by E. M. Moore
I rolled my eyes. As if I would ever think about him when I had four of the best men alive. He had to be kidding me. “Nope.”
“Then what is it, Stuart? I’ve got a fight to win.” He bent over to pick up the wooden stake he placed on the bench and winced.
I moved closer. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said. He stood up quickly and slid the stake into his weapons belt.
His reaction didn’t sit well with me though. “Are you hurt?”
He snatched another stake off the bench and barreled toward me, only stopping with his nose a few inches from mine. “I told you I’m fine, now just tell me what you went through all this trouble to say to me so I can get out there and do what they chose me to do.”
I stepped back. I hadn’t even gotten the syringe ready yet. Already I could tell that I hadn’t thought this plan through well enough. “Nothing,” I said, acting unfazed. “Absolutely nothing.”
Zeke shook his head and walked away. I fumbled for the vial, picking it out of my pocket, and tore the cap off the syringe before pushing it through the hole and drawing the liquid up out of the bottle.
“I’ve never understood everyone’s fascination with you,” Zeke said as he walked toward the hall. “We’re all guards. We’re all out there putting our lives on the line. You’re nothing special.”
“Never said I disagreed with that,” I told him, inching closer.
He stopped and threw his head back into a laugh before turning. “Give me a break. You’re just another—”
I quickly jabbed at his arm, piercing his skin, then pushed the syringe down. His eyes widened. He tried to push me away, but the medicine was already taking effect. He tilted to one side. “If I were a better person, I wouldn’t take as much pleasure in this, but I’m not. Good night, Zeke.”
He swayed even more, and I took him by the forearms and maneuvered him toward the bench. He fell the rest of the way down. I positioned him just over the seat so he landed there, his head smashing against the wall at his back.
I dropped the syringe and ran a hand over my forehead. Holy shit. I’d just done it. There was no turning back now. Zeke was out of commission and they needed a fighter. All I had to do was get past Nicolai.
I walked toward the entrance to the training room. Soren and I hadn’t arranged anything ahead of time so I was going to have to wing it. “Now!”
I ran from the room, my feet pounding against the stone floor. From the corner of my eye, I saw Soren loop his arms around Nic’s as he went to grab for me. He grazed my arm, but I was free. I knew I had to keep running and not look back because if Nicolai got out of Soren’s grip, he was coming after me and he was so much faster than I was.
I turned the corner of the hallway that led outdoors. The crowd was in a frenzy. People watched the exit from the estate intently as they waited for the second warrior, but it was like watching a car wreck. Those were just extraneous details. My mind was on the goal in front of me and that was getting to the center of that arena before anyone stopped me. It would take dumb luck to do it, but I just had to.
I pushed harder, digging the toes of my shoes into the ground as I ran. “Ariana!”, a voice screamed, but I went harder. Just before the entrance to the arena, fingers darted in front of me. I spun just out of reach and then continued, my foot landing solidly on the grassy arena floor.
The noise fell away. All the excitement I’d just left in my wake faded to black as my legs took me to stand in front of Clive.
There was just one thing standing between me and victory: his life.
24
The first thing I noticed about Clive was his smirk. His lips curled up, flashing those dagger-like teeth. There must have been a scene happening behind me because he looked over my shoulder, smiled, and then got into fighting position. I couldn’t think about what was going on back there right now. My task was in front of me. Everything Soren had said about Clive washed over me and I moved into left lead, the opposite of what I normally stood in. It was an awkward position for me, but I tried to make it seem as natural as possible. We circled one another, and I never took my eyes off his centerline, the line that could be drawn right from nose to navel. With that focus, I should be able to see anything coming at me.
It was a good thing, too, because he immediately threw a left hook. I wasn’t fast enough to dodge it, but I was just quick enough to put my hand out to block it. Pain ricocheted through my forearm. On the outside, though, I was a mask of calm. I’d had just as many training sessions as the rest of our fighters had. If anything, I’d been doing more offensive training than the others because we’d worked a lot of defensive strategies training for Dumont’s Clan.
