Mordred winked.
Daria moved to dart forward, but Mordred stepped toward her, which, judging from the expression of shock on her face, wasn’t what she’d expected. Mordred smashed his forearm into her nose, breaking the bone and causing blood to pour from the wound. She tried to catch Mordred with one of her blades, but Mordred grabbed her wrist, ducked under her arm, and shoved her away when he came up behind her.
Daria touched her nose and lunged at him again, the blade in her still-human hand moving with incredible speed, causing Mordred to try and track them both. She got close to him on more than one occasion, cutting his forearms and chest, drawing blood and pain, but nothing that would be considered lethal.
After a few seconds of this, Mordred left himself open to attack and grabbed Daria’s arm as she swiped at him. He pushed her arm down, stepped toward her, and head-butted her as hard as he could. She blinked, and before she could recover, Mordred threw her over his shoulder onto the ground, keeping hold of her arm and locking it at the elbow.
Mordred knew that in a test of strength he had no chance against the vastly stronger werewolf, but he had speed on his side and used that to his advantage as he broke Daria’s arm and stomped her head into the floor before darting back. He wasn’t trying to beat her up; there was little point in it. He was, however, trying to make her really angry. Something Mordred considered himself a bit of a specialist at doing.
Daria growled and rolled to her feet, her arm healing itself with a sickening crunch, causing her to wince. “That wasn’t very nice,” she said.
Mordred shrugged and threw a bottle at her, causing it to smash against her raised arm. He picked up a second bottle and threw it, but Daria dodged aside, and the bottle harmlessly broke apart after hitting the wall behind her.
“Are you quite done?” she asked.
“I’m just wondering why you’re not the public face of this werewolf pack. Why does that idiot upstairs have to be it? Because he’s a bit shit, if I’m honest.”
“He’s better with people,” Daria said. “And I like to leave people guessing.”
Mordred threw another bottle, this one partially full, and Daria caught it. “You’re just making it worse for yourself,” she said, tossing the bottle aside.
Mordred shrugged, slowly moving around the room, throwing whichever bottles he could find, making Daria dodge on more than one occasion.
“I’ve had enough of this!” Daria shouted.
“I kind of expected you to be better at this,” Mordred said. “You’re just standing there doing nothing of any particular consequence. It’s less frightening and more slightly boring.”
She sprinted toward Mordred, swinging the daggers at him, but he was already moving aside, around her. He smacked her around the back of the head with the palm of his hand and jogged over to the opposite wall. Daria charged again, and Mordred was unable to dodge as she put herself in his way, so he stepped into the path of the blade, using his hand to push the top of it down, slicing through his palm as it moved.
The shock on Daria’s face was as evident as the pain on Mordred’s. He grabbed hold of Daria’s wrist and twisted it as he moved around her, forcing her off her feet and headfirst into the wall. She released her grip on the blade, and Mordred caught it, using it to cut across the back of her armor before moving away as she spun around.
Mordred created a ball of air in his hand, pouring more and more magic into it as Daria turned to face him, blood trickling down a nasty cut on her forehead.
“That’s not going to work,” Daria said.
“Let’s see,” Mordred replied, and threw the ball of air at Daria, who arrogantly stood her ground until she was blasted back through the wall behind her.
“I think it worked,” Mordred called after her as pieces of plaster and brick crumbled to the ground. He tested the cut on his hand and found that it was still bleeding, and sore. The silver in the dagger would make it more difficult for his magic to heal it, but he was in no danger of dying from it. He grabbed a discarded T-shirt from the floor and tore one of the arms off, wrapping the fabric around his hand and making a fist to keep pressure on the cut.
A low, rumbling growl emanated from the hole in the wall, followed by a werewolf’s hand, claws raking along the undamaged part of the wall, tearing part of it away with ease. Daria stepped through the hole a moment later, nearly six and a half feet of black-haired werewolf towering over Mordred.
“You took your armor off,” Mordred said. “Shame, I guess we get to do this again.”
Mordred blasted a torrent of air at Daria, who sprinted through it as if he had only wafted a piece of paper in her direction. She grabbed his knife arm with one massive hand and squeezed until Mordred released the dagger. He created a blade of ice to swing at Daria, but she threw him across the room, and he landed on the unforgiving wooden floor with a splintering crash.
She was on Mordred in an instant, picking him off the floor and smashing him into the nearest wall.
Pain wracked Mordred’s body, and for a second he thought about just killing her. It would be easier to fight Daria without having to take her alive. It would still be a difficult fight, but he wouldn’t have to worry about having his arms torn off while he tried to subdue her.
Mordred pushed the thought aside and poured a torrent of water into Daria’s face, freezing it solid. She dropped him to the ground, and he rolled away, using the frame of the kitchen door to pull himself back to his feet. Daria smashed her massive fists against the ice, using her claws to tear it apart in seconds.
She turned back to Mordred and took a step forward as Mordred pushed himself away from the door and rolled his shoulders. “I was being nice,” he said. “Let’s try something else.” He threw a ball of magical light toward Daria, who turned aside in time to stop the explosion from blinding her, but that gave Mordred time to hit her with another blast of air.
She spun away, colliding with a nearby couch and spiraling over it, breathing heavily as she got back to her feet before she flung the couch at Mordred with ease.