I need to go to the next level, Lola thought to herself. But what would piss off this woman she didn’t even know enough to make her react in a blind rage? It wasn’t too hard to make the logic jump on that one.

Drake.

Nora had crossed into an enemy nation’s country and directly into their stronghold just to kill someone on that crazy asshole’s command. She must have some incredible devotion to the guy to do something like that.

Devotion or…

Love.

Lola was pretty sure it was the latter. It wasn’t all that hard to spot.

“Drake too much of a coward to come kill me himself? He had to send his little bitch?” Lola let out a long, insulting laugh. “I mean, really? He has to do all this just to kill one human girl. It’s ridiculous. And so…”

She paused and locked eyes with Nora.

“Pathetic,” she finished, laughing again. It hurt to laugh but she really wanted to keep doing it. Judging by Nora’s reaction, it was starting to work.

“Shut up!” she screamed, her voice so high and loud, Lola heard the guards take note.

The faint sounds of armored boots hitting stone suddenly stopped for a few seconds, and then picked up again. There were other, almost inaudible words, but the important part was, they sounded like they were getting closer. Which meant, Lola was thrilled to realize, the guards were coming toward the little park.

Well, that works too, Lola thought to herself. She hadn’t screamed herself, thinking that would only force Nora’s hand and make her kill her a lot faster. Getting the psycho she-wolf to scream herself, however, worked nicely too.

“Go ahead,” Lola taunted. “Scream a bit louder. I don’t think the guards heard you the first time.”

Nora’s eyes flashed.

“You stupid bitch,” she shouted, slowly stepping toward Lola. Lola, in turn, took several steps backward. “I can hear those fools. They’re still too far away. By the time they get here, you’ll be in pieces.”

Damnit, Lola thought to herself. She was probably right about that. Once Nora stopped messing with her, she was done for.

Maybe she could trick her again. Stall her some more.

She was about to open her mouth when the worst possible thing happened. Nora got serious.

“No more games, little bunny,” she said, her voice losing all traces of mockery and insult. More of her body transformed and in seconds, she looked like a hybrid between a human woman and a wolf. She barked out a roar and then darted right at Lola.

For the first few minutes, Lola actually held her own. Well, to a degree anyway. She couldn't really hit back, not with one broken arm and another one slashed open in several spots, but she could at least dodge out of the way. That weird, icy sensation really proved invaluable with this as it seemed to alert her to imminent danger moments before it actually happened. But even with that advantage, ultimately, her body had been pushed too far past its exhaustion point. She was breathing harder. Her moves got slower. She stumbled and tripped a lot when her legs started to burn with the effort to keep her out of Nora’s reach.

“Fucking done now, bitch,” Nora spewed. She bounded across the lawn at Lola on all fours, yet still managing to look both graceful and deadly at the same time.

Lola tried to get out of the way but her body wouldn’t respond to her. Nora crashed into her with all the force of a rampaging sasquatch. She felt her breath explode out of her. The cracked ribs screamed at her. Her broken arm flared up as well. Added to all that was another bone that snapped, this one in one of her legs. She wasn’t even sure which bone but she could definitely tell it was broken.