Flames of Mars (Celestial Shifters Book 2)

by Tjalara Draper

  “Shut up, mongrel!” Tio barked. “There’s no full moon in here!”

  But Tio’s objections were drowned out as all five werewolves yowled their canine song. When their piercing vocalization came to an end, several silent seconds passed. The tension in the holding room became tangible. Constricting even. Nathan couldn’t help shuffling his own feet in anticipation.

  Almost as one, the prisoners turned their heads toward the heavy thunk and rattle of chains that announced the door to the holding chamber was about to open.

  Thane met Nathan’s glance. “This can’t be good.”

  Nathan’s eyes narrowed as he nodded in agreement.

  The door opened, and light beamed into the circular room. Nathan’s lip curled into a sneer when he recognized the man who entered. His familiar arrogance was unmistakable in the way he walked, in the metallic gunmetal gray suit, and as always, in the wide shark grin stretched across his face.

  Matthias Branstone’s polished black leather balmoral shoes tapped with each step along the concrete floor until he finally came to a stop directly in front of Nathan.

  Nathan smoothed his sneer into nonchalance, and Matthias’s grin grew even wider.

  “Well, well, well. So here’s the ‘Dog Shredder’ himself.” Matthias hummed out a chuckle. “At least, that’s what my men are calling you now.” He wagged a finger at Nathan. “You know, the moment I saw you, I had a feeling you’d be one to put on a hell of a show at our little arena. And your little boy-crush here”—he gestured to Thane—“the way he fought when we picked you two up, well, that’s when I figured, what the hell? Let’s see what these two make of themselves in the fighting pits.” He spread his arms wide and slowly spun, making a full rotation back to face Nathan. “And now, here we are.

  “You know, everyone said I was a fool to put you sliths into the arena. That it was a waste of profitable Diamantium and that I should harvest your crystal bones before they became completely worthless. They said you’d be lucky to last a week. Perhaps a month, tops. But then a second month rolled by. Then a third. And a fourth. And still you came out of those pits alive. Even the bookies are shouting your praises, claiming the bets are at an all-time high all because of my star fighters.” He reached out and pinched Nathan’s cheek like a doting granny.

  Nathan tossed his head to the side to break the man’s grip.

  Matthias’s chortle dripped condescension. “Who would have guessed? I bet you never would have guessed, huh, Kronan?”

  Nathan’s blood turned to ice.

  Once again, all heads, except for Matthias’s, spun back to the holding chamber’s doorway. Kronan—the Veniri queen’s cousin, as well as a wretched coward who was worth a thousand times less than the crud on one’s shoe—swaggered into the holding chamber and stood beside Matthias.

  Nathan dragged his fierce gaze over Kronan. He was undamaged—clean, also in a suit, and unshackled.

  “Hello, Nathan. You’re looking a little more . . .” Kronan looked Nathan up and down. “. . . unkempt since the last time I saw you.”

  Nathan’s own shallow breathing thundered in his ears. The rage in his veins tore through every inch of his being.

  Thane began hurling insults, cursing Kronan with every foul and depraved word in both the Erathi and Veniri tongue. But for Nathan, there were no words. No utterances were explicit enough.

  Though he no longer felt the burning sensation that used to warn him before his Diamantium blades sliced out of his flesh, there was no question his crystal elbow blades were unsheathed. He’d managed to keep them holstered during Matthias’s drivel, but now he held only the ferocious desire to strike. To maim. To slaughter.

  “Hmm, I don’t think they’re happy to see you.” Matthias tutted and placed a companionable arm over Kronan’s shoulders.

  Nathan yanked and yanked on the Metallikite wrist cuffs; if he were human, his flesh would have been in shreds. Blood boiled with a berserker’s frenzy through his extremities until he exploded into a lunge.

  The cuffs jerked him to a stop an inch from Kronan’s face.

  For an instant, Kronan’s eyes widened with shock. But when he realized Nathan couldn’t harm him, the corner of his mouth twitched up into a twisted grin. Matthias cackled, his eyes practically sparkling with wicked mirth.

  Then, without warning, the cuffs on Nathan’s wrists snapped open at the exact moment the floor beneath him disappeared. He threw an arm out, desperate to clutch the traitorous Kronan, but his hand only snatched air.

