"Come on then, try and seduce me!"

Nikolai’s voice carried through the hollow construction site, bouncing between concrete pillars, stacked steel beams and hanging sheets of torn plastic.

As if shocked by his stupidity, the woman ahead turned her head slightly but kept her face hidden behind her bangs. He could only see her dark hair, pale skin, and the stretched smile hidden beneath the shadow.

That irritated him more than the trap itself.

He hated that his body still reacted to her incomplete face and the shape of her body, even though his mind knew better. The curve of her hips, the long legs, and sway reminded him too much of the women he loved, touched and held in bed.

Everything about her was designed to gather his attention.

And disgustingly, it worked all too well.

Nikolai pushed from the ground, crossing ten metres in a breath as rainwater burst beneath his boots. His claws carved through the air toward her shoulder, aiming to tear through muscle and pin her against the pillar.

The woman slipped backwards with a smooth movement.

She leaned back, avoiding his claws by a finger’s width as they tore through a plastic sheet behind her. The material shredded apart, exposing the open frame of the unfinished dock warehouse.

A soft laugh came from her throat, and something hit him from the left.

The impact sank into his ribs and drove him sideways through a stack of wooden pallets. Splinters exploded around him as his back struck a concrete pillar hard enough to crack its surface.

A painful discomfort spreading from the blow.

Nikolai twisted before his body finished falling. A second figure dropped from above, heel driving toward his skull. He rolled his shoulder, letting the blow smash into the ground beside him.

The concrete fractured under her foot.

’What a fast blow!’

He caught her ankle and pulled.

The woman barely made a sound as he dragged her down. Her body folded in the air with unnatural flexibility, one hand striking his wrist while her other clawed toward his eyes.

Nikolai jerked his head aside as her sharp nails grazed his cheek.

He spat on the floor as warm blood dripped down his jaw.

He drove his knee into her stomach. The blow should have folded her in half, yet her abdomen tightened like layered steel. She flew back several metres, struck a pillar, then landed lightly on all fours.

Another one.

The first woman stepped from behind the broken plastic, tilting her head as the second rose near the pillar. Their faces remained hidden beneath thick, dark hair. Their bodies were similar enough to confuse the eye at a glance, though Nikolai noticed the differences now.

One carried the heavy, sensual weight of the bait.

The other had a tighter, livelier rhythm.

His lips peeled back.

"So there really are two."

Neither of the bitches answered him, instead darting in an arc around him.

The left one approached first.

She closed the distance with a burst of speed that almost matched his own. Around seventy percent, maybe more, during the first step. Enough to kill a normal elder. Enough to slaughter a hound before he knew danger had arrived.

Nikolai blocked her fist with his forearm.

’Shit...!’

Even his bones creaked from the explosion of power.

’Where does all that force come from... Her huge ass?’

The second clone attacked from below, sliding across the wet concrete with claws aimed at his thigh. Nikolai stomped down, trying to crush her wrist, yet she twisted beneath him and raked her nails across his calf.

A spray of blood coated the wall as he hissed.

"Bitch!"

Their teamwork was crude, though their bodies compensated with force and speed. They attacked from blind angles, forcing his attention to split. One aimed for his face. The other aimed for the joints and tendons, and affected his balance.

’They hit quite hard.’

Unlike his wives, who lacked the strength to harm him but had enough skill to overwhelm him, these girls had the power and speed but not the technique.

Nikolai spat blood onto the concrete and ducked beneath a follow-up swing. His elbow drove into the first woman’s ribs. Something cracked, faint and wet. He caught her throat, lifted her from the ground, then smashed her through a half-built wall.

Concrete dust burst outward.

Before he could finish her, the second woman’s knee slammed into his stomach.

Air escaped his lungs as he gasped.

Her fingers hooked the strap of his harness before dragging him forward into a brutal headbutt. The strike split his brow and sent blood across his eye, but a dull crack sounded from her skull.

He grabbed her face.

For the first time, his fingers sank beneath the curtain of hair and touched skin. It felt smooth, warm and artificial, like living flesh stretched over something unfinished.

She tried to pull away.

He slammed her head into the pillar.

Once.

Twice.

The third impact dented the concrete and broke part of her cheek. Dark fluid dribbled down her jaw, thicker than blood, almost black beneath the red sky.

"Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Nikolai staggered back as the clone began to shriek; it was earpiercingly high as the first woman in the rubble dragged herself out and joined in.

"Kyaaaaaaaaaa!"

’What the hell...?’

Both voices overlapped, shaking the plastic sheets and scattering dust from the steel beams overhead. Nikolai stepped back on instinct, his claws raised, his body lowering into a defensive stance he hadn’t needed for most enemies.

The injured woman began to change.

