There are no defenses against the fury building in Redana's eyes. It pierces Bella like a spear and turns her intestines to ice and writhing serpents somehow at the same time. All of her senses go numb one by one: her ears press flat against her skull and refuse even to listen to the sound of her own beating heart, her fingers tingle curiously and deny her the sensation of Redana's skin against her own. Her lungs are so startled they won't take in air, denying her the world of scents that's always given her the secret leg up in any room she's entered. The lingering taste of wine is nothing but ash in her mouth. Her eyes shrink to unseeing, frightened slits.

For the first time, Bella knows fear in a way that whips and beatings could never teach her. Zeus herself couldn't freeze her heart like this. Her hand recoils from Redana's face as though she'd been burned as she jerks away with her entire body to put as much distance between herself and the source of her fear as she can. If her legs hadn't turned to quivering, useless jelly that single look might have been enough to send her racing to the shadows by itself. 

But she's held fast. Her body betrays her desires as surely as her face betrays her emotions. The look of shock draws itself across her face in an instant. It's not disappointment in her eyes, neither disbelief, but primal terror. Inside her heart, she's suddenly half the size of the princess on the floor beneath her. The titan named Redana has only to sit up and in the space of that motion she'll shatter Bella into a thousand tiny pieces that can never be put together again.

It's Hera who saves her. Hera who turns the quivering of her legs into the trembling of hot fury. Fingers ensconced with rings the colors of nebulae and wrapped in peacock feathers gently take her jaw and twist it to a sharp and powerful snarl. She lights the fire in Bella's heart that burns through her with a power that could rival the core of Tellus itself. The world fills with colors, sounds, and smells all at once, and chasing after them comes the effortless sense of invincibility that anger brings.

She was never recoiling in fear, after all. She was merely drawing back to make sure her strike had the power to contain a child of Zeus. Bella lunges forward again with astonishing swiftness and power. Her claw tips pierce the ground on either side of Redana's throat as she squeezes and leans close enough to touch their foreheads together. The stench of her breath washes over the princess like poison, but all she does is sneer with feral glee.

"You think I give a single fuck if you're upset? Don't make me laugh, [i]Your Highness.[/i]" even as she says it she's shaking with the effort of not melting into cruel guffaws, "It doesn't matter what you want. I'm here to do a job and there's not a damn thing I'm gonna let you do to stop me."

The rush of blood through her veins is euphoria. There! There, there, there! Hera points to a spark of hesitation creeping into Redana's heart, and Bella pounces on it to lap it up with savage hunger. She can't keep the deranged giggles out of her throat anymore. Her tail wags luxuriously as she presses her weight down, down, down and crushes the princess against the floor.

"Oh? You thought I was doing this for [i]you?[/i] Poor, stupid princess! Didn't anybody tell you? This is nothing but a mission for me. HA! Who the fuck would chase a worthless traitor like you into this barren shitheap unless they were getting paid?"

Bella's heartbeats quicken. Her smile spreads wider with every word, growing nastier and uglier the further it splits her face. Her teeth glint like daggers. More, cries the rush of power in her veins! Give me more! Her fingers stop squeezing Redana so that she can stroke her cheek instead.

"You thought I was useless. You thought I was stupid! I'm so much more than your dumb little pet, Redana! I'm a praetor, you moron! I shot you down, I brought you here! And now I'm going to bring you home because those are my orders, and there is not a [i]fucking[/i] thing you can do to stop me!"