Cesare nodded at the words, another piece of the puzzle falling into place. People believed, they needed faith in something. The Hive was different; they were the cold brutality of fact or maybe they were the only form of life born without a god.

Alexandra rose to her feet, hand caressing over the rifle before lopping the strap around her arm. Her other hand checked the gun at her waist and the swords that rode her hips. She’d shed her school persona like the thin veneer it had always been, rolling her shoulders, she looked every inch the professional soldier she was.

Cesare met her at the gate to the stairs. Alexandra's fingers traced over the sharpened ring he’d given her. Reaching out, Cesare caressed his hand down the golden river of hair. Kissing the top of her head, his words were barely a whisper. “Come back to me, killer. Create the world you want, one corpse at a time.”

Lifting her head, eyes incandescent with untamed insanity, Alexandra's lips stretched in a smile of twisted desire. Shoulders straightened, firming under new resolve, turning, she stalked down the stairs. The crowd went silent as she stepped onto the field, whispers rustling through the students at her war like attire. Disgusted looks centered on the guns she wore, guns were human tricks, a mockery of the true power of a race.

Out of an arch, another queen floated onto the field. Almost identical to the first, spindly arms, dangling legs, chitin armored body with a slightly Asian face and compound eyes. The only real difference was the coloring, a red blush tinted the chitin turning iridescent in the shattered sunlight that broke through the clouds.

Alexandra didn’t walk to the slaughter line, instead readying her rifle diagonally across her body with its barrel down. He’d seen her flow into a shooting stance and get a flash sight in less than a second. Distance was her friend, at least until she melted its wings off.

The stadium went quiet while the killers sized each other up. Wildly different, and yet, cut from the same steel, predators, soldiers, and killers. Each a weapon forged into living engines of lethality. Alexandra had the best chance at understanding the bugs. She killed for fun and food, people, monsters, or bugs, were all meat to her. If anyone could understand the alien mindset of the bugs, it would be her.

Blurring, Alexandra brought the rifle up, silently the modified balls shot across the field. Darting aside, the queen easily outpaced the fire. Alexandra ejected her first magazine, ramming another into the breech. Holding steady, the vampire kept the queen in her sights as it circled, never getting any closer or further away.

The queen varied its speed, darting around the vampire. Slow and fast, the bug moved sidewise with all the grace of a hummingbird, wings tearing the air into a blurred deformity behind it. Coldly calculating, it was in no rush, especially with one queen beheaded in the first match.

Snapping forward, the queen was barely a shadow of movement as it darted for Alexandra. Suddenly, the bug veered at a right angle long before making contact with the vampire. Its black eyes watching the vampire track it with her rifle.

Before it reached its previous distance, it darted back at the vampire. The music of the Bacchanteflayed the nerves as the thing went for the kill. Alexandra rolled out from under the talons of the bug. Coming up on one knee, the rifle locked into place as she let off a volley of paint balls.

Glass balls shattered along the queen’s chitin, acid coating the bugs back. Alexandra tracked the bug as the queen zig zagged across the sky. The pattern broke with a sudden jet straight up into the sky and out of range of the rifle.

Jerking from side to side, the queen’s movements were broken things far from the smooth, alien grace it was known for. Dropping altitude quickly, the queen spiraled frantically, wings desperate thing hungry for air. Unable or unwilling to slow, the abomination hit the ground, tearing a trench behind it.

Getting to its knees, the bug reached over its shoulder for the black slime dripping down its carapace. The katana ran through its body, pinning it to the ground. Spasms racked the queen, head arching, melted wings flapping in agony, limbs shaking as it futilely tried to reach the vampire behind it.

Holding the katana still, Alexandra's wakizashi swept cleanly through the queen’s neck. With a convulsive twitch, the bug went still, sliding down the katana to lay flat on the ground. Alexandra looked down on the bug for a long second before pulling the katana from its back. She swept her blade clean of slime with a rag pulled from her tactical pants, tossing the used piece of fabric onto the corpse.

