There was a side road taken on that long path to final destination. She wore those dog tags like talismans. Washed clean of blood. One could only stand the stink and stick of blood for so long. After a fresh kill was one thing, hours later not preferred by the Trickster.

Brothers in Arms. The thought amused her when they took vows of honor and yet would betray their own. The thought disgusted her. She had no sympathy for them, their spawn, the mothers that were likely harlots spreading legs to breed such sorry excuses of life and flesh.

The warehouse was unlocked, one of the Special Ops boys was still tied down and gagged. He bled but not enough to kill. Merely a slow warning.

Grin cutting slips she straddled his lap, pulling the dog tag of his best friend from her throat. Waved it like a pendulum before his eyes.

"Will you talk now or do I need to get the answers myself?"

The gag was pulled down from his mouth. Raw throat managed to spit out the words.

"Fvck you, you b*tch."

"Mm... I cannot say I'm on the menu."

Dismissive, a barking bit of laughter.

Very well. He had made his choice.

The gag restuffed in his mouth. Hands placed on the sides of his head as the woman used those talents that would drain and devour. Give her the answers she wanted. The knowledge she needed to complete that list of victims to be executed.

Never betray. It should be rule number one.

The gag could do nothing to suppress the screams of pain, of horror.

Moments later nothing more then a shriveled up, empty shell of a man.

"Mm. The outside reflects the inside now."

The gas tank poured over body. Doused walls.

There was a burn in her eyes. No lighter necessary to set the world on fire when it came to Brilyah.

The warehouse exploded into a flame as she walked away from it, slinging a new pair of dog tags around her neck.

Mental checklist marked, it was time to find old hunting buddies.

It felt so damn good to be back...

Once upon a time...

Was that not how the fairytales always began? Once upon a time?

Once upon a time there was a girl, a young girl with beautiful gold hair and rich green-gold eyes that resembled sunlight on newborn leaves of green. A girl that was wiry and leggy as a wild filly. Who always smiled and laughed, who believed the story always ended with happily ever after

The Coyote stood before the sink, rubbing the blood from her hands as chartreuse eyes locked on her reflection in the mirror. Jaw working as her mind worked overtime. This return from Rhy'din was becoming to be a reminder of past. A converging of old and new.

Sigh exhaled, fingers gripping on the porcelain of sink. Head bowed and shoulders rolling. Tested nerve endings long since dead, felt the silver plates there. Knew how they marked a path against and over the black tribal. Fire imprint was no longer scars.

Once upon a time this little girl loved a boy. Loved him with a heart that believed it could never break. Never shatter. That death was just transcendence. Believed him when he told her he loved her. Believed him to the day she caught him rutting in sheets with her sister. She couldn't find the heart or strength to hate him... but oh her sister... her sister she could hate.

Fingers traced a line at hip. Imprint. Daring touch. No possession. No one to bind her. Dillon had learned that well. They had been through everything together. Hell and Back. Through machete wielding derby girls and Caritas... through the Seths and Steele.

Touch lifted. Traced a line that became a rune on mirror. Watched as the glass bubbled, contorted. Knight's Errant couldn't burn her when she was made of fire.

Once upon a time Brilyah had a sister. A sister of fire and deceit. Ill matched to Brilyah's own fire. Keep them contained. Keep them calm. Lest they become wildfire. Sisters meant as Valkyries. A sister that would die by kinblood. Never once would Brilyah believe that betrayal should go without payment. Without price. Without a pound of flesh. Brilyah would collect.

Tricky. Dillon. Alain. Fio of the many faces and names.

Past falling into present.

Glance over shoulder. Took in the arsenal. The artillery. Her weapons. Dressing again finding the broken in breeches, the thin black shirt worn loose with plunging neckline.

Jacket slung on to hide the shoulder holster. Other weapons chosen. Finally the gloves slipped on. Always the gloves. Ever since the project, Brilyah had been changed. Still she had found the off-switch. Lucky her that she learned to keep her entire body from doing what her hands did. True weapons.

Once upon a time a little girl became a woman-child introduced to rape and carnage. Introduced to pain, knowing of torture that could break a spirit. Break it down to a solitaire fiber only to be... recreated. Once upon a time this little girl lost her innocence and her heart and find only hatred and death to keep her sane when the nightmares came again. Still so beautiful with gold mane and green-gold eyes... but those eyes were long since to know the turn of spring

Gold had become buckskin but give the woman a light and perhaps it would gleam again. Green-gold aged into wary chartreuse. A work of jaw as she walked out into the night to a town where her past conflicted and bonded with her present.

