She swung wild and savage and I sidestepped, spinning away, but she followed, throwing her entire body weight into me and we both went down in a tangle of limbs and bone-cracking punches and scratches that hurt like hell.
I came out on top.
Straddled her. Fist clenched. Every nerve in my body screaming at me to hit her, hit her, hit her–
I couldn't do it.
I sat there with my fist shaking in the air and I couldn't do it because she was Lana. She was my sister. My twin. The girl I shared a womb with and every birthday and Christmas and hard year with–
Lana raked her claws across my face. If I hadn't flinched backwards, she would've ripped my face into ribbons and taken out my right eye.
She used my momentum to flip us and then she was on top and I was on the bottom and I tried to push her off but she was stronger, so much stronger and much more experienced at this than I was. Because she had been training for years to be Luna.
I knew she was strong.
I just hadn't expected it to feel like this.
Her fist connected with my left eye and pain exploded white-hot through my skull.
"Stupid bitch."
My nose next. Something crunched.
"Ugly, fucking cunt."
The same eye again and the world went black at the edges.
"Cole is mine," she snarled. "Only mine."
I don't know when I stopped being able to fight back. I just know at some point I was on the ground curled around myself and her boot was slamming into my ribs, my already bruised stomach, my face, over and over.
"I hope it hurts every time he's inside me," she said, between kicks, voice low so only I could hear her. "I hope it kills you slowly."
"That's enough, Lana," Cole growled somewhere behind us, but it only made her hit harder.
The whistle didn't go off.
Instructor Warren stood at the edge of the ring and watched and did not move, because Greymoor didn't coddle weaklings who couldn't fight back or even defend themselves. The idea of Combat was simple and brutal and everyone in this room knew it. When ambushed or attacked by rogues, there would be no pity or whistle-stopping the fight because you were hurt or simply weaker. You were expected to walk out of the fight alive, or at least, die trying.
At some point, it ended.
I didn't pass out from the pain. I'd built enough endurance in the last week because, shockingly, the pain from Lana's beatings was nothing close to the pain I felt when Cole was with someone else.
"Someone, get her out of here," Instructor Warren said.
Regina and Nick rushed forward, but I refused their help. I couldn't look in Regina's face and see the pity or tears in her eyes. I simply couldn't.
My shoulder was broken. My legs were spasming terribly and threatening to stop functioning all together. All I felt was pain. My blood decorated the Training Hall's floors.
But I forced myself to my feet anyway and limped off the stage, biting hard on my tongue to quieten my sobs. I held my chin high, meeting every stare.
I fell and stood again, and continued until I returned to the back of the line.
By then, no one was laughing anymore.
The skin on the back of my neck prickled and when I glanced forward to where the fourth years stood, I noticed the four Lycans had arrived at some point during the fight.
And they were all staring at me.