Chase the Dark (Steel & Stone Book 1)

by Annette Marie

  Piper grabbed at his other arm for another pain-inducing hold when Grudge heaved over sideways. She fell off him and rolled, but not fast enough. With daemon speed, he rolled on top of her.

  “Bitch,” he hissed in her face. He drew back his good arm for a punch that would break Piper’s jaw.

  She gasped and jabbed her fist into his left side. Bone gave way. He reared back with an agonized shriek. She’d seen him get hit there two fights ago and suspected his rib had been cracked—it had—and now it was broken.

  As he clutched his chest, on his knees and straddling her, she sat up and punched at the same time, hitting him full force right between the legs.

  His face went white and he squeaked like a dog toy. Piper scooted out from under him and rolled to her feet. He bared his teeth, his expression promising pain. She smiled, lifted one foot, and slammed her kick-ass boot into his face. There went his nose again.

  Grudge keeled over and was motionless.

  The silence was absolute as one of the referee-bouncers started counting. Piper stood where she was, breathing hard and wondering if the crowd should have been cheering or something. The silence was creepy.

  The bouncer reached ten and signaled a KO. The announcer cleared his throat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen—your victor, Minx!”

  Like a flipped switch, the crowd roared. It wasn’t exactly a cheerful sound—almost begrudging—as though she’d won but forgotten to do something in the process.

  “Yes,” the announced called excitedly, “our new challenger Minx has become the new champion, defeating nine-times-winner Grudge without taking a single hit. Our first bloodless fight in months!”

  Ah. That was the problem: she hadn’t met the proper quota of blood and violence before winning. Well, too damn bad for the crowd. She wanted to get through this in one piece.

  The bouncers hauled the mountain of limp muscles that was Grudge out of the ring. Piper backed into her corner and glanced at the scoreboard. Her own photo, taken right before the match, stared across the room. Somehow she looked enigmatic and coy in the black mask, her natural auburn hair windswept and possibly sexy—or maybe just messy. She waited with mounting nerves while the announcer prattled on about drink deals and betting rules. Her odds had increased impressively from 99–1 to 33–1. Nice.

  Contrary to her official odds, she knew her next match would be ten times as difficult as that one. Grudge had been in the ring for an hour and a half and she’d been able to analyze his style for weaknesses before having to face him. She’d known he’d attack if she pretended to be distracted and where to hit when he’d pinned her. Most of all, she’d had the element of surprise because no one had known what she could do.

  Her next opponent would be fresh. If he were on top of things, he would have watched her last fight and would now know what to expect. And if he were smart, he would already be planning a strategy, whereas she couldn’t plan anything until they began their match.

  “Our next challenger, ladies and gentlemen, is also a newcomer to the Styx Ring, but with credits from many of our sister clubs. I give you—Rattler!”

  As the crowd cheered and the announcer started listing off the challenger’s stats, Piper focused on the daemon coming through the curtains. At first glance, she knew she was in trouble. The man was slight and rangy with a fluid walk and a bounce in his step that said he was light on his feet. She gritted her teeth. Maybe Lilith thought she was doing Piper a favor by giving her an opponent around the same size, but instead, she’d now lost the advantage of speed and agility she had over heavyweights. A smaller guy was also less likely to underestimate her.

  Rattler swung into the ring with a haughty smirk stretching his mouth, and Piper amended her last thought. A small human guy wouldn’t underestimate her, but even an undersized daemon had an ego big enough to crush small towns.

  She eyed him, hoping for some clues as to his fighting style. His shaved head, covered with a snake scale pattern that may or may not have been a tattoo, gleamed in the spotlights. He was shirtless like most male contestants and wore simple black sweats that wouldn’t impede his movements; he probably didn’t rely on a boxing style. On his chest was a mark like a caduceus with a winged staff and two snakes twined about it.

  Piper blinked disbelievingly. Really? He was advertising his caste? How arrogant was he?

  Then again, if he were in fact a nāga, he would be excessively arrogant. Snakes were like that.

