...how the Gods kill.

Subtle satisfaction, the way the blood wets the snow.

The way the bodies, still hot, started to steam in the winter's cold.

It's hard to understand the way a predator's mind worked, if you'd never hunted a day in your life. It's not easy explaining that rush, that spill, that thrill kill cult of having something die, all because of of you.

It wasn't evil, it wasn't cruel, it wasn't even malicious, but there was no denying the pleasure that came with it.

It was a sick, twisting pleasure, a bolt of electricty that shot through one's guts, the penultimate conclusion of a chase she'd known she was going to win the second it started.

And it always started so simply.

It always started with a rustle, a stirring, a tiny change in the way the world seemed to turn.

It had been a rabbit. The sound seemed to have come from miles away, but the next thing she knew, it was all fur and fangs, claws sinking and securing her in the snow, racing around trees, beneath branches.

Snow white and the seven fucking doves went scurrying in her path, quick to get away from the bolt of black that raced after the rabbit with all the surity of a greyhound around the track.

White powder had gone flying, something clipped her ear. She didn't notice. She never noticed.

All that mattered was the screaming of muscles and the way her blood roared in her head, louder than the way the Gods seemed to sing.

Save right now, there were no Gods. There were no birds, no bugs, no deer, no doe.

It was her, the rabbit, the winter cold that told her that if she didn't eat, she was going to die.

And Winter was a bitch of a mistress, she really was.

Teeth as white as icicles snapped.

And then there was blood in the snow.