Jesmind made it clear that Rogues were dealt with quickly and permanently. And what he had done had probably damned him in the eyes of Fae-da'Nar.

Tarrin now understood his mistake. He had led her right past the very ship he was using, and what was worse, now she stood between him and the ship. She probably knew about the ship, if she caught his scent coming away from it. And they weren't leaving Den Gauche until tomorrow. That was too long.

He couldn't see any other choice. She was probably there to kill him, and they were going to be in port too long for him to hide from her. He had to deal with her now, immediately, either drive her away, injure her bad enough to back off, or kill her. He'd rather not kill her, but he would have to at least make her stay away until tomorrow. He'd blundered, and now he had to pay for that mistake by driving the other Were-cat away.

"Go away," he blustered. "I don't want to have to fight you."

"You don't bring enough to the table, cub," she snorted. "Now come down here."

"No. I can't trust you."

"You're getting on my nerves, cub," she warned in a dangerous voice. "If you keep this up, you're going to pay for it."

Tarrin stood up quickly and purposefully. Grabbing a piece of the low wall, Tarrin ripped it from its foundations, giving himself a good sized chunk of masonry. Heaving it, he brought it over his head, then hurled it at the female with inhuman force. He came up short, intentionally, but she made no effort to dodge out of the way. "Go away," he warned.

"No," she said bluntly, walking forward. "I think it's time for you to get spanked."

She may have been expecting trouble, but she certainly didn't expect him to dive off the roof. It even surprised him. He impacted against her like an arrow, driving both of them to the packed dirt yard between the two warehouses. They rolled with each other several times, until she kicked him off, and he landed on his feet as she rolled to her own feet. She had her claws out, and where he had an angry look on his face, her expression was calm and collected. "So, you do have spunk," she said calmly as he extended his claws and hissed at her threateningly. Tarrin could feel the Cat rise up in him in response to his fear, and he struggled to maintain control of himself in the face of her confidence.

Two things were apparent to him after he engaged her. He was faster than her, but she was more experienced. She didn't fight in any specific style, but she firmly kept him on his heels with open-pawed slaps, light rakes, and pushes. She was fast, very fast, slapping away his every attempt to punch, kick, or rake her, and that speed combined with her skill overwhelmed his formal training in fighting. He didn't really want to hurt her, just make her go away, and she took advantage of his unwillingness to fight by pushing him back. In a shockingly short time, he was being backed up, protecting his face and neck from her seeking claws, trying to get some distance from her. He blocked several attempts to try to get to his face, then he doubled over in pain when her long claws tore a quartet of ragged, deep lacerations in his belly, just under the ribcage.

He realized quickly that the wounds weren't healing. She had struck him true! She had somehow injured him in such a way that prevented his regeneration from healing the wound. That was something that even he didn't know how to do, to injure another Were-cat in a way that prevented them from regenerating. He tried to straighten up, but a white-hot lance of pain through his torso put him down on one knee, panting heavily. "I warned you," she said. "I'm not Jesmind, boy. I know how to fight. Now give over this nonsense and come with me."

His answer was to rise up from his kneeling position with the palm of his paw leading, catching her squarely in the midriff. She rose off her feet and crumpled around that paw, her breath blasting from her lungs, then she sailed through the air to land heavily on her back some paces away. His eyes had ignited from within with their unholy aura, a clear indication of his growing rage, and he totally ignored the pain of his injury and rushed her. She rolled to her feet and met his charge, and it was she that was put on the defensive. Tarrin had lost some of the delicate, refined control taught to him by Allia and had replaced it with sheer savagery, and he pressed the taller Were-cat with powerful punches and rakes, using his strength to try to literally beat her to the ground. But she met him blow for blow, and he realized to his horror that not only was she taller than him, she was stronger than him. Pure physical force wasn't going to work, because she held that advantage over him.

Tarrin took a few steps back, looking up into that grim, beautiful face, feeling his heart racing. She outclassed him in every sense of the word. She was stronger than him, more experienced than him, more dangerous than him. He found real fear of her in his heart, and that fear was giving the Cat the strength it needed to overwhelm him and take control. His stomach both hurt and felt cold and warm at the same time, cold pain soothed by warm blood flowing from the deep tears in his stomach, but the pain faded under his need to stand against her.

He lunged in and tried to punch her, but she caught his wrist easily. He tried with the other paw, but she caught that one as well, and held him immobile for several seconds as he struggled against her superior strength, trying to free himself, staring into his eyes. There was no worry in her eyes, and her towering confidence began to rattle him more and more, making him doubt his sanity at trying to attack her. "Manacles?" she asked, glancing at the steel cuffs on his wrists. "Did someone try to imprison you, cub?"

His answer to that came as he brought up his foot, twisted in her grip, then brought his foot straight up behind him, claws leading. His foot struck her right under the chin, his claws punching four small holes in the skin under her jaw and snapping her head back. It was an awkward kick, what Allia called a split-kick, depending completely on his flexibility, but it had enough behind it to make her stagger. She let go of him, and his tail instantly lashed out, striking her across the ankle and sweeping her legs out from under her. Claws out, Tarrin stabbed down with both paws before she even fully hit the ground, but she somehow managed to slither out of the way, rolling backwards and to her feet. Tarrin's claws dug ten deep gashes in the dirt where her chest and stomach had been, but he recovered from it quickly. She wiped the underside of her jaw with the back of her paw absently, then spat out a single tooth along with the tip of her tongue. "Cute. You're better trained than I thought," she said in a conversational tone.

Laying his ears back, he glared at her, but his hunched posture betrayed how much her rake had hurt him.

"You're bringing this on yourself, cub," she snorted. "All you have to do is stop fighting. It's not the first time I've had to beat one of my children into submission."

"You're not my mother," Tarrin hissed.

"Oh yes I am," she said. "Jesmind may have turned you, but she's not capable of raising a bonded child. That makes you my child. And I'm not as gentle as she is. If I have to beat you to within an inch of your life to make you listen, then so be it. That's the price you pay for disobeying me."

"You can try," he hissed.

"It's your pain," she said with a shrug, then advanced on him.

What happened next couldn't be classified as anything other than a whipping. The female Were-cat struck Tarrin almost at will, stinging slaps and rakes of her claws, punishing punches, into every area of his body that was sensitive. She did not pull her punches, and Tarrin found it hard to stand straight after only a moment or two. Never had he been so overwhelmed, and every strike from her intensified the Cat's attempts to take control. Any attempt to defend himself brought him another stunning blow, as she seemed to totally bypass his every attempt to block her paws. He suffered blow after blow, until the Cat had enough. He screamed with sudden rage and lunged at her.