“Who taught you?” My voice was a whisper.
He stopped and looked up, his eyes burning like embers in the gloom. “I don’t recall. I guess I’ve always known how.”
He went back to preparing the meat, and my mouth watered even though he hadn’t put it on the spit yet. He stopped and threw the bag at me. It landed with a thud by my side. There was one left.
For me? I looked up questioningly.
“Skin it. Gut it. Cook it and eat it,” he said. “But tomorrow, you will hunt for your own.”
I surfaced from the dream, heart pounding. Not real. He hadn’t been real—just a figment of a lonely child’s imagination, a fabricated companion to keep the nightmares at bay as I’d navigated the big wide world alone for months. Thank goodness Illyrian had found me when he had. Who knew what madness I’d have spiraled into? Who knew what I’d have become?
Helgi moaned softly in her sleep. Her fingers were still laced with mine and her grip tightened fractionally.
Nightmares.
Always the fucking nightmares.
Shifting closer to her, I pressed my lips to her temple and then closed my eyes. She sighed softly and her grip relaxed. No nightmare was a match for the two of us.
* * *
“Unit four, prepare for extraction. Unit four, prepare for extraction.” The voice was a loud buzz accompanied by static that put my teeth on edge. It was beginning. Whatever was meant to happen was happening right now.
The Skins in the relevant cage began to buzz with action. This was a group of five—three guys and two women. The men looked strong, but the women were average size. Their bodies looked soft, not hard and muscular like the average Skin. Their Skin blood was probably mega-diluted. Sophia had said we’d have to fight, and the fear in their eyes told me they weren’t brawlers. The anxiety etched on the men’s faces said they knew this too.
“Unit four, prepare for extraction. Step away from the doors. Any act of defiance will result in lethal force.”
My hand went to the collar at my neck. Yeah, lethal force like blow-your-head-off lethal. Everyone must have been having the same thoughts because several hands climbed up to finger their collars.
My attention was on the exit door that Sophia had used when delivering the food, but another set of doors behind the far cages opened up, and a line of Bloods dressed in the Vorn colors of royal blue and crimson marched in. They strode to unit four’s cage and stood in a line, guns at the ready. The doors to the cage beeped and then slid up smoothly.
“Unit four, file out. File out and make your way to the exit. Make no sudden moves.”
The Bloods ushered the Skins out of the cage, and with guns trained on their backs, led them to the exit and out into the complex.
The room broke into a cacophony of sound. Where the heck were they being taken?
“At least we’ll know exactly what to expect once they get back,” someone from cage five said.
“If they come back,” Helgi muttered.
Long minutes ticked by, maybe five or six, but it felt like a lifetime, and then the crackling voice filled the air once more.
“Unit seven, prepare for extraction. Unit seven, prepare for extraction.”
That was the cage opposite us—the cage with the other mercs, Jasper’s twin, and Dunstan inside.
Jasper rushed to the bars. “Will?”
His brother tucked in his chin, his expression determined. “I’ll be fine. It’s going to be okay.”
Bran was suddenly alert too, his attention on his two mercenary friends. They didn’t speak but shared some kind of silent communication that involved a tilt of the chin and a curl of the lip. The other occupant of the unit was a young man who’d barely had a chance to grow any stubble, but he was solidly built, if a little gaunt. He must have been one of the Skins they’d captured a week or so before us. They’d held on to them, probably locked them away somewhere while they gathered the numbers they needed to present us to the public.
Once again, the Bloods filed in. Once again, the doors slid open, and then the Skins were urged to file out of the room.
“Shit.” Jasper punched the air in agitation.
Bran grabbed the bars, his elbows locked as he stared at the empty cage opposite us.
The seconds ticked by. Dante was a silent, hulking figure at the back of the cage. His brow furrowed, he looked deep in thought. Two down. How many more would they take today? There was nothing left to do but wait.
More minutes ticked by—slow, agonizing minutes. Helgi paced the floor, hands on hips. Bran retired to his mattress. I crouched at the back of the cage with a good view of our prison.
