by Zoe Chant
Cyrus clearly decided that his fingers were worth more than making the point and turned back to Graham. “You never seemed particularly interested in the tail we offered you in London. Maybe they just weren’t... large enough for your taste.”
Alice went redder than she had been, seething.
Graham could feel the sedative burning off in the heat of his fury, but he held himself stone still, not wanting to tip Cyrus off.
A weaselly-looking man darted in from the opposite direction, a clipboard in hand. “How long, boss?”
“Not much longer,” Cyrus said thoughtfully. “I’m not putting him into the cage until the sedative has worn off. That wouldn’t be the show they’ve come for.”
“We adding her to the roster?” the man asked with a raking glance at Alice. “She’s tall and strong, she’d probably start a lot of betting.”
“That depends on Grant here,” Cyrus said, voice silky. “He fights... or she does.”
It took every ounce of Graham’s willpower not to betray the rage and agony his words woke. Alice, in a cage. Alice, defending herself against one of Cyrus’ fighters. Alice, hurting.
“I’ll fight.”
The man scurried away again.
Was it the sedative that was keeping him from reaching his lion? Graham felt more himself with every moment... as much himself as he could be without the voice that had shared his head for so much of his life.
“Who are you people?” Alice demanded as they pushed her to the opposite side of the enclosure from Graham. “Why can’t I hear my..?” She didn’t finish, as if it suddenly occurred to her that they may not know about her bear.
“Can’t hear your animal? Isn’t that a nice trick?” Cyrus said smugly. “As well as providing us with this charming, isolated arena, Alistair Beehag had a whole arsenal of wonderful treasures that his nephew has quietly been selling on the black market. Oh, some run of the mill sedatives, poisons, hallucinogens, truth serums. But I was also able to snap up a good quantity of this particular drug—it forces a shifter to remain in their human form. You can mix it with a sedative, or administer it straight.”
Cyrus grinned as Graham finally realized what he intended to do.
It was going to be a do-over of his last fateful fight.
Only this time, he was going to be the one who couldn’t shift.
Chapter 33
Alice wriggled against the ropes holding her wrists, not exactly trying to hide her efforts, but trying not to be obvious. People in movies got out of stuff like this all the time. And if she’d had her bear...
She was so stupid, thinking she could just drive right up and save Graham single-handedly.
“One of these charming gentlemen was in the party of furries at the resort,” she told him. “He recognized me.”
“Yeah,” Graham grunted briefly.
“I see that whatever they gave you hasn’t made you more talkative,” Alice said wryly.
“Alice,” Graham said under his breath. “I’m...”
“I swear to God, if you apologize for getting me into this, I will kick you in the shins.” She eyed the guards. “I bet they’d let me, too.” Her voice gentled. “Graham...”
“I’ll give you lovebirds a moment,” Cyrus said, as there was a roar from a distant crowd and loud distorted music began to play. To the guards, he said, “Don’t take your eyes off of them.”
Alice eyed the guards, who were both holding rifles. More darts? Sedatives like Graham had been given? Real bullets? The lighting wasn’t good; it was fully dark by now, and the blinding worklight was pointed at them, making it hard to see anything outside of their puddle of light.
“Alice...” Graham said again. “I love you.”
It was a salve on the empty place inside her where her bear and the mate-bond had been. They weren’t gone, Alice reminded herself, just silenced. She’d heard about the drug that made shifters stay human from Neal and Tony; it was temporary, it would wear off and they’d be back to normal.
“I love you,” she replied.
One of the guards snorted in disgust and the other made a gagging sound. “Fucking shifters and their creepy mates,” one of them muttered.
Alice squinted at them through the blinding light. “They aren’t shifters,” she said thoughtfully. “Is Cyrus?”
Graham shook his head. “Has kind of a chip on his shoulder about it, too.”
“Stop talking,” the other guard commanded shifting his rifle suggestively.