  Rattler studied her as she studied him. He constantly shifted his weight, ceaselessly moving, his gaze roving without slowing. He grinned savagely before turning toward the giant wheel of match types as the announcer spun the arrow. Piper watched apprehensively. Green, red, green, black, green, red, green. It started to slow, ticking past the black quarter and down into safe green. It slowed more. Piper held her breath. Stop, she begged silently. Stop now.

  The arrow dropped to stop one peg into the red section. The weapons match.

  The crowd screamed and roared its support. Piper swallowed hard and glanced toward the curtained doorway. No sign of Lyre or Ash. She hoped they were nearby, because there was every chance she was about to lose a limb.

  A referee approached the ring with a box. In it were her three choices: a dagger, a spear, and a sword.

  “And now,” the announcer shouted, “as you all know, the current champion chooses first. Although we at Styx Ring try to limit rules as much as possible, weapons matches are closely supervised. Deliberately maiming or killing strikes will equal a life ban from the Styx and our sister clubs. After all, we don’t want to run out of able fighters.”

  Piper hesitated over the three weapons. She not only had to consider what weapon would suit her best, but what choices she was leaving her opponent. The dagger suited her style, but the spear had a long reach that could potentially keep unfriendly blades away. In the end, she selected the sword, the middle ground, so she wouldn’t be left with too extreme a disadvantage against either remaining weapon.

  Rattler surveyed the remaining selections and chose the dagger. Piper wasn’t sure if that was good or not. She weighed the sword in her hand; it was a well-balanced katana. She had a good amount of experience with the weapon. They faced each other as the announcer called out for them to get ready. The bell rang.

  Rattler swayed forward, shifting from foot to foot as he tossed the dagger from hand to hand in the opposite rhythm as his feet, so effortlessly Piper knew she was definitely in trouble. She angled her sword and breathed deeply. She had to take him down before he could get in close.

  She lunged in and feinted a high strike. He called her bluff and almost gored her with the dagger before she swept the sword around. He was supernaturally fast and dodged out of the way, dancing back with a grin on his face. She went on the offensive, making short, quick strikes that kept him retreating. He evaded every one, too fast and agile. Damn Lilith. Why had she set Piper an opponent with all the same strengths as her—only stronger?

  Frustrated and scared, Piper swung her next thrust a little too hard. Rattler ducked low under the blade and the dagger whipped toward her thigh. She shrieked and flung herself backward, slamming her shin into Rattler’s head before hitting the floor on her side. Stinging pain burned across her thigh. She rolled fast and lunged to her feet. He didn’t give her time to check her wound. He attacked again and she parried the dagger with her sword. As she pushed his weapon aside, his free arm cocked back. His punch caught her jaw and sent her spinning into the ropes.

  She straightened and flung the sword behind her without looking first. A sharp yelp told her it connected. She whirled around and bounced off the ropes as he was still stumbling back with a shallow graze across his chest. The crowd screamed pointlessly at the blood.

  Again, he retreated as she pursued. It shouldn’t have been so difficult. She had a three-foot katana against a twelve-inch dagger! She had every advantage, except Rattler’s speed turned it into a disadvantage. Her long, bulky sword was too clu
msy and slow against his quick knife.

  He scored three more scratches on her, shallow but painful, and an agonizing kick to the knee that would leave a massive bruise. She landed nothing more on him, limping backward as he began to press her. She was going to lose—and need about a hundred stitches if this kept up. If she didn’t win at least three matches, Lilith wouldn’t give them their information and all this fear and stress and pain would be for nothing.

  Rattler leaped at her so suddenly she reacted instinctively, jumping back on her bad leg—exactly as he intended. Her bruised knee buckled. She went down and saw him coming down with her, the dagger aimed for her shoulder. He was going to run her through! A shoulder wound wouldn’t kill her but it would hurt like hell.

  Out of pure desperation, she tossed her sword aside and barely managed to grab his hand with both of hers as the point of the dagger sank into the soft spot above her collarbone. She braced against his downward push with all her strength. Fire raged in her shoulder. He leaned a little harder and the blade sank in another inch. He wasn’t even trying, the bastard.