Once upon a time someone had told Brilyah it was easier to weild a blade then a man's heart. That the weight of a blade was lighter then the weight of a man's heart in her hands.

To this day she found the best way to hold a man's heart was when it had been carved out of his chest by a sharp serrated knife.

It was only fair...


Brilyah would not dare to hold in her hands or honor a man's affection of heart born love if she would never trust any to offer her the same. Allow them to get that close.

A body was one thing. The heart... another.

Once upon a time... Brilyah had loved... and a times... the Coyote still would mourn for that little girl lost

'We aren't in the business of assassins'
'I am more then this. Do not pigeonhole me ever. Men have died for less

Her body stretched, feeling the silver plates cling and clutch. Pierced near to soul. The Coyote had a bit of madness, a slick bit of sanity fading but she was not a solitaire facet.

The gloves were fixed on her hands as she smirked down to them idly, the first position taken, chosen. Held. Strange that the Norse and Native American bred and born Coyote would find yoga as a bit of center. Balance.

In the morning hours, hair braided back she was a glistening creature of sun mate worship.Summer solstice, Desert Heat. Coyote wildfire. In the rise burn of dawn she was all of these things.

A side of her not exposed. This calm. This center. Only Dillon saw this side of the Coyote.

The quiet. The stillness.

The smoldering burn that she resonated with.

Loose black yoga pants, the sports bra exposed those scars that decorated her flesh as much as the tattoos. Scars that scrawled like pieces of a puzzle. Jigsaw work replaced.

Black Tribal. Dark Fire and Raven silver shine.

Salutation to the sun. Chartreuse closed.

There was more then one level. More then one facet.

She banished the memory of the black ops from her mind. The intelligence operations she so easily had contrived. Get in and get out.

Brilyah was a pro.

Codename: Karma.

All things happen for a reason.

Fio of the many faces. The Baron. The Knife.

Past and present twisting and merging like summer heat crawling into the territory of autumn praise.

A lick of lips.

Snap the marrow, lick it clean. Search for the core that was molten burn. Quicksand soul.

That damnable pup, snarling over the nature of wolves and coyotes.

No pet. No treat. Killer. Hunter. Guardian. Amazon. Valkyrie. Villian. Coyote. Trickster. Loki's kin. Raven mother's spawn.

Death Valley Queen.

In the end there was more then this. So many secrets. So many stories left untold.

Greeting the dawn the woman found not a need for the Hunt but the need to fit a resting place of friends and foes, adversaries and kinship.

Nature versus nurture. The million dollar question. With a Coyote there was no nuture. These were days after finding her sister rutting in the sheets with her love, days after the death of sister by blood kin.

There was so much blood. Battlefiled soaked. Years later this visual to a Coyote would be a Glory Road. Today it left a violent twist in her stomach.

Groans and cries would ring in the future as bliss and pleasure to a Coyote. To the young Brilyah it was anguish. Torment.

"Brilyah. Please. I beg of you."

She was dizzy with the sensation. The smell. The scene. She collapsed before the soldier, looking above his chest for that which rested below was a ruined mess.

"Ask what you wish."
"Send me to Valhalla."

Green-gold eyes glistened. Never would she shed a tear. In the eyes fo a warrior tears were a weakness. The dagger was raised high above her head. Descent to end a life. Energy rippled within and without. Spilled from her palms and crawled up her arms.

A piece of the soldier would remain in her. Forever. She took a little each day. Her Gift. Her Curse.

"May you find a fine war where you go."

"I can take this pain from you, Brilyah..."

Her eyes lifted, finding the presence of a pale man with silver shock white of hair. He was not of the age to be a gray man.

"Let me be your Salvation." With no where else to go, she would rise and follow.



Valhalla. More like Hell. It had been decades since those blessings had passed her lips. Come the visit of the self-proclaimed 'Savior' it all had gone to hell in a hand basket.

Brilyah would be the Coyote carrying that basket.

Broken. Beaten. Abused in so many ways. One had to be broken down in order to be reconstructed.

Blood altered and those powers manifested. Her hands would not just take small measures now but handfuls.

It would change her. Mark her. Imprint her and Alter her.

Absorption of soul, genes, energy patterns by a mere touch would make her a Reckoning. A wild Reaper.

Her mind perhaps had snapped.

