Killing was all but a game to him. The winners would be the ones doing the slaying and the losers…well, they were the ones that would have to be buried or set on a pyre. As for Ivan, he was already finishing up with the job set out for him by his alpha as she requested the very fruit that was one of her few vices. Apparently, the shipment was less than satisfying last time and upon hearing that, he set out to make it his mission that it would not happen again. The docks were quiet during the early morning hours upon the isle and he casually walked about until he spotted the ship that was known for bringing in the wondrous fruit.

Climbing aboard and ignoring the crew’s attempts to stop him, he matched all the way to the captain’s quarters and bowed flamboyantly. “Hey Capt’n! Remember me?” The death fearing look on the man’s face answered for him and he smiled brightly. “Ah see, so you do remember this pretty mug. Good to know. Now, I’ve heard you’ve been slacking on picking up a certain fruit for us, no?”

“Look, I’m not in charge of…”

Ivan held up his finger and wagged it, his eyes left the captain and look at the motion of his own finger before snapping back into place. ‘Sorry, you were saying that you are an idiot and I don’t care whether or not you were in charge of stocking it? I simply don't care about it getting delivered, and guess what mate? You’re slippin’!” Quick to turn on his heels, the vaewolf marched back up to the deck, grabbed the nearest man by the throat and brought him before his captain. “So, let’s see if we can fix that mess…” he said right before he broke the crewman’s neck and dropped him on that floor. From the corner of his eye, he spotted a basket at the desk and marched over towards it while the fool stood in shock. After checking on the contents, he took the basket and gave him an indifferent look before leaving. “Oh, and you might wanna clean up that mess too, while you’re at it. Bodies stink after a while” Clicking his tongue and waving goodbye, Ivan strolled without a care in the world as he exited the ship.

Or he would have tried had it not been for some of the more foolish sailors that had had enough of his antics and blocked his escape.
“Really?”

It had been an interesting life certainly. There were ups and downs and a good chunk of her life was ignoring the person who stood so firmly by her side. Her honey eyes had never gotten to forgot the first time they met his. The fascination was childlike. Unfortunately, his personality was something to be desired and he took to breaking her almost like a nontraditional toy. Over the course of the first fifty years of their life together he broke down her will to ignore his entire existence.

She stood on the dock with her back against the ship. There was a crew around her ready to fight at a moment’s notice. “I really suggest you back up.” There was a glare from her as she stared at the towering sailors around her. Ayla wasn’t a tall woman nor was she overly muscular. However, she could summon up almost all of her strength, unlike most people. It allowed her to overpower most of her foes and coincidentally it was how Ivan had come to adore her so.

Once she heard the really? Come out of Ivan’s mouth she took a sigh. “You had to take a fucking hard route didn’t ya?” Ayla’s eyes drifted up to the sailors before her quick movements started. She pulled out her throwing daggers and started to put them in their heads, throats, hearts, and any other vital organ. Quick kills were good kills in her opinion but Ivan probably liked it the slow and easy route. Once she was done she licked the blood splatter off the side of her mouth and moved up onto the ship itself.

“Please tell me you are almost done. We have to set this ship adrift after getting all the bodies I just made onto it. I know how much you like to play with fire.” She casually walked around the ship and took an apple out of a barrel. “It’s a loss but they will forgive us.” She bit into it with a crunch as she stared at the bodies. “Did you get the gift?”

Ivan had thought that the men were at least smart enough to back off the way their captain had, but it appeared as though they had to prove their machoness. “I really don’t wanna leave the Capt’n with some more messes”, he explained as they drew closer to him but then he shrugged, “Well, I guess if you all insist, I have time to play.” Setting the basket down, he got into an awkward stance with feet spread wide apart and his hands straight out like knifes before he swung his arms around and made a weird sound. “She-she-sshhaa!” The men looked at one another as if he had lost his damn mind before their anger came back and they continued where they left off.

