by Meg Xuemei X
“Daciana, you don’t want to do this,” Antonio said. “It’s not too late to walk away.”
“You think I can’t take down that cheap whore?” Daciana snorted.
“You’ve called me whore twice now,” I said.
“Three times,” someone in the bar corrected.
“Fine,” I said, winking at Daciana. “Are you a professional in that career? I hope you’re as good as you sound. You obviously pride yourself on being expensive.”
Daciana raised her axe, and my angelblade hissed. I would end her in one strike. I didn’t have time to circle around her forever.
But Antonio cut in between us. “You scratch Lady Nightshades, and Marrok will fry you when he returns.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Daciana said. “And I don’t think he will. Marrok is more practical than you think. When that whore is out of the picture, he’ll have no choice but to have me again. Females are limited here. I’m the best left for him.”
“Lady Nightshades is his chosen mate,” Antonio said in a low, threatening voice.
“Then why didn’t he bring her to the Keep if he claimed her?” Daciana said. “No shifter would leave his true mate behind, and he’s the king. It only means he never wanted her. Look how she came to throw herself at him.” She gave me another disdained onceover. “She doesn’t bear his mark. This imposter who dyed her hair like ink is just trash he used once.” Gloating glistened in her eyes. She thought she’d wounded me emotionally with the brutal truth. “It isn’t news that Marrok uses women and tosses them away. This whore isn’t even a shifter. Marrok would never choose an outsider and taint his bloodline.”
I raised a finger that didn’t hold my blade. “First, this is my natural hair color. Where the hell am I supposed to find hair dye in the City of Monsters? And second, where was I?”
“You’ll taint Marrok’s bloodline,” Otsana offered.
“Oh, the damn bloodline. Thank you.”
Daciana sneered. “You won’t talk much after I chop off your head.”
“I’m so scared,” I said. “Almost peed my pants.”
The shifters burst into another round of laughter.
“Daciana, this is my last warning,” Antonio said. “Stop it and get out.”
“I’m calling on the shifter laws,” Daciana shouted. “Even King Marrok can’t stop me.”
They weren’t my laws, but I was curious. I wanted to know what law would apply to our duel, so I didn’t protest. Besides, Daciana was determined to cut off my head. She wouldn’t allow me to take Marrok from her, not now or ever.
“According to the shifter laws, you’ll show your rival one mercy,” Antonio said.
Daciana spat, fixing her round eyes on me with full contempt. “There’s my mercy: beg and promise to never come back here, and I’ll let you crawl out of here alive.”
I sighed. “I won’t take it. Marrok fucks too well, and I can’t pass on that.”
She lunged to the side toward me, bypassing Antonio, and I raised my angelblade.
This woman could watch how my angelblade cut through her axe before I slashed her throat.
Antonio moved lightning fast. He grabbed the haft of Daciana’s axe and pushed her away from me.
“What, Antonio?” Daciana hissed. “Are you defending an outsider against me? Aren’t we friends anymore? Haven’t I treated you well all these years? Will you rob me of my right to challenge her?”
“Then duel with bare hands,” Antonio said. “A fair fight. It’s also the tradition.”
Really? My angelblade was my best defense, and the wolf beta knew that. He’d seen how I’d cut my foes with my blade.
It would be a fair fight for his friend since she could shift. It would be tough for me to take down a full grown wolf with my bare hands. I’d seen how large a shifter wolf could be.
Nicely done by subtly disarming me, Antonio.
Daciana grinned. She seemed to get it.
“Daciana,” Antonio said, “as your friend, I ask you one last time to walk away.”
“Never!” Daciana said, planting her feet firmly.
Antonio turned to me. “Will you accept the challenge, Lady Nightshades? You can refuse and return to the Witch Tower, but then you can never come back here.”
“And I can’t have a drink here anymore?” I asked.
Antonio nodded, his expression grim.
“That sucks,” I said. “What about Marrok? I can’t see him again?”
“I’m afraid so,” Antonio said.
