by Amira Rain
Their shame was tangible in the morning air.
Rowfer led her to a ringed stand a bit off the center of the arena. A single, gilded chair sat in the very middle, encircled with a chest-high wall of metal. A cage from which Mary-Lou was supposed to watch her mate die. Anger rose and died in the human woman’s chest, to be replaced by terrible, awful sadness.
How miserable those people must be.
Mary-Lou had no pity, certainly no sympathy for the likes of Joel and Wiley. Still, she considered how different their lives could have been, had they not been blinded by greed and fear.
Rowfer made a brusque show of frisking her – for weapons, the Healer grunted, and made no mention of feeling the thick Kevlar and leather beneath her clothes. Rowfer proclaimed her ready before the still-silent crowd and stepped away, teetering slowly to his own seat off the side of the arena. The aged man sat with his back to the center of the stadium, shoulders tense even in their stooped pose.
Mary-Lou closed her eyes, squeezing sadness and grief from their depths. She wiped at her cheeks and turned back to the show at hand – just in time to catch sight of Jonas and Wiley being led out from opposite sides of the arena. They were stripped to their pants, each patted down in turns for hidden weapons.
A modern-day Gladiator show.
Mary-Lou tightened her hands into fists. Narrowed green gaze sought out the third and most important player of the night – found him, in a dip on the stadium’s walls on the right side of the arena. Prince Joel lounged in his private booth, hands hanging loosely off the side. Mary-Lou wondered beneath which sleeve the horrid, silver blade was hidden – how deeply it was gouging into the Prince’s pale skin.
Wondered if she would feel its sting, as well, or if she might be much too late.
CHAPTER FIVE
The crowd was cheering. Their voices were loud, excited – wished for divergence and entertainment, sought to find meaning in something long hollow. The Laws. The Order. It had guided them for so long, been a light in the dark for so many. What did they have left now, with their families dead or dying, with their numbers dwindling with each passing season?
Blood. They had blood, and violence; the vicious joy of others’ suffering.
Panem et circenses. In the darkness beneath the bleachers, Jonas closed his eyes and tried to ignore the repulsion roiling his stomach. His handlers hovered near, blank faces studying his movements. Four men, likely Bear Shifters judging by their staggering heights and massive builds. They were to restrain him if he tried to escape, incapacitate him if anticipation maddened him into attacking them or the audience before the match proper began. There was no right and wrong to men like these – just a job, a mission. It was a simpler life.
Jonas had long given up on being simple.
“Let’s go.”
Jonas nodded to the booming command, not reacting in any way as the four men moved to surround him. They were to march with him – herd him, like dogs a stray sheep.
He did not care. Indeed, as the gates opened and sunlight washed over him in a wave of heat and noise, Jonas failed to feel anything at all.
Jonas was numb.
The absence of feeling was welcomed. Jonas could not allow himself to be distracted – not by anger, not by grief, not by remnants of love for a brother that had turned into a monster. He had to win. He had to protect his family, as he had not been able to so many years ago.
A family that no longer included Wiley.
Bright blue eyes narrowed against the sun, the cheering crowd, the smug smile stretching his opponent’s face. Today, it will end.
One way or another.
Wiley Turbo was agitated.
Wiley shook his head; excited. He was excited, and if his stomach was twisting and his hands were sweating – well, who would not be nervous when they knew their entire life was about to change?
Jonas – the match, was a test. Yes, the human wench was to be eliminated, but her destruction was hardly Wiley’s goal. It was what came after that drove the Wolf Shifter: The promise of stability, of order, of raising a family in a world uncluttered by human garbage. Persuading the Tribes to fall in line would be easy after Mary-Lou’s death; turning their pain, their fear of the future into hatred for humanity would be even easier.
But that, too, was not Wiley’s problem.
Wiley would be a good soldier, would follow orders and lead his people to victory in whatever war Joel chose to wage. He did not want money, did not desire status or power. The real triumph, his true reward was to be much simpler in nature.
Wiley dreamed of peace. He wished for a quiet, bright life devoid of fear, filled with the warmth of family and friends. But Wiley was a realist; he understood that the price of safety was soaked in red, knew well that one’s happiness depended on another’s despair. The question was, who got to be happy and who –desperate?
Wiley had not always seen life as what it was: A game of survival, a test of strength and resolve. When his mother had been alive, when his brother toddled in his wake through grain-heavy fields, Wiley believed peace simple. Love unconditional. He had been his mother’s strong boy, Harry’s invincible hero – kind and true and never, ever cruel.
After they died, after it was all gone –
But it had not been then, had it? The Wiley who had pulled tiny Jonas Edwards from a well, cared for him through a winter and very carefully not called him Harry, not cried himself to sleep every night – had that boy not believed in goodness, still? In justice and hope?
For a moment, a second only, Wiley thought to wonder when it had all changed.
Wiley- no, the Wolf closed his eyes, ground his teeth until he tasted blood. It did not matter. Nothing mattered, except for what he had to do, what he would accomplish. There was no turning back, not anymore.