Soon he heard the most heavenly voice sprout out some vile words his direction, and he turned to see that it was Ayla welcoming him. “Ah, there you are. And no, I didn't not this time. I just broke one of them, I’ll have you know.” The copper headed man smirked goofy at her before some of them went after her. The smile died and a frown overcame his face as he looked darkly upon the rest of them. “You shouldn’t have done that. Before they could grasp what happened, he rushed over and impaled one of the sailor’s chest with his hand, withdrawing it quickly and moved on to the next victim whose throat was viciously beat in. The vessel would soon find itself filled with the dead, with only a handful of them left and the captain, now on the deck, looking dumbfounded than before. “Looks like you’re gonna have a heart attack, old man.”

Spotting Ayla, he retrieved the undamaged basket and checked the fruit. It was still in excellent condition. “It’s all here. Bastard's been stealing from Mama Volkov, and I think once I tell her what he did, she will get twice as much at a fair and economical price so that he can keep his head.” The captain slowly nodded, and Ivan whisked himself over to her and wrapped an arm shamelessly around her waist. “No need to worry, they can clean it up”, he said, referring to the remaining crewmen. “So we are going to leave no, tally ho, me mates and what not!” He waved goodbye before he slipped off the ship and danced around the bodies she laid on the dock. “See, I told you even after all these past years, this was fun. Betcha it beats beating the crap out of the shifters back home, eh?”

Ayla sighed a bit as he gave her that look she was so used to. “Sometimes you do have surprises.” It was then that the men on the ship tried to jump her and Ivan turned serious. Ivan had a serious anger problem when it came to people raising their hands to her when it came to outside the fighting ring. It was one of the many reasons why she did adore him.

She pulled out an axe that had been on her and began to bash in heads with the blunt end and chop off limbs with the sharp. She was fierce and strong with her movements. Most people when they saw her didn’t see the warrior she was but when she was done they would remember. Not these guys… They were dead but the captain would.

She put hands on her hips and stared at the basket. “Steal from us again and it won’t be us coming down here… It will be Celeste and Nemesis.” She stalked up to the man and got in his face. “If you think what we did here was bad… they don’t believe in slow deaths for people like you. Do not let these happen again… Should probably paint your deck red… or you won’t get another crew.” Ivan was now around her and she backed off the captain to look at him.

The blonde gave him a look as they left the dock together. “Is that all you think about? How we met? How you won? I swear you have a one-track mind, Ivan.” There wasn’t a smile and there wasn’t a giggle like most women. He had gotten her through sheer annoyance and while she cared for him she wouldn’t hesitate to backhand him should he push her too far. However, besides the masters of the Volkov family, she was the only one permitted to punish her lover as such. Anyone else who did it would meet her wrath. She was if anything loyal to him.

“I need a new set of knives… I left them in the skulls of the sailors because I couldn’t get them out without them being all nasty.” She sighed a bit and looked up at him with a rather stoic look. “Are they expecting us at home then?”

He was sure that they got the point, rather well. Or at least understood well enough so that they wouldn't have to suffer the point that the other sailors had faced. It was a stupid thing to cross the vaewolves and he couldn’t fathom on what they could have been thinking. Humans were so gullible sometimes. Fortunately, it was a part of his job to be one step ahead of his prey and despite appearances, he was damn good at it. It was why Nemesis stomached him as Celeste’s beta despite his annoying quirks. Perhaps the same could be said as to why Ayla tolerated him so.
As they left the beautiful disaster, Ivan quickly turned to face her and held that goofy smile again. “Of course, You won the battle the first day, but I won the grand prize.” To emphasize his point, he poked the tip of her nose with a finger, much to her dismay. “I knew it from that day that you’d make for an excellent addition to our little family. Instead of wrestling other shifters, you were made into something far more better with a greater purpose. And who’s to thank for it? Meeeee!”

Ivan waved off her words as if they were nothing at all. “Oh, we can get a new set, my treat, doveface.” He leaped onto a nearby street lantern post and swung around it. “Do you remember those beautiful days? When we first met and thought ‘gee, this must be destiny!’.”
As she replied, he thought back to when he was in the Haza Savanna, in a little remote village. Where nothing really happened and it was a snoozefest aside from the fights they held. Shifter against shifter, for pride and glory, and especially money! He hadn’t partaken in such things because well…he only fought to kill things. Ivan didn’t quite grasp the point of “sparring” or anything of the like but seeing how nothing else happened around these parts, they were his own source of entertainment. It was one day, around noonish where another fight occurred that he was in the crowds and spotted…her. Oh how angelic she looked as she was wailing on that stooge of an opponent. How her hair glistened in the sunlight along with the blood that flew up from the stooge. Her honey eyes as they revered in delivering blow after blow.
It was splendid!