“That sucks double,” I said. “Are there any specific rules I should know about, or must I just fight this big woman in front me until one of us never rises again?”
I was no stranger to duels in the Lithuaria Empire. We were an evolved society, yet still bloodthirsty. The empire had built the grandest arena for a variety of bloody sports. The Emperor hosted private duels in his royal square every weekend. I’d been their favorite. Fia had envied me to death.
Antonio briefly explained the rules. In a nutshell, we could use anything but real weapons in a duel to the death.
“That’s your fucking tradition, not ours!” Otsana pounded the bar before Antonio finished. “Lady Nightshades shall have the right to use her blade!”
“And that unrefined shifter bitch isn’t allowed to shift to her wolf form in a duel!” Pattern also shouted his opinion.
I gestured for Pattern and Otsana to stay down and be quiet.
“I’ll abide to your rules,” I said loudly, to no one in particular. “And I gladly accept any challenge.”
Antonio reached out a hand, and Daciana put her axe on his palm. He waited, and she cut him a glare as she pulled out all her hidden weapons—a knife in her boot, a steel chain inside her coat, a short spear strapped to her thigh.
Pattern narrowed his eyes. Otsana didn’t look that positive anymore, her horns turning darker. She sent me a look which told me if I went down she would challenge the she-wolf to revenge me.
Antonio dropped Daciana’s weapons on the bar counter and Lou gathered them inside his workplace. Antonio stretched a hand toward me for my blade.
“You don’t get to hold any of my weapons,” I said as I stripped all of them and handed them to Pattern. I handed my angelblade to Otsana, and she nodded.
“As the judge,” Antonio said, “I reserve the right to stop and even kill any party who violates the rules in the middle of a duel.”
If Otsana tossed the angelblade to me in the middle of the fight, we both violated the rules, and the shifters would have the right to kill us both. But it wasn’t violating the rules if Daciana shifted to her beast form, because she was a shifter, and this was their territory.
“Bullshit!” Pattern said. “We walk!”
I sliced a hand at him to stop his further outburst.
“Would you want to pick the place?” Antonio asked, as if doing me a favor. “It’s better to duel outside—more space and less damage.”
“I like it here,” I said. “There are lots of tables I can hide under. Your friend picks right now, and I pick right here. It’s only fair.”
Antonio tensed. “I take no side. I tried to stop this.”
I smiled, though not with my eyes. “A little sport is good for the morale.”
Antonio shook his head. He didn’t like where this was going.
But I didn’t care what he liked. I’d come to see Marrok, and they’d led me here, promising a drink. My companions had barely wet their lips.
If this was how they treated me, then I’d give all of them a taste of my version of fun.
“Are you going to talk me to death, weakling?” Daciana demanded.
The shifters gathered in a ring, surrounding Daciana and me. Antonio had set seven yards of distance between us.
“Bring it on, bitch,” I said.
She charged at me with a snarl. She was close to Marrok’s height and had a good fifty pounds on me. If she collided into me, the impact would send me flying and I might
crack a rib or two.
“Ouch!” someone called before Daciana’s fist connected to my face.
I dodged the blow at the last second and leapt up. Crouching on the table, I swept my foot in a nice arc—a plate of two half-eaten sausages shot toward Daciana’s face.
She was fast. She grabbed the plate and the sausages with both hands, and I rewarded her with a free drink. Five glasses of booze flew toward her, ruining her plan of returning the plate and sausages to me.
She smashed the glasses and had the good sense of throwing her head back, but the stream from the last glass shot straight into her eye. I timed it right and played a nice angle.
I used to juggle five shots—without spilling a drop—to get free drinks for Fia and me in the open bar in Lithuaria. It wasn’t like we didn’t have the money, but free drinks were always better. We’d been spoiled and rotten back then. Look where that got us.
Pattern’s jaw dropped, and Otsana shouted her instruction, “Take down the fucking bitch while she’s blind.”
“Don’t be so mean, Otsana,” I said. “Let her cry a bit first.”