As the gates opened, as Jonas walked out onto the ground that was to swallow his blood, Wiley almost wished…
The Wolf squared his shoulders and faced his opponent, letting blood lust and purpose guide his actions. There was no time for sentimentality.
After Jonas, the last remnant of the man Wiley had once been, was… gone, there will be no need for sentimentality at all.
Joel was afraid.
The Prince frowned, unhappy now that he had found a name for the blackness churning in his stomach. What did he have to fear? Everything was going well – better than he had expected, really, considering that the Golden One stood against him. Joel sneered, thinking of the Prophecy and the weak-minded creatures who believed it. A human, to lead his people? Joel snorted, repulsed by the very thought. Preposterous.
And if she was – if the puny, sharp-eyed woman was truly to be a savior, their savior – why was she so easily hurt? So effortlessly defeated? There were no cries of outrage from the crowd as she was led through the dusty arena to the metal pit that was to be her prison, no words of mistrust from Mary-Lou or her brute of a boyfriend. No one seemed to suspect anything, to care about the proceedings at all.
So why could Joel not stop trembling?
Perhaps it was the silver; the Prince suppressed a grimace, fighting against fiddling with the dagger’s sheath and bindings. The leather was hot against his skin, abrasive in a way that had little to do with the texture of the grain and everything to do with the poison of the silver dagger it contained. Joel supposed he could have wrapped it better, but his left forearm was suspiciously bulky as it was. There was only so many leniencies his position afforded him, and the sentence for concealment of deadly weapons during a Challenge was…
A particularly violent shiver shook Joel’s frame. Well. No need to think about things that will not come to pass.
The time was drawing near. Joel’s pale eyes swept the crowd behind his sunglasses, narrowed gaze focusing on Mary-Lou’s pinched face. A small smirk curled the corners of the Prince’s thin lips; there was no one to help the pathetic being, no one near enough to stop what fate and Joel had set in her path.
A loud cheer shook the s
tadium. Jonas and Wiley had entered the arena, the two Alphas bare-chested and grim. Joel studied Jonas’ face, finding himself strangely unnerved by the man’s vacant expression. The Prince’s eyes skittered off the Lion’s features, seeking the Wolf’s rough features. Joel had not had the need to question Wiley’s loyalty, but recently the Alpha had been less than reliable. Was it the human, or the Lion’s presence, Joel could not tell. All he knew was that the Wolf was running out of both time and the Prince’s patience. If Wiley did not win him this match…
Joel clenched his left hand, feeling the blade bite into its leather confines.
There would be no more chances left.
Joel pasted a smile on his face that felt wrong – tasted of plastic and blood and showed too many teeth. He rose on his feet and raised his right hand in a greeting, addressing his people with smooth, well-practiced words. The crowd listened eagerly, hollered with delight when Joel announced the match officially on. Joel watched Wiley and Jonas circle each other, lowered himself in his seat when the Wolf launched the first vicious attack. His part was yet to come, and he could not afford to let his attention stray – even if the lovely ladies smiling at him from two rows down smelled downright delicious.
His parents had it simple, Joel thought with a sigh and a last, sad wave to the two buxom brunettes. They had others do what was necessary, while they did what was their right: Enjoy life and its luxuries.
Soon. Joel promised himself, eyes following the Alpha’s halting dance. Not soon enough.
Mary-Lou was calm. She had to be, fought hard to remain cool and focused even as Jonas bled, as Jonas suffered right before her eyes.
The crowd had gone wild the moment Jonas and Wiley stepped onto the arena – had not gone quiet since, as the two Alphas circled and struck and broke apart, over and over again. Mary-Lou felt as if she had not breathed since the gates had opened, as if she had not blinked since the first blow fell.
It had been Wiley who broke the tense dance of will, Wiley who jumped at Jonas: Claws extended, eyes rusted pools of blood above long, gleaming teeth. Jonas did not bother evading, choosing to instead meet Wiley head on. The two Alphas bit and snarled, gouged flesh so they could paint each other red with hungry anger. Jonas no doubt wished to end the conflict early, to inflict as little pain as possible even as he sought to deliver a fatal blow. Mary-Lou watched him and worried, tried not to worry as her mate regarded his opponent with hollow, tired eyes.
Jonas would die today, one way or another. Joel deserved her hate for this crime above all else.
Mary-Lou tore her gaze from Jonas’ bloodied body, from Wiley’s fevered face, and sought the true threat to her mate and pack.
Prince Joel lounged in his seat, appearing bored with the match and everyone in sight. Joel’s hair shone white beneath the midday sun, his pale hands left to dangle loosely over the side of the arena and into the open air. Dark glasses still covered the man’s eyes, preventing Mary-Lou from discerning the object of the Prince’s attention and adding to his blaze look. Had Mary-Lou not known what she did, had she been less certain of her own power and Joel’s slick nature, she would have bought into the carefully-constructed façade.
But she did and she was; Prince Joel was left pathetically transparent as a result.
Mary-Lou swept a narrowed green gaze over the Prince’s elegantly-dressed body. Her eyes lingered on his hands, onto the long fingers tapping a soundless tune against empty air.