  He gasped, and his stomach flew into his throat. For one or two heartbeats, he flailed in a free fall as gravity yanked him to the ground several stories below. A few of the other shifters screamed during their descent—likely newcomers—but Nathan, Thane, Tio, and the other seasoned gladiators were silent during their fall.

  The first time this happened, Nathan had landed ungracefully, severely winded. But over time he’d mastered his landing, bending his knees on impact and bracing his hands on the ground to avoid a face-plant.

  The roar of the crowd became deafening; a commentator on the loudspeaker announced the arrival of each gladiator by his fighter name and shifter race. Nathan’s gut lurched with sudden nausea as he looked around at the human spectators—Erathi hunters who profited from shifter corpses, and rowdy rich kids wasting their trust-fund money to bet on their favorite gladiator.

  Standing up, Nathan blocked out the cacophony and forced himself to assess his surroundings. The arena was the size of a football stadium. Its design changed with every event, giving the gladiators a different scenario to endure and the spectators a whole new show. The previous arena design had clearly been devised by an Indiana Jones fan, complete with a massive rolling boulder. Another had involved flooding the arena, with several islands as the only safe zones to avoid enormous mechanical sharks. Whatever the layout, the main objective was always the same: rip the heart out of another fighter, and you get to live to see another round.

  Bile burned the back of Nathan’s throat. He didn’t want to know how many hearts had become his tickets to survival.

  But now was not the time to mourn past actions.

  This new arena was hot. Skin-melting hot.

  Nathan had landed on a small sandy pillar, about three feet in diameter, towering several stories over a lake of lava. A web of suspended rope-and-timber bridges weaved in a labyrinthine pattern between other pillars and platforms of varying sizes.

  All the other gladiators had landed on similar-sized pillars. One unfortunate Lycan on Thane’s other side had lost his footing on the sandy surface and tumbled, screaming, into the molten liquid below.

  Nathan cringed. A Lycan’s leather hide was almost as tough as a Veniri’s, but even so, within an agonizing minute, the lava would certainly sear through the werewolf’s flesh and kill him.

  That left only four Lycans—plus Tio, Thane, and Nathan.

  The other gladiators had already started running across the bridges connected to their pillars. Nathan allowed himself a few seconds to clue in to the locations of the other Lycans. Upon a quick glance, it seemed the majority of the fighters were aiming for the largest platform at the other end of the arena.

  Joining the others in the race, Nathan weaved over platforms and bridges in the direction he hoped would lead to Thane and Tio. At one stage, his path ran parallel to a Lycan bounding across a rope bridge about two yards away. Without warning, a tower of fire erupted from the lava below, consuming the wolf shifter and his bridge.

  Nathan flinched, shielding his face with his hands as the intense heat became unbearable. Then the fire tower receded back into the lava.

  That was two hearts gone. Two fewer opportunities to survive another round.

  The voice over the loudspeaker announced the death of the werewolf, and the crowd erupted with their taunts or cheers. Nathan’s heartbeat bashed at his eardrums. They’d fallen from the holding chamber less than a minute ago, and already it felt as if he’d been in this hellish arena
for a lifetime.

  As Nathan ran, he kept Thane and Tio in his sights, doing his best to keep a mental map of the bridges and his companions’ positions. When he reached a larger platform, he swerved left, his bare feet thunk-thunk-thunking over the timber bridge.

  Several platforms contained weapons, but he ignored them. Most were useless anyway. How would a sword or crossbow be of any benefit to a shifter fighter? If anything, it was all part of the aesthetics of Erathi entertainment. But Nathan had noticed with each new event, more and more of the weapons were made of Diamantium. Most likely, the gamblers who kept betting against Thane and Nathan were beginning to demand an advantage for the non-Veniri shifters.

  Movement in Nathan’s periphery caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see a Lycan lunge at Thane. They swiped and lashed at each other’s bare torsos—Thane with his crystal elbow blades and the werewolf with his inch-long silver claws—but appeared about matched in skill and speed. Thane blocked another of the Lycan’s swipes and countered with a slice of his own at the shifter’s unprotected ribs. A thin, dark line appeared on the werewolf’s torso, which quickly began spilling silver blood.

