his maimed wrist and bleeding out quickly. Laughing sardonically, Victor glared down and around at all the faces that balked at him, waving the bodyguard’s hand comically at them before tossing it aside. The beefy and bloody extremity landed in a woman’s lap, and a sudden wave of horrified shouts and screams went up as Victor looked over his shoulder at the fuming reptilian feral dressed in gold. She held his gaze with a blistering glare and sneering lips before remembering her objective of the night.

Suddenly, the chorus of screams was heralded in by the multiple clicks of guns and the eruption of raucous gunfire. In the flurry, Victor plowed into a group of bodyguards to his left while Isabela swept like a graceful lizard through a cluster of flunkies before rushing a flurry of blows at them and snatching one of the guns form one of the guard’s holster. She emptied the magazine in 10 seconds, shooting at all the guards that were between her and Nagaraja while Victor was painting the surroundings crimson and gory. Meanwhile, the bystanders that were milling out towards the elevators were boxed in by the sudden appearance of armed tactical operatives that swooped into the chaos. Just as Victor tore through a bodyguard and disemboweled another in one swift motion and Isabela tried to get through the flurry by snapping limbs and doubling over men standing between her and her target, a warning shot from a rifle echoed to the ceiling.

Victor and Isabela halted in their advances and snapped around to look at the entrance of the ballroom.

“NOBODY MOVE!” the shouted order came from the black ops commander, followed by the clicks of dozens M16s aimed at anyone still standing in the blood bath. “Malik Nagaraja, Isabela Montecristo, and Victor Creed: You’re all being detained under the jurisdiction of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforce—!”

“Yah gotta be fucking kidding me!” Victor hollered and prowled back into his fighting stance while Isabela extended her vicious teeth and snarled seemingly in agreement with him. The operatives hesitated and glanced at each other, not sure how to proceed without just blasting everything in sight. Ironically enough, neither of them initiated the first defiant offensive. Scrambling up in the mess of blood and gore, Nagaraja dove for a gun and started shooting wildly in Victor and Isabela’s direction before his bodyguards joined in by shooting away at the special ops team, sending the whole scene back into chaos.

Victor got clipped in the shoulder by a bullet, which forced him to turn from the blow and see Isabela take two bullets to the chest. She wavered on her high heels but barely staggered from the shots. Instead of betraying shock or pain, her expression became murderous as she looked down at the bullet holes that were oozing blood and back at Nagaraja. In a flash, Victor watched as she crouched down and in one deft motion sliced the ankle straps of her heels before leaping right out of them and into the fray, her feral roar nothing he’d ever heard before. Swinging back around, he grinned at the squad commander and started making his way through several men with his extended claws, splashing and spilling them out into puddles of mayhem and carnage that left him bristling with bloodlust.

Isabela felt the bullets push themselves out of her chest just as she ripped a bodyguard’s larynx out and commandeered a dead operative’s M16, her preternatural hair unfurling and whipping around her. Nagaraja was pinned in a corner behind a mess of strewn chairs and an upturned table. He was huddled like a child behind fours bodyguards who were shooting at the black ops team who were in turn getting gunfire from all directions and having to contend with a berserk Sabertooth drunk on gore. How he hadn’t gotten pumped full of lead was beyond her, but she suspended her astonishment long enough to tactfully open fire on a cluster of commandos that had been advancing towards Nagaraja’s posse. Just as Victor plunged his hand like a pitchfork into the black ops leader’s stomach and up into his ribcage to heft him like a lump of hay into the air, he heard the popping of gunfire intensify behind him as opposed to at his sides. Looking over his shoulder, he tossed the gurgling and convulsing man away like a gutted ragdoll in black fatigues before turning to watch Montecristo take shelter behind a kicked over table. The few stragglers left alive were concentrating their gunfire at her, to which she returned in quick spurts before her rifle clicked empty. Amused, he took his time to crouch down and prowl at the half-dozen men with M16’s on all fours, overwhelming them with the intensity of his strikes and the laugh that seemed to bubble just under his growls of effort.