Daciana slammed her fist into the table I was perched on, and it broke in half, but I quickly jumped to another table. Daciana chased me to the next table and I flung a bowlful of noodles at her head.
Some of the shifters around us chortled and whistled.
“This is the best fight ever!”
It seemed that not everyone was fond of their king’s mistress.
“Not the best,” I corrected the shifter that had called out. “Probably the most entertaining one.”
“Who are you really?” someone asked.
“I’m an aspiring actress from the Icearth Galaxy,” I said.
Daciana was picking up a few tricks herself. She collected plates and cups and tossed them at me. I squirmed and yelped each time she threw them at me, even though none of them landed on my person but hit on someone else in the bar.
Soon, there would be no more tables for me to jump to and no more for her to break. I didn’t want to land on the bar and risk damaging the vintage drinks behind the counter. I wanted to try them out. My gaze flicked to the bar; good Lou had cleared all the bottles.
Quite a few shifters looked regretful that they hadn’t preserved their food and drinks before the fight had started. Even though they ate better than us who dwelled in the Witch Tower, their food resources were still limited.
Someone kicked the heavy bar door open violently.
Marrok stood outside, an army behind him.
My heart leapt. Even though he looked exhausted and bloody from hunting, he was still a heartthrob.
The wolf king stormed in, holding Laurent’s head in his hand.
Everyone froze, except me.
Daciana had ceased her attack on me and glanced at Marrok with a sultry, pouted look, as if she wanted him to reward her with a kiss for chasing me to the corner. The decision was his, but I wanted to damage her first.
From his vantage point, I could see the scene didn’t look too good: shattered tables, broken glasses and plates all over the floor, noodles sticking on the walls and dangling from Daciana’s hair.
Antonio’s face paled at the appearance of his king. He hadn’t expected Marrok to return so soon.
Marrok tossed the head at his beta’s feet and snarled, “What the fuck is going on?”
“My king,” Daciana said in her sexy, husky voice, “this nasty woman stomped into our home. I’m here to stop her. As you said, no outsider would get out of the Keep alive. I was following your orders and executing your law.”
Marrok sent Daciana a passing glance, his eyes gluing on me perched on the last standing table.
I smirked at him, and he grinned back, but only for a second.
Fury darkened his face.
But that smile had caught my heart. All his sins were forgiven. It wasn’t his fault his former girlfriend had gotten me into a death duel.
In fair retaliation, I’d trashed his bar.
“That ‘nasty woman’ happens to be my mate,” Marrok said. “This is her home. She can come and go as she wishes any time of the day.”
“You’ve gotta to be kidding me, Marrok,” Daciana shrieked in outrage. “She isn’t even a shifter. If you take her in as a mate, she’ll foul your bloodline!”
Marrok’s sapphire eyes turned gunmetal grey. “You think it’s wise to counsel me and try to eliminate my mate?”
“She doesn’t bear your mark,” Daciana insisted. “I can bear yours and give you a pure-blooded heir.”
My gaze darted between them, rage rising in me, hotter than a flaming comet crashing on the planet.
“Kaara needs time and I respect her will,” Marrok said. “But by universe and every right, she’s my destined mate—my one and only. I don’t need to explain that to you, to any of you.”
My sharp anger ebbed at his heartwarming declaration.
“You’ll discard me just like that?” Daciana asked, her voice trembling.
“I never promised you anything,” Marrok said. “There was never any commitment. And we were never exclusive. It was merely a physical comfort, as I had with other females before I met my mate.”
I glanced at Daciana’s companions. Were they a part of Marrok’s harem? How many of them were out there? Were they all going to line up and challenge me to duel after duel? I eyed Marrok warily, a little heartbroken. I’d been wise to turn down his offer to move in with him. And after today, there was no way in hell I’d consort with him. I had enough trouble of my own, and I had no urgent need to add his complications into my piles.
And by all Stars, it wasn’t my fantasy to be the head of his harem.
My heart bled at the thought of breaking up with Marrok.
I shouldn’t have fucked him in the first place, even if it was the best fuck I’d ever had.