His left hand. Joel’s right arm was curled into a lazy U, elbow resting comfortably against the padded armrest of the Prince’s seat, but his left arm was laid out straight, fingers clenched tightly into a fist.
There; Mary-Lou swallowed, suppressing her nerves. The dagger was there, ready to be withdrawn, to be dropped into the arena for Wiley’s use—
The crowd roared, and Mary-Lou snapped her attention back to the fight before her. Air left her lungs in a gasp as the sight of Jason kneeling, bloody and disoriented in the middle of the arena filled her eyes. The Lion Shifter’s right arm hung at a strange angle, the dislocation high up at the shoulder – near a deep, gruesome wound. Jonas shook his head, trying to dispel dizziness and nausea as he attempted to stagger back to his feet. His blonde hair was slicked close to his head, Mary-Lou noticed dimly, the light strands wet with dirt and dark with dirt. How she wanted to touch him, to shield him – to prop him up and help him finish it all, stop Wiley once and for all.
Wiley.
The crowd had been caught in Jonas’ struggle, enraptured by his pain and the possibility that he would not get up again. Few were paying attention to his opponent; none at all had eyes for the Prince sitting directly above him. The gleam of a blade, dropped and caught, had been almost lost in the chaos of the fight.
Almost.
“Let me pass,” Mary-Lou told the two large, muscled men who guarded her. They stepped back without a word, kneeled in the dirt and dust as the golden magic of her words washed over them.
Mary-Lou paid them no heed. The human woman vaulted from her seat and over the tall, metal wall that caged her even as the command left her lips, body driven by instinct and fear rather than rational thought. She could not hear the crowd’s roars over the thrum of her own blood, could later not recall crossing the ten or so feet of empty ground that separated her from her mate. All Mary-Lou had eyes for was Jonas’ bloody body and Wiley, looming over him with a fist raised high.
A single thought chilled Mary-Lou’s body even as she ran, pushed herself to the limit of physical strain and beyond.
I am too late. I am going to be too late.
She saw the dream again, saw Jonas fall beneath a silver blade and screamed, screamed herself hoarse even as she knew that she would not reach him, reach them in time. For Wiley’s hand was raised, and his eyes were dead, and the silver burned bright beneath an unforgiving sun, and Wiley—
Wiley hesitated.
It was but a moment, mere seconds of tense nothing. It was enough.
Mary-Lou slid between the pair just as the blade came down – as she knew it would, as she had seen happen in a nightmare too awful to remember. Instead of Jonas’ golden skin, however, the blade bit into human flesh. Mary-Lou screamed as silver tore through her arm, in pain and victory alike. She had made it. The human woman smiled through the blood, the dusty heat that dried her tongue and stung her eyes and clutched at the dagger with her unharmed hand. Wiley would not get it. Wiley would not get another chance to hurt Jonas, ever again.
Someone, someone was screaming her name. Mary-Lou blinked back exhaustion, stomped down pain and fear, and whispered, “I am here. I am fine.”
Above her, Wiley howled – enraged, disbelieving, and defeated. Mary-Lou grinned harder, watching as the Wolf was restrained, pulled to his knees and dragged away. It was but just.
She closed her eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
The crowd was silent.
Only moments prior, the stadium had been shaking with noise, vibrating beneath hundreds of excited bodies. The difference was staggering.
Joel could not quite believe the sight before his eyes. How had it gone so wrong, so fast? Jonas had been as good as dead, the silver dagger moments from his slitting his growling throat, when—
The Prince’s watery eyes sought the human woman, sought the reason for his defeat. Found her: Smiling through a gruesome wound, shielding her mate with a body that was no match for the threat before her. She must have known she was to be harmed, Joel thought; must have realized that her life could have very well been lost protecting Jonas. She had chosen to intervene anyway.
The Prince tried, failed to understand why. Joel’s mind simply could not comprehend the possibility of such a sacrifice. It was not something the Prince would have ever considered doing, expected someone else to do for him outside those charged with his safety.
The crowd must have been equally surprised, Joel thought as he glanced about the suddenly silent arena. Their stillness was terrifying. Men and women, you
ng and old held their breath as the human woman howled in pain. Joel felt a chill go through him as they barred their teeth, joining in her blood-soaked grin of triumph.
The dagger was revealed; there was no way to hide the silver blade, sticking as it was through the human’s arm. Angry whispers filled the air, growls and snarls of outrage breaking the taut silence. Soon, they will fall upon the arena, demand blood for the crime committed.
Joel sighed and stood up. If blood were what they wanted, he would give it to them: Wiley’s flesh was cheap after all, the Wolf’s life – expendable. None would miss him, and no one would rise to his defense.
Joel opened his lips.
A cold hand clamped around his neck, cutting off his words and air in one strike. Joel grasped at the strong fingers, swerved his head to the side to stare incredulously into a set of mad, mad green eyes.
“I believe,” Sasha hissed, poison bubbling from between scaly lips, “You have some dying to do.”
