Arena Wars Trilogy

by Hoffman, Samantha

  I lunged forward and gripped a handful of Elias’ leather jacket, using my strength to haul him up. I tossed him backwards, punching him in the face as hard as I could. His nose crunched under my hand and it began to ooze blood as Elias stumbled back a few steps. His one hand went to his nose, while the other slipped out of his leather jacket. I winced; there was nothing left but what looked like a stump that had been cauterized at the wrist. Elias snarled at me, baring his fangs as bloody spit dribbled down his chin. I had to keep myself from cringing at the knowledge that it was Quinten’s blood on his lips; I couldn’t afford any distractions right now.

  Elias lunged at me, swiping at my face with his nails. Ducking under his wild swing, I brought my knee up, driving the point into his stomach. He grunted in pain and grabbed a fistful of my hair and tilting my head back, baring my neck. Before he could sink his fangs in, Quinten tackled him to the ground. Grabbing a fistful of Elias’ shirt, Quinten yanked him forward, slamming his head against Elias’. They both sat there for a second, dazed and probably unable to see clearly.

  I slid to the ground behind Elias and wrapped my arm around his throat, cutting off his air supply. While he struggled for breath, I tried to shift my grip, hoping that I could slow him down by snapping his neck. I knew it probably wouldn’t kill him, especially since he was so old, but it would hopefully slow him down long enough for Quinten to get some kind of stake. We were in the forest after all, and there was bound to be broken wood lying around.

  He struggled against my grip while Quinten searched the dark for a spare piece of wood. “Quinten, hurry!”

  Elias snarled and shifted his weight in my grip. Pain flared in my left arm as Elias sank his teeth into my forearm. I bit back a scream of pain as they burrowed down all the way to the bone. I tried to keep my grip on him, but it hurt too much and I could feel my grip weakening. Elias squirmed out of my grasp and elbowed me in the face, clipping the outside of my left eye.

  I gasped in pain and rolled away, nursing my left arm and eye. A heavy boot kicked me square in the ribs and I heard a distinct crack, along with odd pressure in my chest. It almost felt like my lungs were being compressed, and I couldn’t catch my breath. A second kick rolled me over onto my back, and Elias brought his foot up, intending to crush my skull. I swung my foot up, slamming my own booted foot into the muscle at the inside of his right thigh. He dropped to one knee, and I kicked him squarely in the chest, knocking him onto his back.

  Before he could even move, Jax burst from the trees in his wolf form. He was on Elias before he could even scream. Elias punched Jax in the snout, forcing him to back up. Elias jumped to his feet and threw himself at Jax, wrapping his arms around Jax’s stomach. He gripped the stump in his hand and squeezed, causing Jax to yelp as Elias crushed the life from Jax. Darren jumped on Elias’ back, sinking his teeth into the muscle between his neck and shoulder. Elias was forced to release his hold on Jax to tend to Darren.

  Elias turned around and slammed his back against a tree, crushing Darren’s body between Elias’ back and the hard trunk. Two more quick slams had Darren’s grip loosening so that he fell to the ground, gasping for air as his fractured ribs pressed against his lungs. I knew from very recent experience that it was incredibly painful and terrifying to feel like you were suffocating.

  Jax was on his feet again, growling at Elias. His mate was in danger, and Jax would do anything he could to protect Darren. Elias and Jax stared each other down, neither moving a muscle. Elias cast a quick glance around the woods, just now seeming to realize that he was outnumbered four to one, with only one hand to fight with. He apparently didn’t like those odds, because he turned on his heel and fled into the trees.

  I was surprised when Jax didn’t chase after him. Instead, he trotted over to where Darren was sitting in the grass, wheezing as if he were a life-long smoker. He gently licked the side of Darren’s face, whining nervously. Quinten crouched by my side, checking me over for any life-threatening injury while Jax did the same with his mate.

  “Alanna, are you alright?” he asked hurriedly.

  I forced myself to nod. “Yeah, I’m alright.” It wasn’t a total lie. The pressure on my lung was fading away, and the bite mark in my forearm was slowly beginning to heal. Due to how much physical trauma I’d endured over the past couple of months, my ability to heal myself had begun to slow. The bite would have normally taken maybe thirty minutes to an hour to heal, but now I wasn’t sure. It could even leave a scar, much like the knife injury that ran between my breasts.

  Quinten gripped my wrist with careful fingers, and he hissed in sympathy. “That looks bad. We should have Jenna look at it when we get back to the house.” He stood quickly, dragging me to my feet in the process. Without another word, he shifted his arm around my waist and swung me up into his arms, intending to carry me bridal style back to the house.

  “Quinten, my legs work just fine; I can walk.”

  “Just let me carry you, Alanna,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper, and I could tell how worried he was. “We were stupid to walk out here alone.”

  “We weren’t alone,” I told him. “Jax and Darren were keeping watch.”

  “Well, it didn’t do much good, did it?” Quinten snapped, glaring over his shoulder at Jax, who was now sitting naked in the grass beside Darren. “What the hell took you two so long? It’s not like he led you all the way to Mexico and back!”