It had barely been five minutes when the voice blared again, and this time my heart climbed into my mouth.
“Unit eight, prepare for extraction. Unit eight, prepare for extraction.”
My gaze went to the plaque fixed to our cage, and zoned in on the number there. The number eight.
This was us.
It was our time.
* * *
The featureless corridor beyond the cage room sloped upward, indicating that we were on a lower level of this facility. And were we heading in a curve? It felt like a curve. No windows, no doors leading off, just the corridor. Where the heck had the guards come from, then? Had they come back this way from dropping off the other unit, or were these different guards? Why the heck hadn’t I paid attention?
A set of steps appeared, and we were ushered to ascend by the guards at our back prodding us with their firearms. Did they have controls to the collars too? Could they blow off our heads if we resisted? Not worth the risk trying to find out.
A hum filled the air as we climbed, and then we were standing on a platform with another damned cage in front of us. The grill directly opposite us was covered with some kind of material, a sheet of thick plastic or something. The hum morphed into the loud buzz of voices.
“Get in!” The guard behind us shoved Bran, who barreled into me, and we both stumbled into the cage.
The doors slammed shut behind us and then the plastic slid away, leaving us exposed to a hungry crowd of impeccably groomed Bloods. How had I missed the sound, the roars, and the cheers and the buzz? But the applause wasn’t for us. It was for the spectacle taking place below us.
“Motherfucker!” Helgi cursed.
Monsters—huge, sinuous monsters, green and yellow scaled, swung their tails and gnashed their teeth at the Skins who rolled, ducked, and swiped with their puny weapons, trying desperately to stay alive. Ice filled my veins and fire heated my chest.
“Wyverns,” Helgi said in a hushed tone. “They have Wyverns.”
How? How had they gotten hold of these creatures? Creatures that fought for the Dreki. Creatures that were trained and reared to hate Bloods. And why were they attacking Skins? And then the sun glanced off metal and my question was answered. The Wyverns were collared, just like us. They were at the Bloods’ mercy, just like we were. Were the collars preventing them from flying up out of the pit? The air above the pit rippled with a crimson sheen, answering my question.
A barrier of some sort?
It was probably activated when something came in contact with it. I’d heard of such tech. Tech that kept you in an invisible cage, but it required a vast amount of energy. Not an issue for the Dragon Bloods, with their secret power source—a recipe that kept their city lit up and their machines running indefinitely.
Dante was steely jawed, his hands fisted at his sides. He slowly raised his gaze from the pit and fixed it on the crowd bouncing in their cushy seats. His lip curled in derision. I followed his gaze and found Gustov sitting in a box in full view of our prison. My hand itched to smack the haughty expression off the Dragon Blood leader’s face. Beside him was a gray-haired woman. His wife? And to each side of the couple was stationed a guard. Dante tore his gaze away and focused it on the pit.
“Look over there.” Helgi pointed to the smooth, curved wall opposite us. Numbers ticked away, counting d
own to zero.
Minutes.
This fight for survival was on a timer. Below the clock was a balcony holding two Bloods manning some kind of control panel. Buttons and lights flashed. Wait, could this be how they controlled the Wyverns’ collars?
A Skin in the arena lost his footing and went down. The crowd fell into a hush, holding their breath as one of the two Wyverns stalked toward him.
“Will!” Jasper shook the bars, his eyes wild.
The fallen figure was indeed Will, and he was frozen, staring up at the beast as it drew near. Another figure rushed the Wyvern from the left. It was Dunstan, his sword held high as a battle cry tore from his lips.
The Wyvern didn’t even blink. His tail whipped round and smashed into Dunstan, sending him flying in a tall arc to slam into the arena wall. There was a sickening crack and then Dunstan slid to the ground, landing in a cloud of dirt. He didn’t get back up. This was a man I’d cared about and then despised, and now he was dead, just like that. The arrogant fucking twat was dead. My eyes pricked, and I blinked back the moisture. No. No fucking tears. No time for weakness. Focus on the arena. Grip the bars and don’t you dare fucking cry.
