Music played in the distance. The pounding bass, guitar and drums blaring louder as the light at the mouth of the tunnel grew and grew. Her pulse increased, hammering in her throat as she quickened her pace to match the others speeding into the arena.
When she cleared the mouth of the tunnel and stepped into the arena alongside the others, the crowd went wild, shouting, clapping, feet stomping. She marveled that hunters cheered at the sight of her when they lived by a creed that demanded the extermination of her kind. How ass backward was that?
Lycan agents had definitely lost perspective in the last few years if they condoned these blood games, even sponsored them. Were they any different from the soulless, flesh-hungry lycans they hunted? As a girl, she had almost romanticized them—thought them heroes killing that part of herself she hated … the part of herself she wished dead, too. The part of herself that her father saw only as an asset, her greatest strength.
As it turned out, they were as bad as the prey they hunted. Even worse. They were as bad as her father.
The double doors slammed shut behind her. Ingrid was gone. It was just the five of them.
A loud horn cut the air, broke through the din of hunters crowded around. Close enough to observe the spectacle but a safe enough distance away that the spectators weren’t in danger. Heavy wire mesh surrounded the arena in a great drape. Even if she could scale the twenty-foot wall to the first row—and she probably could—she would have a hard time breaking through the wire mesh. Knowing her father, it was made of some super-resistant material the government didn’t even know existed.
She surveyed the cheering hunters, hundreds of blurred faces. They looked more beast than man, hungry for blood, their eyes wild and wide, mouths gaping. Her gaze drifted to the rogue hunter in her midst. Sure enough, he was staring at the crowd, too, his dark eyes intense and glittering as they fixed on his former comrades.
Her gaze narrowed, following the direction of his stare, to a single individual. A hunter sat there among the screaming crowd, the only one not cheering. Still and silent, his gaze locked on the rogue. Apparently the rogue still had one friend amongst the jeering hunters. Or at least a sympathizer.
“Look alive!” Sheppard shouted, urging them on as a team.
Her gaze snapped to him, grateful. With a nod, she turned her attention to the arena. Empty so far. Just the five of them.
A cold breeze puckered her flesh. Various weapons dotted the dirt-packed floor. Various guns. Little good they would do in fighting a demon. A crossbow. A sword. An ax. A few hand knives. A whip. She eyed the shield. No telling what power the demon would have at its disposal, but she wanted the shield.
Mila beat her to it. Her hand shot out, and the shield flew across twenty feet, into her grasp. Into her other hand flew the ax.
With a shake of her head, Sorcha muttered, “Not too hard to figure out why she’s still alive.”
“Right,” Phillip grumbled, a good distance behind her. Behind all of them. How he’d survived remained a mystery.
The crowd suddenly stilled, waving fists stuffed with money for bets as her father’s voice rang out over the speakers, filling the shifting fog. “Welcome, welcome! Tonight we have something special planned for all our brave hunters!”
Sorcha tried not to choke on this—her father kissing the asses he’d once fought.
No one breathed. Time was suspended.
The wild, hungry eyes of the crowd seemed black as a starless night as they gazed down into the arena.
“Tonight we declare a new defender!”
“What the fuck?” Sheppard flung out beside her. He’d moved close to her. She reminded herself not to trust too much in his nearness … not to think he’d allied himself with her and relax her guard. For all she knew, he was plotting to throw her to the demon beast … or whatever thing they had to fight. No one was going to look out for her but herself.
The crowd broke out in agitated murmurs. Some shouted at her father where he stood on his balcony, a dictator overlooking his kingdom.
A man, an agent of EFLA, she presumed, sat beside Ivo, looking none too happy. The prospect that they had missed a possible fight where the demon defender was defeated did not sit well with the crowd.
Ivo waved his hands as if calming a group of small children. “Recently we were infiltrated by an unforeseen assailant who thought he could put an end to our beloved games!”
The arena filled with loud boos. The tiny hairs at the back of Sorcha’s neck prickled.