Alice subsided to silence, continuing to try to do something with the knots at her wrists without being obvious about it.
Before she could manage to do more than give herself mild ropeburn, Cyrus was back.
He stepped boldly up to Graham—much more boldly than Alice suspected he would if Graham had not been chained—and pulled his head to look directly into the light, checking his pupil reaction. “You’re up next, your lordship,” he said with satisfaction. “A battle to the shift.”
“No...” Alice couldn’t stop herself from saying. If Graham, like her, couldn’t shift, that meant he had to win to live... and if he won... She remembered how he had looked at his hands, like they were stained with blood. He shouldn’t have to do that again, ever.
Cyrus gave her a slow smile. “You’d prefer to fight instead of him, I suppose? Oh, you poor, stupid girl. Don’t you understand? He loves this. This is what he was born to do. Has he tried to convince you that he’s changed, that he’s a better man now, that he’s happy growing watermelons and mowing lawns at a luxury resort? He’s no different now than he ever was. He still loves to hurt people. You can see it when he fights, how much joy he gets out of it.”
Alice watched the guilt and doubt bloom over Graham’s face, as hard as he battled to keep it behind his mask of stony anger.
“Don’t do this,” Alice begged, a note of panic in her voice. “I’ll fight instead, if you want. I’m a wrestling coach, and I’m strong and fast. I’ll give them a show.” Could she actually hurt someone enough to make them shift, she wondered? Was she skilled enough? Did she have the resolve? If she could pin someone long enough, would they call the fight a draw?
Cyrus laughed. “Oh, Graham, isn’t that touching. She’s willing to take your place, the sweet summer child. Are you chivalrous enough to let her?”
Graham was staring back at Alice, his blue eyes like rocks. “Don’t let her watch,” he growled at Cyrus.
“You don’t get to make requests, your lordship,” Cyrus said, a hint of his own underlying anger showing through. “She’ll get to see exactly what you are. She’ll get to see how much you haven’t changed.”
Cyrus, Alice was beginning to realize, enjoyed pain the way Graham only thought he did. It was partly that he was seeking revenge for Graham’s betrayal, but even more, he wanted the thrill of watching Graham suffer. He would enjoy Graham’s torture: every bruise, every shame, and every regret.
Even after stories of Beehag’s zoo, Alice had not really believed that such people existed. She looked back to Graham. She had not believed someone like him could exist, either: someone willing to draw a line of morality and sacrifice everything in order to prevent further horrors. Graham could have simply walked away with his winnings, and lived a comfortable life of freedom and never looked back. He didn’t have to turn himself in to take down the ring, and he had known exactly what he was giving up when he did.
“How can you look at me like that?” Graham asked in a low growl, making Alice realize she was gazing at him with foolish fondness.
“How could I not?” she asked him, and when she smiled at him, his mouth cracked the tiniest bit.
They were not playing appropriately to Cyrus’ need to see them miserable and tormented. Miffed, he gestured to the guards. “Unlock him, but keep him close. Bring her, too.”
Despite her assurances that she could fight, none of them considered her a threat. Alice recalled her dismal performance with the heavy bag and her easy capture and wasn’t sure
that they were wrong.
Chapter 34
The ruins of Beehag’s zoo had been transformed. At first glance, it looked like a creepy pop-up rock concert, with noisy generators running massive lights and huge speakers currently blaring music. In the warm darkness, it was aggressive and challenging, and the audience—not big, but big enough—was cheering and drinking and betting.
The only difference was that instead of a stage, there was a cage.
It wasn’t the burn-twisted remains of any of Beehag’s enclosures, it was a shining new cage, probably boated in parts and assembled the day before.
While they were still outside of the glitter and spotlight, the guards gave Graham a pair of shimmering gold shorts and an ermine-edged purple robe to put on, and let him wrap his hands.
Alice watched with amusement that didn’t quite mask her worry and despair. “I like how they expect you to beat the crap out of each other, but they want to make sure your delicate knuckles don’t get hurt,” she said mockingly.