I stuck my hand out to judge range and then pulled it back in. It was clear I was going to have to get in on this guy. He had longer arms than me. Or, I could just sit back and wait him out.
I reached into the waistband of my pants and pulled out a stake. I’d made sure to have my usual ones on me all day so I didn’t look like I was suiting up to go do anything I wasn’t supposed to be doing. Clive eyed it and grinned before taking another swipe at me. I blocked him again, taking the brunt of the pain on my forearm. I tried to come around and dive in at him, but he stepped quickly back and out of range again.
“Not bad, girl,” Clive said. “You’re not terrible.”
I looked up at him as if to say ‘seriously?’.
He made a few quick feet patterns and then shook his hands out. He wasn’t fooling me though. I could see him eyeing the way I carried myself the whole time. He shrugged. “I’m just trying to say that I’m going to feel bad when I kill you.”
I shrugged right back at him. “Don’t. I won’t.”
He threw his hand out there again, but this time instead of stopping him with my forearm, I caught him with the edge of the stake, more of a defensive move than offensive. It worked. He yanked it back, a trail of blood just starting to seep out.
“And here I thought the Ravana Clan was supposed to be nicer than Dumont’s. Isn’t that why you guys are all self-righteous?”
I peeked over to the side as if I was looking over at Dumont. “You better start fighting and stop talking because someone’s getting really pissy. He probably didn’t think I’d last this long. You might get your wrist slapped, or hung.”
Clive’s face fell, his mask of friendly banter right along with it. He came at me with several blows—poisonous claws extended—that I blocked or had just the slightest touch of stinging grazes. At the last one, I trapped his hand, slapped it out of the way, and thrust the stake forward. I pierced the skin on his shoulder, but just barely. Enough so that he bled again, but not enough to say that I’d actually truly hurt him.
We spun in a circle. The crowd became nosier, making it almost impossible to block out. Both of us had a lot weighing on us. If Clive won, he’d be bringing home the victory for his clan. If we won, I was ensuring our safety for at least another day until Gregor could fight.
Clive lunged at me and I fell back, kicking out with my right leg, sending him sprawling through the air. I immediately lifted myself from the grass and spun. He landed in a crouch, a devilish smile on his face before stalking right back up to me. The last few feet he traversed in several seconds as he kicked into his vampire speed. I stepped out of the way and brought my knee up, but he was too quick. He picked my leg up, taking my base out from under me until I was flat on my back and staring up at him as he stood over me. He threw my foot to the side and tried to stomp on my face, but I rolled, then kicked out, connecting with his ankle and knocking him off balance while I got to my feet.
The longer this was taking, the more serious Clive looked. What started as just a Sunday stroll for him was turning out to be more than what he bargained for. I could imagine what he thought of me when I first walked into the arena. One, I was a girl. Two, I wasn’t overly tall or overly muscular. I wasn’t intimidating in any way, and even though the Ravanas wouldn’t send someone out wh
o couldn’t handle themselves, I had no doubt he was only counting down the seconds until he got whatever prize he was promised from Dumont after killing me.
Little did he know who he was dealing with though. There were four very perfect, very beautiful reasons for me to kick this guy’s ass standing on our side, and I wasn’t going to let anything else happen.
We came at one another at the same time. Due to his speed, he was the first to connect. My face whiplashed back after his knuckles grazed my chin. Still shaking it off, I dropped and charged, but instead of going through with the takedown, I used the sharp stake edge as a blade and sliced it against Clive’s upper thigh. He roared and came at me again. My head pounded inside my skull as I focused back on him. He kicked out at me, the bottom of his shoe coming straight for my face. I blocked it into my elbow, which may have hurt me more than it hurt him, then punctured his skin on the backside of his upper thigh with my stake.