“This trespasser slayed our demon defender—”
“Shit.” Sheppard shot her a glance. “Looks like a new game tonight. Who knows what we’re up against.”
Her stomach churned.
Her father shouted into the microphone, “And you know the rules!”
“Kill the defender, become the defender!” the crowd shouted back with fanatic zeal.
Her father brought up both arms, swinging them violently in the air. “Let the killing begin!”
A large gate cranked open on the opposite side of the arena. The noise scratched her nerves, heightening the drama … the horrible anticipation. As the gate lifted, a rolling fog of smoke flowed into the arena.
Her eyes ached as she stared unblinkingly at the opening. She waited, breath trapped in her constricting lungs at the sight of all that billowing fog, slowly filling, filling … obscuring her view.
“Breathe,” Sheppard advised from beside her in a humorous voice. “It’s kind of important.”
“How can you joke at—”
She didn’t finish. She caught a movement. A flash of dark in all that fog.
“It’s coming!” Mila shouted, bracing her shield before her.
The crowd took up a chant, Kill, kill, kill …
The boy at her back took up another chant, the low muttering indecipherable. His words ran together in a rhythmic mantra, and she realized it was no language she knew, but some kind of foreign incantation. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught only a glimpse of Phillip muttering to some kind of talisman he wore about his neck before he vanished, disappeared in a blinding flash, a zip of light.
She gasped.
“That’s his trick,” Sheppard snapped, grabbing her hand and moving her toward one of the weapons lying on the ground, indicating that she should pick it up. “He makes himself invisible,” he spit out as he snatched up a sword for himself. “Convenient, I know. You won’t see him again until this is all over.”
“Nice,” she muttered, thinking of all his complaining and woeful eyes as she snatched up a knife and tested it in her grip. An ammonia odor reached her nose. Her nostrils twitched at the sharp, familiar smell. She lifted the blade close to her nose and sniffed—silver nitrate. Poison to lycan and dovenatu. Sheppard tossed her another knife and she tucked it into her belt.
Phillip probably had the best defense out of all of them. And she’d actually felt sorry for the little shit.
“He’s coming!” the hunter-turned-prey shouted, swinging his crossbow left and right.
“Where?” Mila shouted, looking around wildly.
A stillness came over Sorcha then, the loud shouts of spectators dulling to a low drone in her head. She hardly noted her companions. Her gaze penetrated the opaque air, detecting the shadow emerging through the mist. Her skin rippled, snapped, burning from the inside out as the familiar pull of her bones began, her instincts reacting as she braced herself for the battle ahead.
TWENTY-SIX
Jonah stared through the open door into the shifting fog. There was nowhere to go but forward.
The demon witch’s voice broke out behind him. “Go on. Don’t keep the audience waiting.”
The cries of the crowd filled his head, a deafening din.
She prodded his back. “Go on. Your fans await.”
“What’s all this?” he growled.
“You have one simple task. Kill or be killed.”
Suddenly, he was moving, one foot dropping down in front of the o
ther, the pain in his head crushing as she forced him forward. He was helpless to resist. The door clanged shut behind him.
The roar of the crowd was deafening now. Smoke swelled up around him as if the earth itself breathed fire.
He sucked in a deep breath. He really couldn’t afford to die. Besides wanting to live for himself, there was Sorcha to consider. How was he going to get her out of here if he got himself killed? How was he going to see her again? Smell her hair? Taste the honey of her skin? Feel the warm heat of her body?
Quite simply, he needed to do all that. He needed her. Craved her as deeply as he craved his freedom from this stinking cesspit. Once he found her, he vowed to keep her. Hold her so close he could never lose her again. If that meant killing the faceless opponents awaiting him, then so be it.
The gate clanged shut behind him, the harsh sound reverberating in the mist-filled air, and he was moving, slinking into the fog, looking for his first victim.