  The Lycan paused to inspect the wound, then shot a furious glare at Thane. In a split second, the gladiator hazed, his entire body transfigured into a giant dark gray humanoid wolf.

  Nathan’s heart pounded against his ribs, and he growled in frustration. Thane needed to haze too, but Nathan knew he wouldn’t. Not once since stepping foot on Tempecrest had Thane hazed into his Veniri form. To an extent, Nathan could understand why, but refusing to haze wouldn’t make Thane any more human.

  He forced his gaze away. Whether in Veniri or human form, Thane was competent enough to take on any of the other gladiators. There wasn’t any doubt about that.

  Darting across another bridge, Nathan cursed as he realized he’d run in a full circle. He turned around, but before he could reach the next platform, searing heat singed his back. It wasn’t until the bridge began to give way that he realized another fire tower had flared up behind him. With a burst of adrenaline, Nathan lunged from his disintegrating bridge and caught the edge of the platform, his legs dangling and kicking against the vertical face.

  He grimaced. The surface of the platform was slippery with silver liquid—remnants of the previous round’s gladiators—and his hands couldn’t find purchase. Ignoring the severed, silver-clawed finger by his elbow, Nathan tried to edge his way up, but his efforts only made him slide farther off the edge.

  Panic slammed into his chest. No, no, no! It can’t end like this.

  He couldn’t die here, not in this cesspool of degenerate humans and werewolves. He needed to escape. He needed to find Violet, to apologize and explain it all to her. To do everything in his power to make her forgive him.

  “Come on,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. His bare feet scrabbled against the stone wall, searching frantically for a foothold. “Come on!”

  With every desperate cell in his body, inch by inch, he heaved himself onto the platform. Standing up was a laborious job. Grimy sand and Lycan blood streaked his bare arms and torso, but he was alive.

  The flood of relief evaporated when he found himself face-to-face with the heavily scarred Lycan.

  A low growl rumbled in the wolf shifter’s chest. “Your heart is mine.”

  In a flash, Nathan’s whip-like tongue lashed out. No surprise that the most pungent flavor in the Lycan’s emotional cocktail was cinnamon—the flavor that represented one’s bone-deep intention to murder. Nathan hadn’t needed his Veniri tongue to decipher that.

  Besides cinnamon, he also detected hints of vodka and saffron. Nathan could understand the presence of vodka; he would be vengeful too if someone had killed several members of his pack—if Thane and Tio could be considered his “pack” in this situation. But as for saffron, why would this Lycan have any reason to be envious?

  Before he could think about it further, the Lycan snarled, and Nathan barely managed to dodge the clawed hand that whistled past his face. His attacker didn’t let up, didn’t allow Nathan to switch to the offensive. All Nathan could do was swivel and weave to avoid blow after bone-crushing blow and keep from tumbling off the edge of the platform.

  His foot slipped in the pool of old Lycan blood, and he stumbled to one knee just as a burning sensation sliced over his abdomen. Four new claw marks were carved into his torso, seeping teal liquid. The gashes were several inches below an old scar he’d acquired a lifetime ago, when he was a cop and had rescued a battered and broken Violet.

  Nathan frowned. Lycan claws weren’t sharp enough to pierce Veniri hide with one swipe. He looked up at the Lycan, who grinned and wiggled his fingers. Instead of silver, shards of diamond glittered off his elongated nails.

  “Since when do Lycans have claws tipped with Diamantium? Who gave it to you?” Was there any point even asking that last question? Tempecrest was infested with hunters who used the crystal bones of Veniri as weapons to strike down their prey. Any of the Erathi gamblers who opposed him and Thane could have embedded the crystal shards into the claws of a worthy opponent.

  “What does it matter?” the Lycan replied with a throaty chuckle. “I’ll have your heart in my hand before you can worry about it too long.”

  Then the Lycan hazed. His human form morphed into a ferocious oversized wolf-man with a red-and-black-streaked coat.