The Fire kept her tempered. The Coyote kept her wild. Balance was a dangerous game.

Thin lines ever drawn and they were blood red.

A long time ago. Far Far Away. The Frozen Lands once called home. She stood silent as she listened into her lessons. The honing of the Blade. The preparation of one meant to be Valkyrie.

Her head rose as she held on to that blade. Watching over a land stained by war. Some were meant for death. Others though had a will to live.

In the worst wars she found a boy, not even a man. Her heart went to him as her fingers smoothed his hair from his brow as she removed his helmet.

"Am I dying."
"Perhaps."
"I do not wish to die."
"You were a fierce warrior, you should be proud."

A faint smile touched her lips. Woman-child Brilyah was. Gave him water to slack his thirst.

"Will you stay with me till the time comes?"
"I will."

And there she would sit, curled at his side as she told him stories, fables of her people. A warrior of a clan that was her own clan's enemy... but Valhalla did not segregate the Vikings. The Warriors.

Something of a will. The boy was determined. He lived through the night. Through the worst of it. He had kissed her before he left. Before his Tribe came for him.

They had caught her, meaning to take her as a prize. Had touched her. Till the saved warrior spoke a protest. The Clan Leader's son she learned.

He left her there on the barren, bloody lands. Saving her life as a slave to his people in exchange for the life she had saved in him.

There were many great years meant for him. He would become a Ruler. She saw it in his. His soul when he spoke.

She never saw him again...

Shuddering she woke from the vision, the memory of a past she kept locked away. Weak, soft hearted girl that she considered nothing more then an illusion. Something made up.

Surely the woman child of her past was not the same women as the one Brilyah had become.

Or so she would think.

There were those becoming drawn to her. Moon Runner, Pretty Kitty, Little Vixen... and Shades.

Shades.

She stirred in bed. Felt a tangle of limbs. Secure protection of arms. Iron grip. She would have to struggle to escape his hold.

Something in her spirit whispered that she didn't want to struggle. Didn't want to leave.

She frowned in the night, staring at the ceiling. The girl of her past was supposed to be long gone. Spirit dead and yet... she felt that naive girl-child was coming back to life in her soul.

Brilyah blamed him for it all.

Even with blame, with accusations on her tongue... she could not help but think of how she saw the mountains in his eyes and thought of Valhalla.

(Muse- Undisclosed Desires http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPu-uzrXM-U Lyrics and the motivation of the melody for Briar's lil 'sword dance)


I know you've suffered,
But I don't want you to hide,
It's cold and loveless,
I won't let you be denied

Soothing,
I'll make you feel pure,
Trust me,
You can be sure

Unexpected. A pack found. Dillon. Shades. Pretty Kitty. Moon Runner. Black Cat. Red. Perhaps it would only expand and grow. Till the shifters and the weres were claimed like violence and sin in her spirit and her body.

The Moon Runner had given herself over. Submitted. Offered the throat for the Coyote's teeth to graze and slide into. Taking blood, that coppery taste to claim her as beneath the Coyote,and Brilyah as Alpha.

I want to reconcile the violence in your heart
I want to recognize your beauty's not just a mask,
I want to exorcise the demons from your past,
I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

You trick your lovers,
That you're wicked and divine,
You may be a sinner,
But your innocence is mine

Violence and Sex. Food and Survival had ever kept her drive. Claiming Red as her own as much as she claimed Shades. Godric and Go. Hers. A close of eyes as the meditation of her spirit was spilling out a basking rush of heat as the blade was snatched up. Her body moved a rhythm as if there was a melody, a demented lyric and sensual sway of soun that she would work through.

Sword Dance. Stripped down till only Black fire and The metal plates claimed flesh. Scattered light from the moon as that empty circle in the forest became her place. The old battlesword weighed in her hand. Antiquity wrought with the old memories. Nostalgia.

Please me,
Show me how it's done,
Tease me,
You are the one

I want to reconcile the violence in your heart,
I want to recognize your beauty's not just a mask,
I want to exorcise the demons from your past,
I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

Her body was exquisite. Sensual and sinuous. Sinew slick with sweat as her movements found a new dance. Smoothing through the sword motions. It had been long since she held the Valkyrie blade. Memories invested.

When she closed her eyes she saw mountains.

They never have left from the lids of her eyes since finding Shades. He wouldn't know. Couldn't know. Just like the unspoken between her and the Law. If there was talk of love it was summed up to hallucination or possession.