  She rocked her head back and forth as she fought for enough composure to figure out what to do. He swayed his head back and forth in the same rhythm, his creepy pale blue eyes sliding into a darker shade. Piper gasped, clenched her jaw, and heaved her hips up and to the side, dumping Rattler off her. She rolled on top of him and sat on his chest, still gripping his dagger hand. Anger flashed across his face. She threw all her weight onto his hand, forcing it slowly down. He grabbed her hair with his other hand and yanked until she choked back a scream. She pulled one hand off his dagger and punched him in the solar plexus. He choked too.

  As quickly as she could, she flipped backward into a roll and jumped up. Spotting her sword, she grabbed it as he stood. He was ticked now. She held her sword in front of her and, resisting the urge to glance at that telltale caduceus mark on his chest, she began to casually wave the tip side to side like she was indecisive—except she wasn’t, not at all.

  His eyes immediately began to follow the point of the sword. Back and forth, back and forth. Pale blue irises began to disappear in dark shadows. She started to tip her head side to side in the same motion. He watched, mesmerized. He started to sway in time to her movement. Breathing slowly, keeping every motion smooth so as not to disturb the entrancing rhythm, she began to slide a foot forward with each sway. Painstakingly, she closed the distance between them. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  When there was a cautious four feet between them, she gave her sword one more sinuous wave—then lunged in with silent intent. The sword sliced across his lower ribcage, cutting to the bone. He howled and raised his dagger but she ducked toward his opposite side and dropped into a low, sweeping kick that took his legs out. He slammed down on his back. She was up again instantly, and she screamed as she drove the katana into the same fleshy spot in his shoulder that he’d aimed for on her. The blade ran right through him and into the floor beneath. She released the hilt and stomped on his hand to free the dagger. She grabbed it, pounced on his chest, and pressed it to his throat.

  “You lose,” she hissed.

  Hate burned in his face as the announcer shouted that the referee had called her victory.

  “Your next opponent will kill you for preying on a caste weakness,” he snarled in a soft, tenor voice. “That’s worse than cheating to us, bitch.”

  “Well maybe you shouldn’t have stamped your caste on your chest, huh?”

  He bared his teeth at her.

  “Besides,” she said, standing and handing the knife to the nearby bouncer. “I don’t think it’s unfair when you had every other advantage.” She smiled sweetly and none too gently yanked the sword from his shoulder.

  He stood, ignoring the blood running down his chest and back. With a contemptuous sneer, he spat on the floor at her feet and swung out of the ring. She watched him go back through the entrance curtains, figuring he planned to whisper poison words in her next opponent’s ear.

  She stepped backward and sagged against the corner post. Her legs trembled. Her arms ached. She checked the slice in her thigh; it was shallow and had mostly stopped bleeding. Her other scratches looked nasty but had clotted well. The one on her upper arm could probably use stitches. The puncture in her shoulder would definitely need stitches. It wasn’t bleeding a lot but it wasn’t going to stop by itself either.

  Breathing deeply to oxygenate her weary muscles, she catalogued her injuries. The cuts didn’t worry her as much as the bruises. She would have to be careful with her knee. Her right arm had taken a hit, and her left shoulder. A nasty bruise was forming on her right hip, visible above the hem of her jeans. She had no idea how she’d gotten it.

  She let her head fall back and listened with half an ear as the announcer praised Piper’s second win. The crowd was excited. Girls didn’t normally win twice—they didn’t normally win once—and the novelty had the spectators in a tizzy. But some faces were stiff with anger. The daemons in the crowd understood how the second fight had ended much better than the humans. Like Rattler had said, they were not happy. To them, she’d cheated—but him using his preternatural speed and reflexes on her was somehow fair?

  She took a deep breath. One more daemon to beat.

  The announcer launched into an introduction to her next opponent. He was a handsome daemon of medium build, dubbed Thoth. Piper couldn’t help but snort at the name—an ancient Egyptian deity who, among other things, maintained the balance of the universe? Please.

