With all of the bodies in Claudia's wake, only the innocent beasts had ever tried to bite her, and those were not given the chance to succeed. Of course, they fought back, she had taken blows and some had even made her bleed, but the last terrible thing to get their teeth on her was Uncle Les. Nothing could be so awful and awesome as that. She snatched her arm away, careless of the way it dragged through the unforgiving rock, and the way those animal teeth caught on her skin; it had to be freed to deliver the proper punishment for attempting to compete with the profanity of her deadly, life-giving bite. Her other hand still tangled in his hood to try to keep him still, she brought her elbow down harshly on to his presumptuous teeth.