THE WAITING HEIGHTENED HER anxiety, and made her pulse jump wildly in her neck. She whipped around at every imagined sound or movement, hoping she wouldn’t cleave apart one of her comrades in her movements. Her fingers flexed on her weapon, mouth watering and drying interchangeably. The rasp of her breath filled her ears.
Then she saw it.
Mila shouted out a warning.
Sorcha didn’t have time to process a face or even much of a form. The shadow broke through the fog with deathly speed, a dark blur that marked its inhuman origins.
“What the hell! Look out!” This came from the disembodied voice of Phillip somewhere close.
Sorcha whipped her head left and right. The shadow continued to zip among them, taking recon, assessing for weakness.
Sorcha felt the panic rise within the group of them at the new threat, one none of them had studied and faced before. An entity strong enough to kill a demon.
Mila shrieked and charged, diving deep into the mist to meet the shadow.
Sheppard shook his head. “She’s got balls.”
The ax whistled through the air as she swung. The shadow moved, skipped around the witch with dizzying speed … and something about that movement struck Sorcha as familiar. She squinted and crept closer through the swirling mist, the racing of her heart taking on a new speed … a speed born of true fright. Panic.
“What are you doing? Get back,” hissed Sheppard.
She ignored him, inching forward, muscles braced, knife at the ready. The mist cleared then and she had a perfect view of the witch, pinned beneath the new defender, his sword at her throat. Mila’s face was flushed red, her nostrils flaring with loud, gusty pants.
The defender inched the sword closer to her throat, but the effort had him panting, hand shaking from the strain. Clearly the witch was using her special talent to keep the blade from cutting down and into her throat.
Even before Sorcha registered all this, she recognized him—knew him with every fiber of her body before she ever saw his face.
“Jonah,” she whispered, then again louder, screaming, “Jonah!”
His head whipped in her direction. Shock rippled across his fully turned features. She felt her own flesh contract, react to him on a primal level.
The witch acted then. With his guard down, Mila flung him from her. Jonah launched through the air, landing near Sorcha’s feet.
She rushed toward him with fear in her heart. Not for herself, but for him. He was the target, after all. Any moment, they would be on him.
Crouching beside him, she growled in a fiery rush, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you.” Springing to his feet, he circled her wrist with the hard band of his fingers, as if she might disappear in a puff of smoke. “What are you doing in here?” He motioned around him with a wave of his hand.
“Father stuck me in here. I pissed him off with my less than thrilled reaction at seeing him.”
Jonah shook his head with a growl. “You never could put up a front … even if it was to save yourself.”
The horrible reality of their situation washed over her then, bitter and acrid. Jonah had to kill one of them … or die himself.
The crowd shouted down at them.
“C’mon,” Jonah said, grabbing her hand. The warm clasp of those fingers around hers felt so achingly good as they cut through the hazy air. Right. Natural. Even with all that was wrong, she felt a surge of relief. That somehow everything would be right for her. For both of them. “We’re getting out of here!”
It was on her tongue to ask how precisely they were going to manage to escape the arena and a hundred-plus bloodthirsty hunters when Jonah jerked and stiffened, his hand crushing hers in a death grip. His face turned upward, as if seeing something floating above them in the melting fog.
“Jonah!” she demanded over the ear-bleeding din, bewildered. His glassy-eyed stare frightened her, filled her mouth with a bitter tang.
A horrible sputter sounded from his lips.
“Jonah! What’s wrong?” Her gaze scanned him, stopping, locking in horror at the tip of a sword in his chest, buried deep. She sniffed. Beneath the coppery scent of his blood another odor tickled her nose.
No! No, no, no, no, no …
Silver nitrate. Poison to their kind.
She slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream.
Her only thought for Jonah, she dropped her hand and inhaled shallowly, peering around him to where the sword penetrated his back. There was no sign of his killer. She winced, her mind shying from the word. He was not dead. Not killed.
Silver nitrate might be poison to them, but they weren’t lycans. It didn’t have to be lethal. He could recover. It was possible. He could regenerate. He would—if she had to breathe life back into him herself.