  Jax narrowed his eyes at Quinten. “We got here as soon as we could! So tell me, what’s your excuse, huh? You’ve got all of those special vampire skills like amazing hearing, vision, and smell. How the hell did you not notice him before he made his presence known? Kind of late on the draw, weren’t you?”

  Quinten tensed up, preparing for another verbal assault. “Don’t pick a fight with each other,” I ordered. “We don’t have the time for this. What if Eli circles around and attacks our home? Besides that, I’m tired, I’m scared, and I’m in pain. Can we please save this for some other time? You guys are friends. How about you act like it?”

  Jax and Quinten looked away, hopefully too ashamed to look at one another for the time being. We didn’t have time for the two of them to be at each other’s throats. We had much bigger problems at the moment, and they needed to understand that.

  “If you guys are through with acting like children, can we please go home and warn Ray and the others before Elias shows up?”

  Jax and Quinten didn’t argue any more, and Jax made sure to follow closely behind us in case Elias decided to attack once more. Once we made it back safely to the house, Quinten set me down on the front porch, and the three of us walked inside to wake up Ray and Jenna. Jenna patched me up and checked out Darren and Jax, and deemed them okay. When we were cleared by the good doctor, Ray set about making sure we were all safe and prepared for a midnight attack.

  Elias didn’t show. Ray stayed up the rest of the early morning with Brent and Nolan, making sure to keep watch in case Elias decided to show. Even though Elias didn’t show, Ray was adamant that we have a permanent sentry out in the woods. He wanted shifts of two spaced out evenly throughout the woods around the house. Two people sat in the old tree house, two more were stationed by the river, and two more by the end of the driveway. With the Council’s wolves to help out, we were able to keep a steady watch without running ourselves ragged.

  Chapter Twelve

  “The two of them are not going alone,” Quinten said stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the kitchen counter. He narrowed his eyes at Ray and Jenna, refusing to budge on the subject at hand. “With Eli in the area, we have to be more careful than we’ve been. Roger may have given up his plans for revenge against Eli and may have taken up his crusade against us as well. With two dangerous enemies on our tails, we can’t afford to make anymore stupid mistakes. There is no way Alanna and Jenna are going to that appointment alone. It’s not happening,” he said firmly.

  “I’ll go with them,” Violet offere
d. “You know that I can keep them safe, Quinten.”

  He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. “I don’t like this. She’s my fiancée, these are my babies, and I should be there with the two of them. I can help protect her.”

  “Quinten, you still need to practice fighting. You’re coming along nicely, but you mostly get by because of luck and instinct. That won’t be enough in a massive free for all with Roger’s small army. It’ll be more intense and more dangerous than anything you’ve ever faced before, and you need to be as prepared as possible, or you won’t survive. Stay and train some more, and I’ll go with her. I’ll take one other person with me, so that way we don’t get any unwanted attention, and we’ll still be able to keep Alanna safe. Trust me,” Violet said, putting her hand on Quinten’s shoulder.

  He groaned. “Who would you take with you if not me?”

  “I’ll go,” said a small voice with a slight southern twang to it. I looked over my shoulder to find Haley standing in the doorway. Dennis looked over her shoulder at me, and his gaze slipped down to my stomach, giving me the urge to cross my arms over them. “I’m close to Alanna’s age, so I could pass as one of her friends. Violet could probably act as Alanna’s aunt or something, and we could just tell anyone that asked that Jenna was her step mom.”

  “That’ll work,” Violet said approvingly. She looked at Quinten and Ray, who were both looking slightly uncomfortable with our arrangement. “I’ll take care of her, Raymond. Don’t worry about her so much. We’ll be in public; I doubt Roger or Elias–even as crazy as they are–would ever dare attack her so openly. Not when there are so many humans around. This isn’t like the Council meeting, where the only people in attendance were wolves. This is normal, every day life, full of human families. They can’t risk exposure.”

  Ray sighed. “I understand.” He pulled me close and hugged me tightly. “Be careful and be on lookout. Violet’s right, but everyone has their breaking point, and Roger’s already hit his. There’s no predicting what he is or isn’t capable of.” He kissed my forehead and let go, though he seemed very reluctant to release me.

  On the way out the door, Quinten held me tightly, as if he was afraid he’d never hold me again. “Be careful, and hurry back.” When he pulled away, he kissed me softly, but the pressure of his hands at my back told me how nervous and scared he was that I was going without him. When he pulled away, he looked at Violet. “Take care of her.”

  “I will,” Violet said. “Now, if we can hurry up and actually leave?”

  Quinten squeezed my hand one last time before letting go. I could feel his eyes on my back as we all walked to Jenna’s car, and when I slid into the backseat with Haley, he was still watching me with a worried look on his face. “Don’t worry,” Haley said softly. “We’ll take good care of you. He doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” I said, offering her a small smile. “But so much has happened in the last couple of months, I’ve started to wonder if things will ever be okay again. People are only made to endure so much before they break. Sometimes I think Quinten and I are near our breaking points.”