As soon as she won, he pushed his way over to her and leaned in behind her. “Hey, can I buy you a drink?” Apparently, it wasn’t the right call for soon he found himself being flipped onto the ground rather painfully. “Hey now, that wasn’t very nice!” Gathering himself back up, he cocked his head to the side and put his hand on her shoulder. “Now, about that drink? We should chat some more. The name’s Ivan”, he said with a smirk that she would later in life be forced to be familiar with for decades.

She rolled her eyes at him but there was a gentle smile. It took a bit to wear her down, and she did mean a bit, but he was her mate. Still, though he did tend to cross the line where it shouldn’t have been crossed. He did that quite often. “I still don’t know when you decided I would make an excellent mate too… you got more persistent after that.”

Her eyes rolled at his nickname for her and she chuckled towards him. She couldn’t just hardline him every chance she got just because she could. Eventually, he wore her down and she stopped being overly cautious with him. Ivan was a special type of person who had people on guard for the most part. If you didn’t know him or weren’t respected by him it was typically best to stay that way.

“You thought this must be destiny… I thought who is this raving lunatic who just jumped into the ring with me for a volunteer sparring.” She chuckled a bit at him.

It was odd that a random male would even think about getting into the sparring ring without wanting to get their ass kicked. When she flipped him the way he was looking up at her was quite pitiful. It was more like he hadn’t been expecting her to do such a thing. The crowd’s roars were now laughter as she held him down in the compromising position.

“A bloody drink? Are you insane?” Ivan flipped her around and now… he was holding her? Who the fuck was this man? Honey eyes watched him before she threw her arm up and connected with the bottom of his chin… hard. “Don’t come into the ring like that… and I’m not interested.”

She left the ring with little to no interest in it anymore.

Ivan laughed, finding humor in her blunt statement which an ordinary person wouldn’t. But he was a special case and didn’t worry so much about the consequences. As much punishment as Ayla could dish out, and there was plenty of it to be talked about, she wouldn’t kill him. Just as surely as her surname was that of his, she was loyal to him. Their relationship was taboo- a sired dominate over their sire, but he found the situation refreshing for a number of reasons.

“Hey, I just wanted to have a drink with you, not get into an ass whooping contest. Besides, it was destiny. And fate would have it that you’d resist me for a long time too. It only made the chase even more fun.”

That much was on his mind even back then, as he recalled being planted on the ground and made to kiss the earth while she wrenched at his arm. While he could hear the crows laughing while in excruciating pain, Ivan hadn’t paid them the slightest of mind as he thought of countering her rather rude greeting. Calling on his strength, the vaewolf soon took back control of his arm and within moments, the tables had turned and he held her in his arms as if they were sharing a romantic moment. Unfortunately, the lady wasn’t in such a mood as he gave her a goofy smile only to find her fist beneath his chin and the two dropped onto the floor. He shook off the daze and watched her walk away. Clearly he was going to have to work harder to win her over, and all for a few glasses of alcohol too. Slowly he lifted himself up and left the ring, with plenty of the members of the crowd laughing and patting him on the back for being a “good sport”. This, of course went largely ignored as he followed her scent outside and soon started trailing her like a lost little puppy.

“So, what’s your name?”, he called out. He called out that phase a few times but when it became evident that she wasn’t going to offer him it, Ivan came up with something. “Oh I know, I’ll call you Bertha! Hey Bertha, how about that drink? I’m still up for it! Also, we can still go to Kurayo! I forgive you for being so rude to me!”

Ayla was a wolf shifter through and through. She led the mightiest of hunts and almost all by herself at that. She was intimidating to the vast majority of the small village they were in. She had arrived with her father when she was just a young thing. They had been from a village that had been wiped out in a raid. Her father had trained her to be the mightiest and she lived with that for all of her life.