Speak of love and you give the Coyote or the Law an excuse for Exorcism attempts or worse. Execution.

Please me,
Show me how it's done,
Trust me,
You can be sure

I want to reconcile the violence in your heart,
I want to recognize your beauty's not just a mask,
I want to exorcise the demons from your past,
I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

The motions through with for the old Norsk trial and tribulation of sword dance the blade was sank in the ground. Imbedded as she stretched, Closed her eyes, head tipped back and basked in the moon glow that licked the sun heat of her shine.

Lips parted and all that emotion so long kept silent and would remain locked away was voiced into something uncontrolled. Untamed.

The Coyote howl was haunting. Nerve rattling. Soul devouring as a ghost chant.

A moment where the Cherokee bit of soul and the Norsk would understand. Converge. Coveted corruption of the Coyote's soul and a heart unwilling to be shown.

Up to her elbows in blood. It painted her skin as war paint. The first years of knowing servitude to the self proclaimed 'Savior' had been nothing more then her as the blood hound unleashed in the final moments. Set loose to finish the job so to speak. With that blood there was no recognition of the metal he had plated in her skin, those fierce barbs and sharp edges. Something about the metal made her feel invincible. Permanent armor.

On those war torn lands she paced, taking in the dead and the dying. Lips in a sadistic grin. Something in her reveled in this blood bath. Brilyah could forgot herself in those hours.

Rules were meant to be broken. Twisted and corrupted by the Trickster. It was what Christian had expected of her when he had altered her gift, now wasn't it? Your run of the mill shapeshifter with the Trickster's background of Cherokee and Norse had been offered so much more.

Leech. Chameleon. Soul Taker.

The Savior had a dream of awakening the four horseman in his own lab... and in that lab she was Pestilence. There was no suprise that her eyes would blaze a pretty poison when the gloves came off...

A return to the caverns brought the return of the Coyote in higher spirits then ever before. That sadistic edge perhaps had made itself known that hour but it mattered not.

First blood taken. Mark up and destroy what one held dear and then unleash the Enforcers. They were unleashed for the sake that Briar didn't trust herself when it came to self control.

Easing behind the waterfall her mind was elsewhere as the rough desert warmth of her tongue ran along her gloves, taking up that final bit of blood to be cleaned. She had come far from being Christian's Pestilence. Still sometimes the desire to sicken the world ran rampant.

She shuddered under the thick delight of it within her soul. There were times that so many forgot that deep down, the Coyote was nothing more then a killer. A survivor and trickster.

Bad Mojo. Bad Karma. Even the mountain of a man could run out of luck.

The Moon held no claim on her, she had swallowed that glowing orb down in her throat a long time ago. Still as she found her mate curled in the pelts on the floor of the cavern they now occupied and would soon reveal to the pack there was a hungry, wild growl that eased from her throat.

There were far worse choices a man could do then double cross a Coyote.Smiling in the night, she nuzzled against the crimson mane of her mate and fit her body to his.

Prices to be paid... some she was willing to give more then others. Godric and the pack were priceless to her and she would be damned if any would take them from her.

Some things were better left forgotten. Somet things were better left unsaid. Many things were better left in the past but yet there she was.

A rummage through her personal belongings while her mate slept and the Pack was quiet.

The dog tags drawn out. The personal mementos taken from those that had betrayed her and Dillon once. Never again.

Still these did not disturb her as much as the other set of dog tags shoved deep in the corner of the box.

A solitaire word stamped into metal. 'Karma.'

Touching it brought back a flurry of memories. Moments in war as the weapon. Fighting along side Devantious and Argus, Chance and Jere, Patch and A'rion. So many.

Crystal sagas and wars against self proclaimed Saviors.

There was so much she had come from. A hand fell, touched upon her womb and the pups growing within her.

So much had changed.

A look back over shoulder to her sleeping mate.

In these quiet hours would she fear. In these quiet hours she would wonder and worry.

Was a Sadist meant to carry children? A serial killer meant to raise pups with a mate?

What would happen when they were born... would that madness and hunger come again?

So many lives lived. So many names taken and claimed.

Could she change for the better and remain that way? For the sake of the pups for the sake of Godric?

Brilyah was terrified to know the truth and discover it.

What if she could not change and she destroyed them all...

Head bowed and pressed to the cold of the cavern wall, fingers clenching the dog tags.

She was destruction and malice. How easily could that alter and become love.

Easily it seemed. The true test though... was for a Killer to learn to love and hold that love forever and a day.