She heard the blood curdling cries and the wayward pop shots just over the gunfire from Nagaraja’s men. She looked over the table’s edge and watched Creed literally pick apart the tactical team. He was actually grinning from ear to ear, and the dilated look of sadistic glee in his eyes made her heart clench. She’d seen that look before, and she couldn’t believe how reminiscent this whole ordeal had suddenly become to her. Shaking her head, she tore her gown for better mobility and pulled her avid gaze away from Creed to get Nagaraja in her crosshairs.

The party was over.

Vaulting with lightning quick agility, Isabela galloped towards the closest wall and leapt onto the vertical surface, making for a stunning sight as she ran the circumference of the room on the walls towards Nagaraja and his goons. All the horrified men could do was balk in terror as she leapt and fell upon them to be torn asunder. She took sadistic license with Nagaraja and sunk her crocodile-like fangs and incisors into his jugular, relishing in his scream before tearing a chunk out of his neck. The man desperately clutched at his throat while she spat the chunk of his flesh to the side and plunged her slender hand into his chest, clutching his heart and crushing it in her grip. The smell of gunpowder residue, blood, fear, death, and something wild was a dizzying mixture that made her take pause before yanking her hand out of the now dead bastard’s chest. She turned to look back on the gratuitous scene behind her just in time to catch Creed’s misted blue gaze. He was covered with blood and gore; his sleeves were dripping from cuff to elbow with it and his face was caked with it. She suddenly snarled at him when the reminder that he’d started this clusterfuck slapped her in the face. He seemed to read her mind because his lips pulled slowly back into a gloating smirk that she wanted to slash and kiss off his face all at the same time.

The last few moments had been a blur for him, but he’d damn well paused in gutting a guy when he’d seen her galloping on the walls like a crafty lizard. Seeing her tear a chunk out of the arab fuck-faced bastard had reminded him of the night at the high rollers suite when he’d stumbled upon her ripping out DeLaughter’s jugular and carotid—it’d been enough to turn him on all over again. The sight of her standing among a heap of bodies and butchery, dress torn and soaked with blood, hands talons, and lips dripping with it; hair loose and eyes glowing wrathfully at him—well, if he thought she looked like one of the greek furies before, she sure as hell looked like one now.

“Reinforcements near arrival! Repeat reinforcements—!” Victor stomped on the intercom that was crackling out of a straggler’s reach before lifting the fucker up by his vest. Just when he was going to deal a death blow to really finish him off, Isabela practically breezed to his side. Snatching the man with a deft precision, she ripped the pins off his belt and hurled him towards the enclosed veranda. Victor’s grunt of surprise was choked down when she grabbed his bloody lapels and yanked him down to the ground and on top of her just as a loud series of pops chimed gratingly after a shattering crash of glass. A small tremor went through the floor before all the fire alarms began to wail overhead. She shifted firmly against him before shoving him off completely and scrambling to her feet. Victor brought her back down hard by yanking her legs out from under her and rolling on top of her. The fucking bitch had used him as a shield! They wrestled for short moments before she flipped him over her head and leapt out of his reach.

Crouching into a predatory prowl across from him, she snarled, “You fucking brute! How dare you sabotage me—!”

“The same feisty cunt I remember” he snapped viciously at her before adding, “I didn’t sabotage anything. As a matter of fact, I was hoping to get you before these fuckers snapped you up. If you’re looking for a saboteur you should really think twice about who you work for, viper!”

“…” the anger faltered in her burning green irises, but the russet ring around her pupil seemed to narrow at him. “Stay out of my way, Creed” she suddenly seethed with composed fury before vaulting on all fours with lightning grace towards the now blasted out veranda windows and doors. The winds and snow were billowing wildly into the gashed structure as she galloped out and up onto the building’s façade. He watched as she fearlessly leapt off the balcony ledge to dive across the expanse between the hotel and the avenue below onto a church roof. Victor could hear the helicopter coming over the howling winds in the distance and decided to pursue her, not keen to letting her have the fucking last word—or saunter off for a second time without ruthless reprisal—and damn prepared to get his way.

