Single Mother of a Werewolf Baby novel Chapter 256

Chapter 256: Victor Writes the Rules after the Battle

Eleanor forced her trembling legs to obey, pushing herself upright. Every muscle screamed in protest, a symphony of agony conducted by Annabeth Chase. She staggered towards the table, the scent of roasted meat and herbs almost painful in its temptation against the frozen air. She lowered herself into the chair with a barely suppressed groan.

Annabeth said nothing at first. She carved two generous slices from the roast cow and laid them neatly onto plates. With a soft pop, she uncorked a bottle of wine, filled two glasses with the dark, ruby liquid, and slid one across the table towards Eleanor. Against the pale wood, the wine gleamed like blood.

"Eat," Annabeth commanded... not unkindly, but with the same inexorable authority as her strikes. "Your body is broken. It requires fuel to mend itself."

Eleanor did not hesitate. She gripped the knife and fork, her raw hands aching at the pressure, and cut into the meat. The first bite was revelation. It was not merely food, but life itself flooding into her battered frame. She ate with desperate focus, as only those who have been driven to the edge of endurance can eat.

The coliseum was quiet but for the scrape of cutlery and Eleanor’s steady chewing. Minutes passed in silence before Annabeth finally took a measured sip of wine and spoke.

"You could barely defend yourself by the end," she said flatly. "At least you stopped flying across the floor. That is the first step. Still, you are thinking like a cadet in a sparring ring. You treat this as an examination of defensive forms... as if I were grading how well you absorb my blows."

Eleanor paused mid-chew, her eyes fixed on Annabeth.

"But the real world is not a test," Annabeth went on. "It is a hunt. And in a hunt, there are only two roles... hunter and prey. Your aim should never be to defend yourself adequately. Your aim must be to win... to walk away alive while your opponent does not. You may choose to spare them once victory is yours, but do not delude yourself. If the roles were reversed, they would not spare you."

She leaned forward slightly, the wooden chair creaking under the shift of her weight. "Your determination is a flickering candle when it must be a raging fire. You are resolved to survive this training... but I need you to be resolved to defeat me."

Eleanor swallowed hard, confusion etched across her bruised face. "But... you’re only using ten percent of your strength. You’re far beyond me. How could I possibly defeat you?"

"And that," Annabeth said flatly, "is the only reason you are still breathing. I was not striking with the intent to kill. But if you continue to see me as an instructor, you will always hold back. You will imagine boundaries that do not exist. In battle, there are no boundaries. No rules. No restraints. Your opponent will use every advantage, every deceit, every fraction of hesitation to bury you."

She gestured with her knife at the coliseum around them. "You saw the snow, the stone, the vastness of this place... and you felt awe. That is a luxury for spectators. A warrior sees terrain and asks... how can I use it? Can I blind her with a handful of snow? Can I kick marble shards into her eyes? Can I drive her against the wall, or rebound from it myself? You possess abilities beyond the physical... why did you not use them? Because in your mind this was fixed as training. But in battle, there is no such category. There is only what works, and what does not."

The words struck Eleanor as hard as any punch. She had been so intent on enduring, on proving she could weather every blow, that it had never once occurred to her how to return one.

"Your view of training is flawed," Annabeth pressed on, her tone unyielding. "You treat it as a means to an end... to pass a class, to please the Empress, to become stronger. That is too abstract. Training is not preparation. Training is transformation. It is the act of carving a new version of yourself out of the weak stone of the old. Every block, every dodge, every scream of pain is a chisel strike. You do not merely pass through training... you must absorb it. Let it reach down into your marrow. Let it rewrite your instincts."

She pointed the tip of her knife toward Eleanor’s bruised forearms. "In the past hours you learned how to block my punch. You noticed I was repeating the same motion. I let your instincts kick in. But I am not a machine throwing identical attacks. From now on I will fight in my true style. I am a fighter... and every fighter has a rhythm, a pattern, a tell. Find mine. Then break it."

Eleanor set her fork down; her hunger evaporated in the face of this new, mental onslaught. "How?" she rasped.

"By wanting to win more than you want to breathe," Annabeth replied, eyes burning. "When you are thrown now, your first instinct is to recover your stance, to reset to a textbook position. That is the instinct of a student. The instinct of a warrior is to use the fall... to roll and come up with a handful of snow and marble to hurl. To use the momentum to create distance for an entirely different attack. Your determination for victory must be absolute; every single action, even your failures, must be weaponised."

She leaned back at last, took another measured sip of wine, then continued. "You cling to rules for a fight that does not exist in the real world. In a real battle there are no rules... only victory. Kill or be killed. Remember... the victor writes the rules after the battle."

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