She was so brave, so beautiful, so clever. Even dreading what she would think of the show, even knowing how this could destroy everything they had in so many possible ways, Graham was selfishly glad to have her there.
She gave him... hope.
They were in an impossible place. Graham could see no way out of here; even if he won this round, Cyrus would pit him against another shifter, and another; he wasn’t going to just let Graham and Alice walk away.
This was the dead end he’d always been ready for.
And somehow, against all reason, she made him feel hopeful.
Graham caught Cyrus glaring at him. Then the fight coordinator smiled coldly.
“You wouldn’t want to start fighting without warming up first,” he said with a smirk. “Boys?” He nodded at the guards, and Graham knew what was coming when someone grabbed him from behind and twisted his arms back.
It wasn’t a fight, it was a beating, and a careful beating at that. The audience wouldn’t want a rigged fight, they wanted the fantasy of fairness. So the blows were kept from his face, concentrated on his core, places that would cause damage, but not show bruises.
Graham didn’t struggle; his only goal was to turn to keep the worst of it from Alice, who gave a wail of agony when it started and then begged Cyrus and swore like a sailor as they held her back. The pain in her voice was the worst of the torture.
When it was over, Graham caught his breath through gritted teeth. He had a broken rib, probably, and was glad it wasn’t worse than that. He could still walk, and he could still fight, and that was what mattered.
Someone had a microphone, and was shouting loud enough that they could hear it over the noisy roar of the generator. “Ladies and gentlemen... are you ready? He’s a seven-time event winner... The muscles with menace... Our very own angus shifter, Cinderblock!”
The shifter who walked into the spotlight, posing and raising his fists, was taller than Graham by a handspan, and proportionally wider, built like a mountain. He raised a folding chair over his head, and casually twisted it into a pretzel.
The crowd went wild.
Instinctively, Graham measured him as an opponent, feeling the familiar rise of adrenaline. Cinderblock was a big man, but he moved gracefully; his range of movement and speed weren’t hindered by his strength, and he would be a tricky opponent even if Graham hadn’t already been softened up.
Graham knew he ought to feel afraid, but the emotion welling up in him felt more like excitement. He knew what to do next, down to the very bones. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t his choice... it was a fight he was ready for.
They were at the edge of the lit area around the cage, standing just in the shadows out of sight, very near the loud generator.
Past the crowd, the nearly-full moon was rising and movement in the sky caught Graham’s eye.
“Let him say goodbye to his girlfriend,” Cyrus said, loudly to be heard over the generator. He allowed Alice step forward to put her arms around Graham; she had struggled out of her bindings and one of her hands was free. The rope still hung from the other wrist, but the others clearly didn’t consider her a risk. They knew that they only had to control him to keep her in line.
“Be... careful,” Alice said, softly, as he cradled her face in his hands. She was blinking back tears, clearly trying to keep a brave face for him. “You aren’t this,” she reminded him near his ear. “You are Graham.”
Graham kissed her without trying to explain that this was exactly what he was, and stepped back from her, ignoring the ache in his side that had nothing to do with the broken rib.
One of the guards pulled her back when she might have tried to keep him from going and Graham had to turn away so he didn’t try to jump uselessly to her defense.
He eyed Cyrus, who was watching him closely.
The crowd was beginning to tire of Cinderblock’s showboating, and the announcer, catching their mood, moved on to the introduction of Graham. “Out of the fighting circuit for ten years... the act you’ve been waiting for... one of the meanest fighters to grace the cage... lion shifter and lady lover... put your hands together for... the King of the Jungle!”
The crowd broke out in jeers and insults; Graham was clearly not the favored fighter.
They were expecting a slaughter, he realized, and he had to wonder if they were expecting it to be literal. The crowd at his last fight had had that same timbre, he thought. That same blood-thirsty lust.