Diving off the ledge to gallop after her, he tore and slashed at every surface he landed on to gain purchase and momentum. The snow wasn’t hindering him as much as it seemed to be doing for her, so before long he’d gained on her and could smell the anger and trepidation in her scent. She was trying to get as far as way as fast as possible. Her talons were biting into concrete, glass and steel as she leapt and vaulted across buildings, scaffolds, and even vertical office windows, anything to get the hell away from the goddamned feral hell bent on making her night even more a debacle. She didn’t know where the hell to go, but knew staying in the city was suicide, so she sniffed out the closest trail of wilderness. Before long, her hands and feet went from pounding and grappling man-made structures to cold ice and snow. Her limbs were going numb from the cold, but she was far from ground zero. She couldn’t stop though. Not with Creed giving chase. Gritting against the pain in her muscles and the debilitating cold night, she bared her fangs and pushed herself to gallop through the leafless trees and cold snow before her hands skidded in a large clearing and she slid on her palms in knees over a frozen surface.

This was the sort of hunt Victor was built for. They didn’t call him Sabertooth for nothing. His high metabolism and huge muscle mass made him a wild killing machine and a furnace of heat. The cold barely registered to him when he was giving chase to his prey, but even he was surprised when his claws scraped ice and gouged for ground. Gaining his bearings, he prowled after her on the frozen lake, growling predatorily as she tried to scamper the grueling expanse. She was panting, her breath puffing in the cold as she tried standing on her bare feet. They were now in the middle of the lake, and Victor was taking his time, stalking her cautiously over the ice while she tried to keep as many yards between them as possible.

“Cold bothering you?” Victor mocked gruffly over the gusts of wind. “Nowhere to go now, so be a good bitch and come get punished” he sauntered towards her in a steady pace.

She crouched and snarled at him warningly as she backpedaled as best as she could before her foot skid and she fell hard on her side. The harsh thwick of her fall sent a splintering shift through the frozen surface and Victor braced himself. Isabela tried to grapple onto her feet but as soon as she moved the ice began to snap around her before buckling. Victor watched with startled bemusement when she clawed desperately for purchase before the buckling ice shattered and she went under with a surprised cry.

Isabela yelped more from the shock of falling through ice than the actual biting agony of the ice boxing her in and the freezing water that sucked her under. She held her breath, but the water was so cold it felt like hundreds of needles were stabbing her. No matter how hard she thrashed and clawed, she couldn’t muster enough momentum to barrel back to the surface. The opening in the sheet of ice loomed over her like a cold halo of light within the engulfing freezing darkness.

Her lungs began to burn, but the sensation paled in comparison to the excruciating sting that began to hollow her limbs. Her thrashing began to quiver as the breath went out of her and ice water filled her mouth. Drowning—this is drowning…I’m drowning and dying and—and I can feel it. I’m going to die…finally die…finally…

The halo she stared up at began to grey out and shadow over as her body stilled and the cold seeped into her very marrow. Her lips parted and she suddenly felt utterly weightless. She couldn’t see anymore, nor feel herself rise up.

This is death…finally…
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THANKS FOR READING! PLEASE REVIEW!!

I want to thank Fyrefly for her praise and encouragement. It was her kind words that propelled me to extend the oneshot into an full fledged story. If you haven't read her stories, DO SO ASAP. Her work is the blueprint I write by, so to speak, so I borrowed a cup of inspiration from her work. If you've read her stuff than you might see the chimes I'm referring to.

Also, I took many liberties and blended a lot of realistic events into the fictional universe. This is how I've interpreted the Origins movieverse and the overall Marvelverse, so if something doesn't jive, I apologize. However, I am a fan of the latest marvel movies so I borrowed ideas from many sources. Please don't sue me lol Oh and uber points to whomever can spot fun little trivia I inserted in this chapter! Oh, and as usual, any feedback is welcomed so please let me have it!! lol

Still swooning over Liev Schreiber, so many thanks to him for being my muse, in more ways than one.

-ROGUEFURY