  As the announcer began to list off Thoth’s credentials, she slowly straightened. Her gaze flicked to the scoreboard. His odds were 2–1 to win. His record was sixteen consecutive wins. This guy was not an amateur. He was a bloody professional fighter. What the hell was Lilith playing at?

  Thoth jumped into the ring and landed lightly on the balls of his feet. He smiled in a charming sort of way at Piper, but his eyes were icy cold. This daemon wouldn’t know warm, fuzzy feelings if they curled up in his lap and mewled like a kitten. She didn’t have an inkling of what his caste might be and he would make sure she couldn’t make a reasonable guess. She ignored the announcer as she stared him down, trying to learn something from that arctic, burgundy stare. He almost made Ash look friendly.

  “And now, we spin the match wheel!” the announcer cried excitedly.

  Piper reluctantly turned to watch. Whatever it landed on, she would probably get her ass handed to her. Pain was coming.

  The arrow whirled around and around, slid past the black quarter and stopped on green—another fist match. Maybe she could get away with broken bones instead of being gored with a blade. The crowd cheered as the announcer called for them to get ready.

  The bell rang for the third time.

  Being an experienced professional fighter facing a bruised, exhausted girl, Thoth didn’t bother with a cautious approach. He skipped forward like a kid at the park, swatted Piper’s initial block out of his way, and rammed his fist into her belly. She doubled over and dropped to her knees. Thoth graciously backed up until Piper could breathe again. Still gasping, tears streaming down her face as she sincerely hoped her spleen hadn’t ruptured, she dragged herself to her feet.

  She was no match for him.

  Telling herself to quit whining, she tried to focus through the pain. She had to win. No choice. Everyone had a weakness. What was his?

  Thoth came forward again. Piper darted out of her corner and fell into a defensive stance. She had three black belts. She could stand her ground.

  Thoth launched at her. She evaded two strikes, blocked another, then he caught her wrist and pulled her into a shoulder-wrenching throw. She slammed into the mats on her back. When she didn’t get up fast enough, he gave her an encouraging kick in the ribs. If Piper lived through this, she was going to drag Lilith into the ring and replay every move from this fight with the succubus on the receiving end. That jealous bitch! She’d given Piper an impossible opponent to punish Ash for daring to not a
dore her.

  Piper got up, managed to defend herself for another twenty seconds, then Thoth got a good grip and threw her over his shoulder. She managed to land in a roll but her legs were so tired she flopped out of it instead of coming up on her feet. Gasping, she grabbed the ropes to pull herself up and sagged against them. She heard the crowd as if from a great distance as Thoth strode toward her.

  She was going to lose and Lilith, the petty cat of a woman, would refuse to tell them anything. Piper wouldn’t be able to find Quinn in time. She wouldn’t be able to clear her name or piece together the shards of her life into something livable. No. It wouldn’t end like this.

  Piper’s black belts weren’t the only fighting styles she knew. There was one her uncle had hired a man to teach her as a last resort—the only-if-you’re-dying backup plan. It wasn’t a style of fighting a Consul generally needed because Consuls generally didn’t kill anyone. It was the kind of style that required absolute perfection in its execution or it would backfire in the worst kind of way. Piper had never used it in an actual fight before. Did she dare attempt it for the first time on an opponent who outmatched her in every way when she was already exhausted?

  At this point, did she have a choice?

  She screamed as she lunged off the ropes at him. Taken aback, he shifted to a defensive pose for the first time. She struck but he was too fast. Blocked it. She tried again. He blocked and countered with a punch that hit her shoulder and knocked her back. Gritting her teeth, she lunged in again.

  They circled on the floor, Piper taking the punishment as she waited for her chance. Twice she went down. Once she landed a hit on him but with no real damage. Then, finally, she saw her chance. He stretched out a hand for another grab. This time, she was quick enough. She caught his arm. And before he recognized her intent, she broke his elbow.