“We can’t run,” Russel told her. “They’ll just hunt us down like animals and slaughter us. Fighting them is no good, obviously. We both know how that is going to go down.”

“I hear a lot of negativity and not a whole lot of positivity and problem-solving,” Lola shouted, She swiped her blade out in an arc when Ray got a bit too close for comfort. The shorter, and much hairier, wolf jumped back out of the way and started laughing at her. The dark, cold laugh filled Lola’s belly with a butterfly sensation she didn’t like at all.

Things only got worse from there.

As soon as she brought her blade back closer to her body, the four brothers attacked in earnest. Russel jumped in front of her while pushing her backward at the same time, sending her tumbling away over the ground. It hurt like hell. Pebbles and bigger rocks dug into her back, arms, and legs, but when she stopped rolling, she immediately jumped back to her feet. The pain was there, sullen aches and stinging cuts in quite a few spots, but they were insignificant against the much bigger, emotional onslaught ripping through her.

“Russel!” she screamed.

Dread knotted up her stomach when she saw Russel being set upon by all four brothers at the same time. They literally tore into him, ripping and slashing and biting at him. Blood flew through the air. Howls erupted from throats.

Russel put up an intense, unforgiving fight despite the fact that it was a four on one battle. Years of bullying and torment kept running through his head and now, all those past rages and anger came rushing back in to mix with the anger and rage of them trying to kill Lola. It gave him a near berserker-level of strength that was as beautiful to watch as it was simply horrifying. Russel lashed out several times, his claws flashing. He raked them over the face of one brother and jammed them into the lower torso of another brother. At the same time, he took hits to his unguarded back and sides. The other two brothers, at this point Lola had no idea who was who anymore, slashed at Russel. One scratched deep, bloody furrows into his back, separating skin and muscle like a hot knife through butter. The other one darted behind Russel and severed the hamstrings of both his legs.

As soon as he did, Russel went down. His legs simply couldn’t hold the weight anymore and all four brothers toppled on top of him, continuing to rip and bite him to pieces.

“No!” Lola shouted, tears filling her vision. She didn’t hesitate at all in what she did next. All that fear she had bubbling underneath the surface was ruthlessly slaughtered by her need to protect Russel. To stop him from being hurt or killed by his brothers. As a human, she knew she stood little chance of actually doing any good, but she wouldn't allow herself to stand by and watch him be killed either. She had to do something.

Russel wasn’t trying to fight back anymore. They were too strong and he was already too weak from the massive blood loss and wounds he suffered. Even now, he could feel his regenerative abilities working overtime to fix his battered body but he was getting weaker and weaker. He tried to throw his brothers off him but that was an utterly useless endeavor. He could barely budge them.

Then he heard Lola shout something and could tell she was coming to try and save him.

“St-stay b-ba…” He tried to get the words out but they were too low to hear. He coughed out a glob of blood onto the ground, took in a shuddering breath, and tried to tell her to stay back again but this time, he couldn’t get any words out at all.

“Look at this here,” Reid said. Russel detected excitement and eagerness in his brother’s voice. “Russel’s little pet wants to have some fun with us too. Let’s be obliging gents, shall we?”

One by one, they got off him. Rutger had him by the throat and as he got off him, he threw Russel to the ground. He turned on his back and looked up at the sky. The dreary, gray sky that always seemed to hover over his homeland.

What do I do? he asked himself, knowing his tired, pain-addled brain pretty much had nothing left to cough up. Nothing except for a last-minute, all-or-nothing, either-die-or-survive, trump card. One he never thought he would have to play.

Fuck it, his mind whispered back. It’s either use it or die. It’s that simple, bub.

He gritted his teeth, grinding them together painfully. Slowly, inch by painstaking inch, he got to his elbows. Then he fought and struggled his way to his feet. When he did, his blurry, lightheaded mind showed him his brothers getting dangerously close to Lola.

“Stop!” he screamed out as loudly as he could.

All four brothers turned to look at him, snarls and growls erupting out of them.

“I call on the Blood Challenge!” he yelled. “My right as a son of Carter Ismael Polver, King of the Oclan Werewolf Kingdom, demands that I be heard and my challenge accepted!”