I yanked it out. A trickle of blood rinsed over my fingers. He placed his foot down and grinned. I knew I’d hurt him, but Clive didn’t seem like the type of fighter who was going to let it show. We traded blows for blows until he delivered rapid fire punches at me. I blocked all but one as it connected with my jaw again. I shook it off. The pain in my head intensified and so did the shooting pains up my arms from blocking. It was getting harder and harder to take his advances when my arms didn’t even want to lift in the air.
I guessed it was time for some kicks then. I faked with a left and then switched to my good lead and threw a right. It connected with his upper thigh and he looked down, eyebrows raising a little in admiration. Well, now that my secret was out of the bag, I needed to stay in my normal stance.
We circled again, his eyes briefly leaving mine to look off to the side. “It’s too bad it’s coming to this, girl, because it looks like you have the young princes on your side.”
My stomach bottomed out, but I refused to take the bait even though he looked over my shoulder, almost begging me to look with him.
No distractions, I told myself. Stay the course.
I pretended like I was going to look, then spun into a side kick. He was already moving in when he saw me start to move so he ran right into my kick. His midsection molded around my foot for a split second before he bounced back, his lips scowling now. With a burst of energy, he ran at me. I tried to sprawl, but I was just a microsecond too late. He grabbed me around the waist and threw me to the grass, following after me and landing on top. He landed several strikes, each one jarring my head into the cement-like dirt. Pain exploded behind my head. I’d lost my breath when he’d hit me in the gut so I struggled to breathe. Being bombarded wasn’t helping at all either. He rocked me once—hard—my head lulling to the side, and I finally spotted the princes.
My heart stopped.
Connor was on his knees just in front of his father, his fingers threaded into his golden locks as he stared dumbstruck at me. Christian and Nicolai both had their hands in front of one another like a mother might do if she had to hit the brakes in the car fast to avoid hitting something. It was as if they were holding one another back. And Stephan, he broke my heart most of all. He was sitting cross-legged next to Connor, his head in his hands not even able to look up. He rocked back and forth, his hands practically over his ears, over his eyes, everywhere no doubt trying to block everything out like none of this was happening.
A trickle of blood made it into my eye and I squeezed them shut. Clive must’ve opened up a gash on my forehead with all his blows. At once, I saw all the happy times I’d shared with the princes flit through my brain. Their smiles, their laughter, and yes, every outpouring of their love. This was why I was doing this. For them. For us.
I took Clive’s hand as it came down to assault me again and held it to my chest. Then, I trapped his ankle and bucked with all my might. I just barely made it over on top of him, taking the upper hand. I trapped one of his hands under my knee as I rolled while I brought my stake-wielding hand forward, aimed right for his heart. I was two inches away from hitting it home when the stake flew out of my hands.
He’d stopped me.
Moving on instinct, I punched at his hand and then picked up his head and slammed it against the ground before pulling another stake out of my waistband. His eyes rounded as he struggled to throw me off, but I had him now. I had the advantage and I wasn’t going to let him up. Connor had taught me that reversal move one day in the gym and it only seemed fitting that I take Clive out with it, not allowing him to hurt me anymore.
He reached out as I was coming down. Instead of dodging him to go for his heart again, I moved and put the stake right through his arm, pinning it to the ground. He roared in pain, his eyes going to his new wound while I pulled a stake out of my leg holster. I leaned forward, my hand across his neck. Both of his hands were out of commission. My knee was sinking into one, and the other still had a wooden stake sticking out of it. He wasn’t going anywhere.
I’d won. But knowing what happened to Samuel, I wasn’t going to leave anything up to interpretation. Clive had to die. I swallowed. “I’ll make it quick,” I promised.
With both hands, I shoved the stake into his chest, solidly centering the stake right in the middle of his heart. I felt it pierce the layers of skin before hitting home. Clive’s mouth dropped open.
He jerked once before going still, his head lolling to the side.
The world stopped. I reached up to clean the blood and sweat out of my eyes, but just ended up making it worse. I rocked back on the soles of my feet and got up before a body barreled into me. I clamped down tight on my jaw, refusing to let the howl of pain come through.