Picking the rifle up on her way back, her hands checked the action. Between one step and the next, the crowd roared its approval. Cheering, stamping, and whistling, they poured their adulation down on the vampire. She’d played the bug, flensing its grace from its steel hard carapace, taking its fey beauty, thrusting it into the jungle where she ruled supreme. It was a seamless performance of brutality, and the students loved her for it. The chant went up “Mother of Lions! Mother of Lions! Mother of Lions!”, paying homage to a creature that was the embodiment of slaughter.

Uncaring of the cheers, she was as dismissive of the students as a lioness walking through a flock of flapping birds. Alexandra stalked across the grass eyes locked on Cesare. He’d never retaken his seat with the others, too intent to be pulled back. It may have seemed easy, almost choreographed, but every fight hung on the edge of a blade. Only Alexandra’s flawless performance made it seem easy.

She came up the stairs and faced him over the dividing arm. “No one has ever killed a queen like this.” Taking a deep breath, she continued quietly, “My father will want to know.”

“Are you asking permission or telling?” He’d never made any bones about the fact that he hoarded his knowledge. They were his, birthed from the Darwinian carnage of his soul.

Alexandra’s eyes never wavered from his. “My first loyalty is to the Order of the Dragon. I'm honor bound to tell them what I know.” A slight smile creased her lips. “I won’t lie. But Cesare, you haven’t told me much about your methods or the solution in the capsules.”

Alexandra would never put his friendship first. While he wasn’t far down the list, he'd never be first. Alexandra was a soldier, and every soldier knew who owned their loyalty. There could be no doubt when you were putting your life on the line. He respected that she was upfront about it, unwilling to hide where her true loyalties were. But it meant the same thing, she'd never be his, not in the way he was hers.

He hid the black thoughts by ducking his head and opening the gate for her. But he wasn’t fool enough to think she didn’t know what she’d done. Walking past, she kept her face away, already knowing the bitter fact she’d driven home with her words. He neither followed or watched her take her seat.

Anastasia walked into the vampire’s place, her hand lifting his face so she could capture him with molten eyes. “You okay?” She knew better than most how he yearned to have someone in his corner first and foremost. How that driving need pushed him into situations that sent him to the ground, savaged and bleeding.

A pressurized smile crept across his face, bitter and vicious, it was the abused brother of humor. “Of course. I’ve always known where I sit with you and the others.” The hard words stole the breath from the women in the box. The truth ringing through the air with the finality of death.

Shaking his head, Cesare reached out and pulled the akatharton into his arms. She pushed into his body. “Don’t. That doesn’t matter now. Not me, or your mom, or this school. The only thing that matters is winning.” The words were silk and midnight breezes rolling over and through Anastasia, washing away her thoughts, purifying her mind with velvet darkness.

Relaxing into him, she laid her head on his shoulder. “Promise me you’ll be here even if all we do is fight.”

Laughing quietly, he pulled back with a genuine smile. “If you can’t bleed for your friends, who can you bleed for? Only your friends are worth feeding from your own flesh,” Cesare said quietly. “I know what I’m willing to die for. What does it matter if it’s done quick or an inch at a time?”

Kissing him, her words ghosted across his face. “Your better than I deserve.”

Walking down the stairs, Anastasia’s Furies jacket rippled along her body in the low breeze. The crimson flame danced in the low light, faceted stone threads flickering with un-life. A flame clothed in darkness, drawing power from the shades that slithered around its light, evil given bewitching form. It fit the powerful, sensual, darkly alluring girl. She burned those that got close, yet the more she mangled and deformed them, the closer they longed to be.

Anastasia took up position in the middle of the field. Its hovering shape was picked out in iridescent purple, the third queen buzzed out of the arch into the arena. There was nothing beyond the color to make it seem any different from the last two. The differences couldn't be seen by eyes of flesh.

The queens shone to their own kind, beacons of pheromones. Insects weren’t big on sight, but they were masters of smell. That's how they functioned in their colonies, by relying on smell the way people did sight. To Cesare, they were all the same, but to their own kind they were magnificent.

Everyone he’d met was a beast born and enslaved to sight. Chained to their eyes, they discarded their other senses next to its glory. People judged what they would spend money on, who they wanted, who they hated, those they killed and fucked, all on appearances. Our eyes are the true gods of our world.