At first she thought whoever had stabbed him had turned and fled … but then she saw the sword’s leather grip turn, twisting as it drove deeper, harder into Jonah, pushing, pushing …
Jonah cried out, his throat arching. She choked on a sob at the low, pained sound.
Fury fired through her … and awareness.
She lifted her blade and let it fly, stabbed it through the air. She heard the thud, felt her knife make contact. For a moment, her weapon appeared to have suspended itself in midair, in nothing but space.
Jonah dropped to his knees. She tried to catch him, to hold him up, as though that might keep him well and with her, keep him from being seriously hurt.
At the sound of a wet gurgle, she looked up, flicked a glance toward her suspended knife, to the boy who was there but invisible to the eye.
Gradually the fog receded in the arena, melting like fast-fading smoke. As it did, Phillip appeared. Dead, impaled with her knife.
SORCHA POINTED A SHAKING finger at Phillip. “Tonight’s kill,” she called out, her warning clear. She hovered over Jonah, clutched him close, not about to let anyone pry him from her arms and live.
“You’re protecting him?” Sheppard cocked his head at a dangerous angle, glaring at her.
Her fingers flexed around Jonah, running through his hair. She’d missed him too much. She wasn’t going to lose him.
“Well, that’s pretty evident.” Mila kicked Phillip’s lifeless body. “She killed for him.”
“Are you fucking him or something?” the rogue hunter asked, but in a way that made her think he didn’t really care. It was just an idle question.
He looked from her to the jeering crowd, his dark eyes shifty, nervous in a way.
Jonah growled. A quick glance down revealed a feverish light burning in his eyes. “Jonah,” she whispered.
“Sorcha, don’t risk yourself. Move away from me—”
“Shut up,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Ah, so touching,” Mila mocked with a roll of her eyes. “Spare me.”
Over Jonah’s protests, Sorcha blocked him from the others. He was too weak to stop her. She did it unthinkingly, with no hesitation, her heart full and deep with love, desperate for him to li
ve, to avoid another attack … even if it meant losing her own life. And that was the humanity she craved, the soul, she realized in a flash. It was love. It lived in her for Jonah. And maybe it always had. Maybe? Who was she kidding—it always had.
A loud horn blew. The crowd stilled, their shouts dying as all eyes swung toward the balcony.
She held her breath, meeting her father’s gaze across the distance. He looked down at her, his eyes, for all their glitter, dead and uncaring. He looked right through her with that stare.
“Finish it.” His voice jumped through the air. “Fight to the death!”
She flinched, her fingers tightening on Jonah’s arm. Her gaze flicked wildly to the others, frozen still, all of them a horrified tableau. No one knew what to do. She read it in their eyes. Felt the same way. Everything slowed. A roaring sound filled her head. This was it. Any moment death would congest the air.
“Shit,” Sheppard muttered, and her stomach twisted sickly as she noticed his fingers tighten around the grip of his sword. His foot scuffed the ground, inching closer to her.
“Sorcha!” Jonah bit out. “Get up! Defend yourself.”
She snatched up a discarded blade from the ground and held it before her. She’d defend herself. She’d go out defending them both.
The quiet hunter still seemed oddly focused on the crowd. Especially odd considering that they were supposed to start killing one another. He might want to be looking at any one of his potential opponents.
With the roaring swelling inside her head now, she followed his gaze, saw him staring, eyes locked on the good-looking blond guy again.
“What are you waiting for?” her father shouted, his face growing red from where he looked down at them.
“Crazy bastard,” she muttered, every line of her body taut and singing with readiness, waiting for the first assault.
Still, the three of them didn’t move. Mila looked the rogue hunter over, clearly marking him for the first attack.
Then he nodded, moving his dark head in a sharp, decisive jerk. Deliberate. And she knew then. He was signaling the guy in the crowd. A split second after she reached this realization, heat and fire blasted the air. She was lifted, flung far.
My Soul to Keep Page 20