Stephan let go quickly and then Nic was right there. His face was a mixture of pride and anger. “God, I fucking hate you right now.”
I nodded, still stunned about what had happened. He could’ve easily told me he wasn’t mad and I would have gone with it.
I’d won the fight. We could go one more day. It was down to Gregor now.
Before I could take my thoughts any further, Connor slipped his hands around my waist and howled with laughter and excitement. He tossed me up into the air, holding just behind my knees so I was towering above everybody now. I peeked at the Ravana side of the arena. Vampires and guards alike were jumping up and down. Smiling, crying. Even Gregor and Isabelle were sharing an embrace.
When Connor let me down, Christian stood in front of me. He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. Words didn’t come out, but I felt like he said everything he needed to with his eyes. His hands dropped.
Soren clapped me on the back next. “I knew you could do it, Young One. I knew it.”
While the celebration picked up around me, Stephan started to look over my injuries. “You need ice and bandages. You may have broken some bones in your face.”
Didn’t I know it? That guy could hit like a beast.
I stared down at Clive’s lifeless body and felt the injustice of it all. I reminded myself that I had to do it, and I did. If I hadn’t, these warriors wouldn’t have settled for anything less. They wouldn’t have risked being thought of as lesser-than with a leader like Dumont. When they said fight to the death, they meant it. It wasn’t fight until you knew you would win in real life. It was all too sad, but we were doing our part to stop that. If his clan could just see what it would be like to be under someone who ruled with fairness and justice, we could be stronger and better.
The large circle that had started to form around me opened up and Gregor and Isabelle walked through. Gregor looked down at me, his face serious. “You know we will have to discuss this.”
I nodded.
“I’m glad you’re alright,” he said, finally, looking every bit the stern, yet fair, leader he was.
I didn’t want to look at Isabelle. She’d fought hard so I wouldn’t have to be the one standing here and then I went against everything and did it, anyway. When I looked at her though, she was smiling. “Didn’t I say everything would tur
n out okay?”
I blinked. I didn’t have a chance to respond. The crowd opened wider and silenced as Dumont walked through. A heavy cloud fell over our celebration. He went to Gregor and held his hand out. “Tomorrow.”
Gregor ignored the offered hand shake. “Tomorrow.”
Dumont shrugged, then sneered down at his warrior. He kicked his head so Clive wasn’t looking his way anymore. I growled, and tried to lunge at him, but strong hands went around me.
That was no way to treat a fighter who’d done what they were brought here to do. Sure, Clive didn’t win, but that wasn’t for the lack of trying. I fought against the restraints and dropped down in front of Clive. I turned his head, then closed his eyes before getting to my feet and linking my hands under his arms. I started pulling him toward the Dumont side.
The crowd parted for me and when I appeared, pulling one of their men, I saw some of their faces go slack with shock. I found Diesel on the outskirts. Though I hated he’d killed my mentor, I knew if I was in his place, I’d have done the same thing. I had done the same thing. Clive could’ve easily been someone else’s mentor on this side. That was what was so terrible about war. No one won, really. Especially not Lex, and especially not Clive.
When Clive suddenly got much lighter, I looked to find that Christian had picked up Clive’s feet, and we both lugged him before Diesel. I laid him down in front of the strongest warrior they had and then crossed his hands over his bloody chest. Closing my eyes, I sent up a little prayer on Clive’s behalf and then straightened, looking Diesel in the eye. “Take care of your honored soldier. He deserves to be laid to rest with dignity.”
Diesel looked down. First into my eyes and then lower as he saw how I’d placed Clive’s lifeless body. “I will,” he grunted in a deep baritone that sent shivers up my spine.
Christian put his arm around me and we walked back to our group. Stephan waited on the outside, one foot already aimed right for his triage tent. I supposed that was the first thing to get out of the way, then we could focus on Gregor’s fight. I’d given them a shot, now Gregor just had to bring it home.