Will was still paralyzed with fear, hands up to ward off the beast, and yet the beast didn’t attack immediately.
Far to the left, the two mercs distracted the other Wyvern, working as a well-oiled machine—a team. There would be no help for Will from those two, and he probably knew it. He slowly lowered his arms, accepting his fate.
The Wyvern closed its eyes in a slow blink as if considering something, and then it swung its head away from Will, its intention clear—it wasn’t going to attack.
Jasper let out a strangled sob of relief.
Will climbed to his feet, relief etched across his slender face. And then the Wyvern’s body began to shudder. It let out a roar, part rage and part pain, before whirling back toward Will, its collar spitting sparks. This time there was no hesitation. Its head whipped forward and its jaws clamped around Will. The crowd went wild, cheering and chanting as Will’s body was torn in two. Jasper’s scream was a sound of devastation; it tore at my heart and scraped at my brain. Two dead. Only the mercs remained, and now they were one-on-one with the Wyverns, but the timer was almost at zero. Ten seconds to go.
“Come on!” Bran yelled. “You can fucking do it.”
His words rang clear and loud, rising over the hum of the crowd, catching on and becoming a mantra.
“Do it, do it, do it!” the Bloods shouted. Whether in encouragement of the Wyverns or the Skins, I wasn’t sure.
The Wyverns took their time, stalking and lashing out but missing. The collars sparked and they went wild, almost taking out one of the mercs. They moved so fast, they blocked our view of the Skins.
“Dammit, fucking dammit!” Bran punched the bars.
A siren wailed and the Wyverns’ eyes rolled back in their heads. They went down hard, causing the ground to shudder and sending a dust cloud up into the air to obscure the arena. The crowd fell into pin-drop silence.
Slowly, painfully, the cloud cleared to reveal the mercs, each standing over a Wyvern, bloody and dusty but alive.
A cheer like a cresting wave rose up and washed over the arena. My blood pumped harder, filling my head with the roar of the sea. The wall behind the mercs opened and they ran toward it and out of sight. Two Skins in brown uniforms came running out a moment later. The body clean-up crew. Jasper moaned and looked away as one of the Skins dragged Will’s torso out of the ring. His legs were on the other side of the pit, mangled and barely recognizable as limbs.
The pit was clean now, and the Skins ran back out as the ground began to rumble. It gave way around the sleeping Wyverns, as if someone had cut neat rectangles in the ground and sucked them in before rising up, new and untouched.
“What the hell just happened?” Bran asked.
My fingers tightened around the bars. “The ground is one big machine. Like a chessboard.”
“So, they can whip it out from under us whenever they like?” Helgi said, incredulous.
“They can do whatever they want,” Dante said tightly. “Question is: what do they have in store for us?”
“What a show,” a disembodied voice blared from hidden speakers. “What a game. And it’s not over yet, folks, because we’re about to up the ante and raise the stakes in a game of pin the collar on the Wyvern.”
The crowd fell silent.
“As you know, the collars allow us to keep the Wyverns in check. And in this game, we’re going to bring the pain. The next group of Skins, our highest-ranked unit, will be up against berserker Wyverns. All they need to do to turn them off is insert a chip into the collar around the Wyverns’ necks. Three chips, three Wyverns. Let’s see what the unit can do. Let’s find out who is worthy of being Vorn.”
The other unit?
The other unit was us.
Chapter Six
Our prison lowered with a chug and a whir. Down, down into the pit we went, until we were level with a chamber lined with weapons. Thank god we weren’t being sent in empty-handed. The bars between us and the armory slid up, and Dante was the first to stride out. He went straight for a broadsword.
“Anya, it’s Jezebel.” Helgi rushed across the dusty ground and grabbed my axe off its perch on the wall.
I took it from her, sighing as my hand wrapped around the handle. It was like coming home. Helgi handed me the leather straps and sheath that housed my axe, and I quickly donned them before sliding Jezebel home. Helgi grabbed her crossbow and a couple of daggers. My blades were still tucked into my boots, so I’d be all right for a close-up mêlée weapon.