  “You won’t break, and neither will he,” she said confidently. “You’ve survived everything that’s been thrown at you so far. I think you can handle another couple of days. Then these babies will be born happy and healthy, and all of this horrible fighting will stop. People will be able to get on with their lives and this will all seem like a bad dream.” She hesitated for a second, and I could tell she wanted to say something else. “Speaking of bad dreams, I hear you’ve been having some almost every night.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly.

  She looked at me patiently, waiting for me to say something. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but sometimes talking can help. Especially with someone that can understand how you feel.”

  I was aware that both Jenna and Violet were listening intently. There was no way they could avoid hearing in on our conversation–their enhanced hearing would make tuning us out impossible–and they looked uncomfortable being forced to listen in. “While Quinten and I were at the Arena, we took part in three fights. The last one was against Dennis and his partner Tyler. The second match was against these huge, muscular dudes, but the first fight was against children. They lost, and I refused to kill one of the boys. He was only twelve or so. I wasn’t a killer! I couldn’t do it!”

  “What happened?” she asked gently.

  “Elias took matters into his own hands. When I refused to kill him, he took out a gun, and shot the boy where it would hurt the most without causing him to bleed to death. The kid was bleeding and crying and pleading, and I put him out of his misery. I know he would have died without medical attention, but I killed him. I hastened the time of his death. I took a little boy’s head in my hands and broke his neck so he wouldn’t feel any more pain.” My voice broke, and I bit my lip to keep from crying. “And now, it seems like every time I close my eyes, all I see are his eyes, staring at me, accusing me of killing him.”

  “Alanna, you can’t keep beating yourself up about that,” Jenna said softly from the driver’s seat. “Not only did you do what had to be done to survive, like you said, you also put him out of his misery. Elias wasn’t going to let him survive, no matter what. You kept him from suffering even more at the hands of Elias. That’s the important thing to remember.”

  I shuddered. “You weren’t there, Jenna. You didn’t see the look in that boy’s eyes. You didn’t feel the same thing I did when I broke his neck. Have you ever killed anyone before?” When Jenna didn’t answer, I turned away and looked out the window. “And then there was the dhampir that attacked Jax. She was just a kid, too. But that didn’t stop me from killing her.”

  “You did that to protect Jax. Nobody blames you for that.”

  “Carmen did,” I said bitterly.

  “Well, your mother is a homicidal bitch that tried to set you up for murder and is now siding with your equally homicidal sister. I don’t consider her views on you to be valid. Especially since your mother hasn’t been a part of your life in like fifteen years. I’ve been more of a mother to you in the past couple of months than she ever was.” The second she realized what she’d just said, her face turned red and her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I didn’t mean–”

  “No, you’re right,” I assured her quickly. “You have been more of a mother to me than she has. You’ve been there for me, going above and beyond the call of duty since the moment you walked into my life. And not once have I ever thought you’d walk out. You’ve been there for me, and for my dad. You’re one of the main reasons we’ve both made it as far as we have. Thank you for that, Jenna.”

  Jenna looked happier than I’d ever seen her, and she looked away so I wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. But I knew she was crying, because she sniffed once, and wiped her hand across her face. “I’m glad you feel that way, Alanna. Both you and your father mean so much to me. Even though we’ve been busy preparing for this horrible fight, I honestly don’t remember ever being happier.”

  She returned her eyes to the road and neither of us said anything else, but we didn’t have to. The two of us gotten everything that needed to be said out in the open. She knew how I felt about her, and I knew how she felt about me, though I’d already guessed it awhile ago. Jenna was easier to read than most people; the only person easier for me to read was Quinten, and that was because I knew him in a more intimate way than I knew Ray, Jax, or Jenna.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence, and moments later we pulled up in front of Jenna’s work. Violet helped me get out of the car, and I tried not to wince as my shirt pulled up over my stomach, revealing red, angry stretch marks that bunched up mostly around my hips. Violet pretended not to notice them, but I thought I saw a bit of sympathy in her eyes. As a vampire, it would be impossible for her to ever gain wait, so she didn’t have to worry about things like stretch marks.

 
; I bet she’d willingly take stretch marks over most of her body if it meant she could have had her mate’s baby…a sensible part of me thought. A vampire can’t have a baby because their bodies are technically dead. I bet she wishes every day that she had Peter’s baby to help ease the pain of losing him…

  I followed Jenna into the building and down to one of the many rooms in the place. It was the same room I’d been in last time, and I hopped up into the chair without being told. I’d had quite a few of these examinations in the past few weeks, and I knew what to expect by now. So when Jenna squirted cold jelly-like stuff on my stomach, I didn’t even cringe, and I waited patiently for Jenna to say something.

  “Well, I’ve got good news and some great news. It looks like there’s no damage from Elias’ assault; your babies look perfectly healthy. And it looks like you’re about done. You should go into labor at any time. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened, but it’s nothing to really worry about. Many women go over their due dates. We’ll give it another couple of days, and if nothing happens, we’ll have to talk about inducing you.” She looked over at me and smiled. “Any day now you’ll be a mom.”

  I sighed. “I know. I can’t believe it. I don’t feel ready.”

  “You probably never will. Most parents aren’t ready to be parents until long after their children are born. Your father wasn’t ready when you were born. He probably wasn’t ready when Ilene was born either. It’s something you grow into over the years.”