Cyrus smiled slowly, savoring the moment. “Look at you,” Cyrus mocked. “You can feel the thrill in your blood. You’re still a fighter. You’re still Grant Lyons, King of the Jungle.”
There was another flicker in the sky.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “I’m Graham Long now.”
“You’re just the same as you’ve always been,” Cyrus scoffed. “Graham isn’t any different than Grant.”
Graham smiled slowly.
“Except that Graham has friends.”
Then a flaming dragon appeared above the arena, lighting the grass around the cage on fire and roaring a challenge to the crowd as it swept overhead.
Graham turned on the three guards who had been prepared to escort him to the cage, using their surprise to wrest their weapons from them as chaos erupted around them.
Chapter 35
Alice was looking too hard at Graham to notice Bastian’s aerial approach, but she was quick to take advantage of the distraction to grab the gun from the guard holding her. She might not be much of a fighter, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to shoot anything with her weight hanging from his gun.
A bear, a panther, and a lynx stalked out of the darkness like the start of a bad joke, and she cried out in warning, “They have Beehag’s anti-shifting drugs!” She wasn’t sure if they would hear her bellow over the sound of the generator.
Shots—real shots—scattered off a wall somewhere nearby as one of the guards fired wildly in their direction.
“And real bullets, too, apparently!” Alice added in a panic. She fought harder to get the gun from the guard she was grappling, and it ripped free into her hands. She swung it at the guard like a club, missed and nearly unbalanced. The guard, with more honed reflexes, recovered first, and balled up a fist to hit her in the jaw.
Blinking stars of pain aside, Alice saw a charging deer of impossible size, followed by a pair of leopards, one silver and white, one gold and black. They didn’t pause to battle any of the guards or shifters in fighting gear who were starting to gather; their goal seemed to be to clear a path for a human figure who was running behind them. Big bears charged after her, one polar bear, one big grizzly, and they bowled over the event staff that briefly attempted to stop them.
Alice wondered if the human figure was Scarlet for a moment, but then she was in the light, and it was the mermaid, Saina, ducking and dashing for the sound system.
Bastian made another sweep over the ruins, flaming above the heads of the fleeing crowd and
the members of Cyrus’ ring that were starting to muster a defense against the attack. Darts pinged off his hide and fell harmlessly to the ground below. The guard facing Alice was clearly having a crisis of loyalty, and at the massive dragon’s second pass, broke off and fled with the audience stampeding towards the dock.
Some of the shifter fighters were taking animal form, meeting this attack with teeth and claws of their own. Was it loyalty to the ring, Alice wondered, or just that they couldn’t resist a fight?
Then Saina had the microphone in her hand and the magic of her voice was falling over the crowd, calming them and settling a thrall over them. If they were running, they staggered to a stop. If they were fighting, they lowered their fists and paws, and stood in a daze.
Alice felt only the slightest hint of it. At first, she thought it was because she was protected from Saina’s magic by her dormant mate-bond. Then she realized that everyone in their immediate vicinity had shaken it off, Saina’s siren music half-drowned by the constant noise of the generator, and spread thin over a larger crowd than she usually dealt with. Cyrus was bending to pick up one of the rifles, aiming it at the battle that Graham was fighting with the guards that had been escorting him to the cage.
Alice didn’t know much about hitting, and she knew less about shooting, but she did know throwdowns, so that’s what she did, driving Cyrus to the ground from behind.
He snarled and fought, and Alice wrapped him tighter in her arms.
He headbutted her, smashing her nose.
“Foul!” Alice cried, tasting blood. She got her arm around both of his. “That would be a flagrant misconduct, asshole.”
“You still think this is a game, Alice?” Cyrus hissed, trying to squirm out of her grip.
Alice clamped her arms down tighter.
Chapter 36
Graham’s guards had been expecting a fight. They weren’t expecting a dragon, or Saina’s siren magic, or the ragtag team of animals that had shown up, but Graham’s advantage of surprise didn’t last long.