But if people were creatures of sight, bugs were born to the gods of smell. Just as they could never understand the beauty and obsession people had with sight, Cesare could never understand their world of smell. Its glories and horrors were beyond him, its subtle beauty out of reach of his deficient fleshy nose. But where he might wonder at the difference, the Hivecared only that the realties could never coexist, one must always devour the other.

Anastasia's hands writhed with black tendrils of burning flame. Sinfully beautiful, they were endlessly hungry, drops of corruption pitting the earth with scars. Heat waves rose from her body as she fell into the molten abyss of the Ebon Flame.

Slow and wavering, the Bacchantes screeching song played across the arena. Burrowing into flesh, twisting desire into blood lust, sexual need into sadism. Heat and arousal built in the crowd as they watched abominations measure each other with only the high notes of the Bacchante to mark time. Each note a thrust into the soul, heated need deforming under masterful manipulation.

Suddenly the queen shot forward, a glinting purple shadow across the grass. The other queens had taken their time, carefully weighing their opponents. This one had seen what had happened to them and decided to cut down the akatharton before she could actualize her power.

Hands snapping forward, Anastasia let loose with her befouled flame. Staining the day with its baleful glare, the black ribbon of burning death cut through the air. Rolling in midair, the queen moved out of the way, only to have the ribbon snap at her in a snake’s strike, seeking the bugs chitin.

Giving up the assault, the queen shot into the air with the snapping tendril of obsidian close behind. Anastasia’s hand tracked the queen, a jet of flame chasing the queen through the sky. Glossy black, its voracious hunger devoured the innocence of the world, tainting the sunlit world with hate, gleefully violating the world's purity.

The chasing serpent of black, herded the queen across the air. Anastasia’s other hand seethed with eager black flame. Thrusting forward a bolt of flame shot from it as the queen entered the akathartons kill zone. With its eyes on the chasing stream of flame, the queen was too late to notice the flashing bolt of flame. Flames rolled over the bug, licking across its wings, greedy tongues of malice eating through fragile, translucent wings.

Tumbling through the air, the queen desperately tried to gain control of its descent. Slowing its frantic fall, the bug forgot the stream of black spite chasing behind it. Slamming into it from above, the black flame surrounded the queen powering it to the ground, obscuring the bug in an inferno of glittering malevolence.

A low boom sounded as the queen hit the ground. Anastasia raised her other hand, adding a twin stream of lethal flame into the mass of distilled murder. A ring of ash radiated from the conflagration, grass turning gray and flacking away under ravenous heat waves.

Leaping from the flame, the queen’s body was a charred ruin. Cracked chitin leaked ichor, scorched, staring holes where eyes had been, joints smoking under intense heat. Uncaring, Anastasia redirected the flame with a flick of her hands, engulfing the queen in a holocaust, organs boiled, bursting the exoskeleton of the queen. Vaporizing under the power of the Ebon Flame, the smell of its organs, ichor, and cooking meat washed over the arena.

“Lady of Ruin! Lady of Ruin! Lady of Ruin!” The chant started slow, gaining fervor and volume by the second. Worshipfully awe struck, it was vastly different from the way they'd chanted for Alexandra. They loved Anastasia, but Alexandra only inspired terror.

“If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Kali whispered next to Cesare. She’d crept up to the rail while he'd been focused on Anastasia. “She told me how hard you push her, how demanding the training is. She’s never given that much of herself to anyone. She trust’s you more than anyone.”

Cesare watched the scarlet haired girl walk back, black jacket rippling under the relentless heat that radiated from her. “I push her harder than anyone else because I love her more than anyone. I can’t give her the world, but I can train her on how to take it. To be the strongest, she has to train the hardest. Perfection is the first habit of greatness. I'll burn that virtue into her bones, incise it into her flesh, carve it into her heart and mind.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Out of that crucible of pain, love, and blood, she'll rise above the others and forge her legend.”

Kali eyes never left her daughter. “You walk the edge of hate with her. She loves you, but you're pushing her so hard … I’ve seen others break under that pressure.”