Her family crest had been carved into the support pole of her little house. Tapestries of victories and those of her enemies hung on the outside under the porch roof. They were her pride. She would never let someone win while she was here. She would be the victor. They called her the Beast of the Savanna for a good reason. She hung up her gear and heard the yelling.

It was annoying… but it meant that he had tracked her here and that took some skill at least. She changed into a loose dress something she wore when she had to clean her traveling clothes and patch up her sparring uniform. Her blonde hair was down and bloodied from being pulled but she opened the door once he called her Bertha. “It’s Ayla and I’m not interested. Go. Home. You aren’t a shifter from these parts and I don’t even know why you would want me to go to Kurayo.”

She slammed the door in his face and a smaller shifter was coming around the corner with a handful of flowers. “She still ignoring people eh?” He was a fragile looking thing with the bear symbol on his shoulder. “Ayla come on open up,” all he got was a door opened slightly and slammed. A sigh left his lips and he put the flowers on the porch. “Might as well walk away. Many men have tried to get her but no one can beat how stubborn she is.” He walked away and the latch of the door was heard locking finally as she made her point.

Ivan was his name and being persistent was his game. That much the poor lady would soon find out as he followed her all the way home as if he had nothing better to do. In fact, that was exactly the case but he really did want those drinks with her. Dominating females weren’t that rare, but it was the way she was kicking the butts of males twice her size and that ferocious attitude of hers that had stirred his interest. And that was saying something for a man whose attention span was very low.

He marched over to her porch and admired the tapestries she collected, faintly remembering that it was a thing among the fighters. It took awhile but she did respond to him, although she was annoyed by his antics. “Ah, that’s a beautiful name. And to think that I was going to have to call you Bertha until we were on our way to Kurayo. Come on, you know you want to. It will be fun, and then I can turn you into something like me. A Vaewolf!” Ivan either wasn’t getting the hint, or he refused to. Or both really. “The big city’s a-calling for you Ay…la.”

He came over to the door but then was met with the door slamming right at him and he yelped a bit while holding his nose. “Oy! That smarts.” He turned slightly when he heard someone coming from behind him, and the scrawny little thing’s efforts were no better than his. At least when Ivan called, she had her door open all the way. With this fool, she barely opened it before it went right back shut. “I wouldn’t know too much about that….”, he stated as the other man finished off his visit and was leaving. “I’ve been told a few times that I can break anyone.” Papa Volkov had stated that and he was several lifetimes and then some older than Ivan. Yet, he could barely stomach the few times the assassin was allowed to come back to the estate.

When he was sure that she was turning in the for the day, he too left the premises. But by the middle of the night, he was back and had a little tent and campfire set up a few feet away from her house. Whistling to himself as he cooked the meat of a deer he caught over the fire, Ivan looked up at the moon and smiled. It was full and it reminded him of home. Pulling the meat away from the fire, it was a little burnt but still edible and he hungrily chowed down on it. “Hey, Ay…la, you can come out if you are hungry! Got plenty of deer to share!! And some wine from the village!”

A vaewolf? This man was absolutely crazy!

“She’s been a loner since she showed up with her Da years ago. Wouldn’t put too much thought into it. She doesn’t trust anyone.” The man responded to him. “I don’t think anyone really would after seeing your family get wiped out.” There was a growl from inside the house. Ayla didn’t need this new stranger knowing her business and the man scurried off after hearing it.

That was the way of the savanna. People died. People fought.

So she ignored him the rest of the night and crawled into her bed. It was odd because she could smell the fire from her sleep. She woke up and came to the door. Opening it she stared at the tent. “Stop yelling. It is the middle of the night.” She marched off the porch in all her glory. Her hair was a mess from sleeping and her dress was wrinkled in places from how she slept.

She ate silently by his side more as just giving him what he wanted. Once she was done she got up and looked back at him as she stepped up on the porch. “Leave, I’ve given you what you wanted.” She slammed the door and that was it.

It took several more days of Ivan’s shenanigans before she went out while he was sleeping and lit the tent on fire. He was oblivious to it really as she shut the door to her house once more and crawled back into bed like it was nothing at all.