  The mongrel leaped high into the air, but this time, Nathan took advantage of the platform’s slippery surface. Pushing forward with one leg, he coasted on his knees through the silver fluid, swiping at the wolf-man’s torso with his elbow blade when he glided beneath the airborne Lycan. Silver rain drenched his face and shoulders before the Lycan landed with an echoing boom behind him.

  Nathan threw his arms to the ground, gouging his elbow blades into the timber to stop himself before he sailed over the edge. Then he pivoted to face the werewolf. The Lycan was still crouched on the ground, facing away from him.

  Elbow blades raised, Nathan charged, but before he could land the death strike, the werewolf swiveled onto his back and kicked Nathan in the chest with his powerful legs. Breath gushed from Nathan’s lungs as he hurtled backward, momentarily airborne. Then his back slammed against the platform, his head ricocheting off the wooden surface with a loud crack. He slid through the slick silver blood, coming to a stop with his head and shoulders hanging over the inferno below. Waves of dizziness rolled through his skull.

  A heavy weight landed on Nathan’s chest; the air he dragged in with each shallow gasp became steamy and rancid as growling canine jaws loomed inches from his face. The Lycan’s massive hands pressed down on his rib cage, and Nathan cried out as the crystal bones in his chest threatened to crack.

  Warm silver liquid dripped onto Nathan’s torso. His earlier swipe at the Lycan’s belly was deep but not lethal.

  With a groan, Nathan struggled to off-load the oversized wolf shifter, but the Lycan had him pinned. Then, like a dog digging for a bone, the werewolf hacked at Nathan’s chest, right over his heart.

  A Veniri’s hide was almost impenetrable, but ironically, Diamantium—the tissue that made up their crystal skeleton and spikes—was one of the only things that could slice through Veniri scales like a hot knife through butter.

  Nathan roared. Teal blood spewed from his chest with every searing gouge. After several excruciating seconds, the Lycan raised his fists and pounded, again and again, trying to crack Nathan’s rib cage open like an oyster. Nathan began to worry the Lycan’s blows might actually rupture one of the venom sacs that encased his heart and cause him to die from his own poison.

  Soon all Nathan knew was panic and desperation. Every ounce of coherent thought fled.

  This Lycan was larger and more powerful than any other he’d encountered. This wasn’t a gladiator fight; this was an assassination.

  But by the tiny breaths still gurgling through his lungs, Nathan wanted to live!

  Something small brushed agai
nst his hand, and he clutched it, feeling the sharpened point at one end. With a swing of his arm, he aimed for the wolf-man’s head.

  The Lycan howled as the severed, clawed finger impaled his eye.

  Using every fragment of energy he possessed, Nathan hazed. His human flesh rippled into scales, and crystal spikes erupted from his body. He slammed his knee up and skewered the werewolf’s stomach with the protruding spike, and the Lycan collapsed on top of him.

  With an immense effort, Nathan rolled out from under the werewolf’s enormous bulk.

  He wanted to rest. To go to sleep and never wake up.

  But this wasn’t over.

  Summoning an impossible rush of energy, he punched. His Diamantium-tipped knucklebones easily punctured the Lycan’s chest cavity, and with a final burst of power, Nathan yanked out the still-beating heart.

  3

  Booping Button Noses

  The infant’s little hand clamped on to Violet’s thumb. Everything about the child was tiny, fragile, and absolutely precious. Violet watched, fascinated and delighted, as her baby fussed and cooed, gently wriggled, and opened her eyes—sometimes one at a time before closing them again. It was as if the newborn was testing every feature of her body in this new world beyond the womb.

  Voices murmured in conversation outside Violet’s infirmary room—likely Dawn and Gus discussing whatever had happened to make Dawn kick everyone out of surgery. Nothing had been said to Violet, despite her desperate pleas to know what was going on. But Gus had eventually brought the baby over to her for the remainder of the surgery—maybe because he realized it was the only thing that would calm her down. The moment Violet laid eyes on her infant, she’d experienced instant peace.

  Frustrated to be shut out of the conversation, Violet blocked out the low chattering and focused again on her child. Besides, her baby was just falling asleep, and she didn’t want to wake her by shouting to the people beyond the door.

  The infant’s tiny face moved and twitched as she slept, her little hand still tightly gripping Violet’s thumb.