“She’s stronger than you give her credit for,” Cesare said flatly, his belief unwavering in its sureness. “I’ve seen her tortured by pain, crippled by humiliation, face melting off her skull. I’ve looked into her soul and seen her strength; I’ve held that flame close to my heart and felt it cook my flesh. She won't break like cheap steel; she'll take the flame as her own.”

Kali kept her words to herself as Anastasia came up the steps. Cesare understood the immortal. Most people didn’t want their dreams enough to bleed for them. Dreaming was easy, but when it came to putting flesh on the line, they broke. Anastasia wasn’t like that, ruthless, driven, willing to sacrifice anything to get what she wanted, her ambition burned as hotly as the Ebon Flame. She didn’t shy away from hard choices, she embraced them.

Getting to the top, Anastasia didn’t spare a glance for her mother as she walked into Cesare’s arms. The heat from her skin scorched his flesh, turning it red and sunburned where she touched him. Pushing into his body, her soft, delicious curves compressed against him. Sweat prickled along his face and back as the baking heat she radiated enveloped him.

“You were right.” Anastasia's words broke over him like molten heat, liquid steel threaded with raw desire. Her eyes swirled and writhed with barely leashed carnal need. “I didn’t need any tricks.” Wet and hot, Anastasia’s tongue traced his lips, wantonly, greedily, seeking entrance to his mouth.

Opening his mouth, Anastasia’s soft breasts pushed into him, her body grinding into his. Like a serpent of flame, her tongue slowly explored the inside of his mouth, tangling with his own. Burying his hand in her still growing hair, strands of crimson wrapped around his fingers, tightening down in a sheath of want. His other hand ran down the ebony liquid jacket, over the small of her back, taking in the slope of her buttocks, filling with the taut flesh of her ass.

Pleasure barbed with pain spiked through Cesare, distorting and maiming his heart. He loved her as much as he hated her, he sank into the pleasure of the kiss, flesh flinching away from her painful tongue and heated skin. His fingers gripped her ass, bruising the soft flesh as she moaned her desire into his mouth. He wanted to drown her in his blood, to carve his name into her body and sink himself into her wanton heat.

Pushing her hands into his jacket, she thrust them into the back of his slacks, taking his butt into hot fingers. It was as much of a fight as anything, she wanted him but on her terms. She was a living black flame, uncontainable, uncontrollable, as terrible as she was beautiful. Like a flame, she couldn't be owned, not by him, or anyone else. Bred to be the owner of others, she wanted to possess him as desperately as he wanted to own her.

Breaking away from her lips, her moved his hands up to her rounded hips, fitting her against his hardness as he faced the furnace of her eyes. “All I needed was you.” Her tongued peeked out, sensuously running across his lips.

His fingers flexed as they dug into full hips. “You won because you kept your cool, planned ahead, and would do anything to win. You pushed the bug into your firing lane, you kept the pressure on it, so it never noticed the coming danger. This was your fight from beginning to end.”

Her lips twisted in a smile as a subtle tension left her eyes. Owing someone changed a person, it made you less, a slave to a debt you couldn't pay back. It was poison, turning a relationship into a thing of commerce instead of love. Friendship's more than money or time, it's a finer thing than greedy fingers and grasping needs. Those you love should expect your best, not wonder if you’re going to come collect.

Her hand caressed suggestively up his side. “I may not need you, but I want you.”

Cesare gently disengaged from her as her words tore through him. Turning away from her suddenly sad eyes, he started down the stairs. Her want was bounded by barriers he could never pass. He’d never be as important as her dream of power; never be able to get over the wall that prevented her from being his. He'd bleed and die for her, but she'd never, could never, be anything more than temporary.

His friendships were illusions, here for a few minutes, disappearing like the hopes they were. It wasn’t their fault. He wanted things they didn’t, demanded things they couldn’t give. His unwillingness to take what they offered, to accept that you couldn’t force people to love, was the root of the strangler vine that wrapped around his throat. They could never be what he wanted, and he couldn’t forgive them for it.