“These must be the chips.” Bran held up a black disc. “How are we going to do this?”
But there was no time to plan because the buzzer blared, the crowd roared, and the bars between us and the pit slid into the dirt.
Once again, Dante was the first to exit. He strode into the arena, his powerful body unfurling and straightening. Was he taller, wider? My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. We followed him out into the ring. We were about to feed the Dragon Bloods’ hunger for violence and peek under the thick veneer of civility that they donned with their pretty clothes and perfect hair. They pretended to want peace, to want a stop to the bloodshed, and here they were clamoring to watch a death match. At least we didn’t lie about who or what we were. We accepted our flaws and our mutations. We accepted that we needed to hunt and kill and fight. It was in our blood. It was a part of us, just like it was a part of them, yet they adopted a facade of control that was a lie.
The chamber we’d just vacated sank into the ground. There would be no retreat for us. The world began to shake. Shit, it was going to do that rectangle drop thing again. This time a massive section of the ground gave way less than a meter from me and a chasm of darkness swallowed the dirt that spilled into it like a waterfall of sand.
“Get back!” Dante ordered.
Fingers closed around my upper arm, and I was yanked away from the abyss. Adrenaline flooded my limbs, delayed and potent, and then the chasm was filled with the roar of fresh Wyverns as they rose up to meet us.
Purple. These were purple Wyverns with a strange deep blue ridge running along their backs, and their tails had a bulbous barbed tip.
Dante let out a string of curses. “Heads up. These are a venomous breed. Their saliva is laced with toxin. Some of them spit.”
As if on cue, the middle Wyvern expelled a jet stream of mucus right at us.
I dove to the left just in time, hitting the ground in a roll.
“Anya, catch!” Bran threw a disc at me.
I caught it neatly and tucked it into my back pocket.
The Wyverns were going wild, thrashing and screaming, shaking their heads from side to side. The collars were making them crazy. There was no time to think or to coordinate. It was each man for himself as we ran about, ducking and leaping to avoid the crazy creatures. There was only the buzz of the crowd,
the roar of blood in my ears, the sting and scrape of hard-packed dirt as my knees scraped the ground, and the overpowering scent of sweat and fear.
The collar of the nearest Wyvern winked at me tauntingly, but to get to it I’d have to mount the beast. I’d have to climb the six-foot height and manage to stay on while the twelve-meter monster thrashed about. Shit.
I slashed at a tail as it whipped toward me, managing to scour a scrape along it, then ducked to avoid the lash of another one, all the while aware of my fellow Skins around me—Helgi to my left, Dante to my right, and Bran and Jasper just out of view on the other side of the ring. We needed to take down one of these beasts and quick.
A bellow slammed into me. Someone was hurt. Bran came barreling toward us, his face speckled with crimson.
“Jasper’s down.”
Shit. I caught a glimpse of Jasper pressed up against the far wall, hand clutching his abdomen. He was going to bleed out if we didn’t get him some medical attention soon. We needed to end this fight. I needed a launch pad to get up onto a beast that was barreling toward me with crazy red eyes that rolled about in agony.
“Heads up!” Bran spun to counter the Wyvern coming at us from behind.
Shit. A Skin sandwich.
Movement at the periphery of my vision.
Dante.
Jezebel cut through the air with a whistle, glancing off a scale with a hiss of embers. I ran along the side of the Wyvern, toward Dante.
We locked gazes as I desperately tried to communicate what I needed, unable to find the breath to yell the words. Was that a nod? And then he dropped to all fours a couple of meters away from me, in time for me to leap up and use his back as a vault up onto the Wyvern. Scales scraped my palms, snagging on my clothes as I made my landing. For a moment, there was nothing but the euphoria of being astride such a beast, and then it bucked, almost dislodging me from my perch.
Dragon Trial: Dragon Guard Series book 1 Page 7