A shadow eclipsed Marrok’s handsome face. He’d mentioned that he was attuned to my thoughts and emotions as long as they concerned him. He might have heard every word echoing in my head.
“No one will touch a hair on your head, Kaara,” he said.
“I’ve been with you the longest time, Marrok,” Daciana said. “You can’t be that cold. You were with me until she came. You made love to me every night. Sometimes the whole night.”
Black jealousy rained in me like an acid shower, and it hurt so much I wanted to lash out and maul them both.
“I’ll never hurt you, sweet thorn,” Marrok said to me. “I’d bite my hands off instead of harming you in any way.” He was trying to calm me before turning to Daciana. His voice became softer, yet there was undeniable lethalness beneath it.
Everyone in the bar flinched.
Clearly, when he spoke like that, it didn’t bode well for the person he was addressing.
“Stop trying to rile up my mate and drive a wedge between us, Daciana,” Marrok said. “Lady Nightshades is too smart to get upset over your bullshit. I was done with you a long time ago. You knew it. Everyone knew it. I haven’t touched you ever since.”
The wolf king shifted his stare to Antonio, and the beta wolf looked like he wanted to shrink.
Every shifter in the room seemed as if they wanted to be somewhere else, instead of sticking around for the end of the show.
“Why did you allow anyone to touch my mate?” Marrok asked, his eyes spitting fire at Antonio.
“Daciana evoked the right of challenge,” Antonio said. “And by the law and tradition set by your ancestor millennia ago, she has the right to challenge the alpha’s mate before your mate bears your mark. The tradition requires the consort to prove herself worthy. Only the strongest female deserves to be your queen.”
“Kaara Nightshades deserves me,” Marrok said. “And she’s the only one. I don’t need to prove that to any of you. Fuck the tradition. My word is law here.”
“You can’t abolish the tradition, Majesty,” Antonio said. “We’ve become the solid clan because we held onto the unshaken belief and
practice.”
“I don’t give a damn about it,” Marrok said. “No one is allowed to harm my mate. And that’s final.”
He glanced at me with a concerned frown. He thought Daciana had pushed me to the corner. He thought I’d cowered at her might. It offended me that he thought she was stronger and better.
“It isn’t what you think, Kaara,” he said.
The shifters gasped. They just witnessed how their king and I communicated. It dawned on me that in the shifters’ world, only true mates could know what was in the other’s mind.
“I tried to stop the duel,” Antonio said. “But then I realized Lady Nightshades would need to prove herself in order to be accepted as one of us.”
“She doesn’t need to prove anything,” Marrok said. “If my subjects refuse to accept her, I’ll leave the pack. Kaara and I will find our own place. You can fight the bloodsuckers and Akem’s creatures all by yourself.”
He would give up everything for me! My eyes widened a fraction, but I kept my shock at bay since I didn’t want to look stupid.
Antonio and everyone sank to their knees, except Daciana, my team, and me.
“We acknowledge and accept your consort without any contest, my king,” they said.
“The duel is over.” Marrok looked at Daciana without expression. “Get the fuck out if you want to live.”
Now was the time for me to take matters into my own hands. If I didn’t, I would always be his little woman in his pack’s eyes. That wasn’t the image I desired for myself.
“It’s not over,” I said. “It’s over only when I say it’s over.”
“Kaara,” Marrok said, “I was trying—”
“Then you won’t offend the Wickedest Witch’s general,” I said. “I was the chosen Captain of Guard to the future queen in the Lithuaria Empire in the Icearth Galaxy.” I shook my long, violet hair. “I did not earn that privilege by being pretty.”
Of course, no one here had heard of the empire and the galaxy.
“Earlier on you said you were an aspiring actress from the ice galaxy,” Lou said.
“Icearth Galaxy,” I corrected him. “And I’m no fucking actress.”
To Marrok, I said, “The decision is mine, and I’ll always decide for myself. This is my fight, and following through is my style. Without style, there can be no identity. And I’m not just fighting over you.”