Gold light spread from the break in her cheek, crawling across her skin like molten veins. Her bones snapped and stretched. Her fingers lengthened into claws. Pale flesh split as golden fur pushed through, dense and radiant beneath the wet air.

Her shoulders widened, spine arching as her body rose taller.

She no longer resembled the cute and lovely maiden, but a massive, muscular werewolf.

Nikolai couldn’t help but swallow the blood in his mouth, tasting a warm, slightly sweet flavour as he stared at the woman.

The golden radiance resembled the Fenrir’s blood art...

It was clearly the form he’d seen Dimitri take when fighting his dad in the training room, unlike females, who just gained slight wolf characteristics, men completely transformed... but this mutant could transform.

His stomach twisted.

"You filthy bastard..."

Doctor Franz’s name burned through his mind; there was no need for proof. He could imagine the disgusting smirk on his face as he made this. Only that kind of man would create something so obscene and call it research.

The second woman shrieked next.

Her body bent backwards, hair whipping across her hidden face as dark red flames burst from her chest and shoulders. The fire spread across her arms, bright and hungry, yet her skin didn’t burn away. It wrapped her like a living dress, crawling up her neck and licking along her fingers.

This time... it was another power he remembered.

The Elemental powers of the Tepes clan.

Heat rolled across the construction site.

Rain turned to steam around her feet.

Nikolai stared at them both, anger sinking deeper than lust, deeper than disgust. It settled into the place where his instincts lived.

The golden wolf lunged at him first, and he met her head-on.

Their bodies collided with a sound like two cars crashing. Nikolai’s boots carved trenches through wet concrete dust as he held his ground. Her claws tore across his chest, opening shallow lines through his jacket and skin. He answered with a punch to her snout, snapping her head sideways.

’She recovers too fucking fast!’

The flaming clone came from behind, palms forward. Fire compressed between her fingers, then burst across his back. Nikolai grunted as the heat bit through fabric and flesh. His body could endure flame, though the stolen power carried a familiar venomous refinement that made it harder to ignore.

He spun and kicked her away.

The golden wolf struck his exposed side.

Her claws slipped between ribs and tore a chunk as he backhanded her face.

"Shit..."

Nikolai could feel the familiar ache from the black fluid and veins that seeped into his body, though thanks to Zara, he didn’t lose control... the effectiveness of his regeneration dropped slightly.

He seized her wrist before she pulled free and twisted hard enough to crack her bone.

The bitch howled, then bit into his shoulder with savage force.

Her fangs sank deep.

Nikolai drove his forehead into hers.

The blow forced her jaws open.

He tore himself free, blood spilling down his arm, then hammered his fist into her throat. She staggered, choking, while the flaming clone swept one arm across the air.

A crescent of fire tore toward him.

Nikolai ducked beneath it, feeling heat shave across his hair, and charged. The flaming woman stepped back, faster than before, flames pulsing at her heels. He nearly reached her when the golden wolf slammed into him from the side again.

Together, they matched him.

That was the ugly truth.

In human form, without releasing everything, he couldn’t cleanly dominate them.

Their individual power remained lower, yet together they filled each other’s gaps. The wolf pressed his body. The flame punished every opening. Each time he forced one back, the other took the space.

’They were built for me.’

His right hand closed around a loose steel rod jutting from the broken wall. He ripped it free, spun it once, and drove it into the golden wolf’s thigh.

She screamed.

The sound shook the warehouse frame.

Nikolai pushed forward, using the rod like a stake to pin her leg to the concrete. She clawed at his arm, golden fur bristling, mouth snapping toward his face. He ignored the cuts and leaned in harder, forcing her down.

All to force the flaming clone to move.

And that she did.

Nikolai released the rod and twisted aside as a lance of fire punched through the space where his head had been. It struck the pillar behind him and melted a fist-sized hole through reinforced concrete.

"That’s dangerous."

He grabbed the pinned wolf by the back of the neck and threw her into the path of the next burst of fire.

What amused him was that the flame hit her shoulder and she began to howl, rolling on the floor as she whimpered in pain.

Nikolai moved before they recovered. He drove his elbow into the flaming clone’s sternum, feeling something buckle beneath the heat. She tried to rake fire across his face, but he caught her wrist and crushed down until the bones collapsed.

"Kyaaaaah!"

While screaming, she burned his flesh, the skin on his palm blistering in agony as he continued squeezing tightly.

The clone shrieked, eyes barely visible behind her hair as the fire brightened. For one brief second, he saw enough of her face to hate it. Beautiful. Wrong. A loose arrangement of borrowed features placed together without soul.

He kicked her knee sideways.

The joint snapped, and she dropped to the floor.

"Phew..."

With the flaming clone down, the golden werewolf limped towards him slowly as she tore the steel rod free from her thigh and held it like a club.

"You still wanna go?"