Chapter Thirty
I JERKED MY HEAD BACK HARD ENOUGH to crack it on the stone wall I was now chained to, gulping in air around the icy water that had been thrown into my face. My hands were still bound above my head, and I doubted I’d ever get full feeling back in them. I shook my head to dislodge the wet hair plastered to my cheeks and found myself eye-to-eye with a feral vampire. My heart nearly plummeted to my feet when I reached inside myself and found a useless vapor where my power had once been. The vampire smiled, sniffing the air, smelling the fear that roiled off me and hearing the racing of my heart. I probably turned the bastard on.
I looked down at my feet and was shocked to find I still had my sgian-dubh in my boot holster. Why would Elaine have left that on me?
The vampire took a step forward as if he couldn’t help himself, but he quickly recoiled when someone entered the chamber. Elaine strode into the room with another vampire and a shifter. I watched the trio enter but kept my mouth shut. She knew she was calling the shots, so I’d let her make the first move.
The trio from hell stopped directly in front of me, and a fair-haired vampire with a small piece of his left earlobe missing grabbed my chin in his iron grip. I tried to jerk out of his grasp but quickly gave up. I’d only tire myself out more and end up with bruises. Meeting the vampire’s red-tinged stare, I lifted my chin slightly.
“So, this is the powerful time warper?” he hissed as his tongue swept over his lips and fangs, tasting my scent.
“So, this is the pathetic, piece-of-shit vampire?” I shot back when he released my chin.
His hand shot out so fast my eyes didn’t register the movement. I tasted blood in my mouth, and my jaw felt dislocated.
Elaine cackled. “Come now, children, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I met her gaze unflinchingly and had to stop myself from spitting in her face. Her smile slipped just enough to make me grin in triumph.
She snapped her fingers. “James, Colton, unchain her, and let’s get this over with.”
I tried to school my features, but my mind was racing through dozens of different scenarios. I was led from the room with my tingling arms pinned behind me in an unbreakable grip, trailing Elaine and her two vampire buddies. Of all the scenarios my mind could have come up with, I would never have envisioned what awaited me behind lucky door number three.
I blinked in amazement when I entered the room and came to a complete halt before the shifter holding me gave me a shove into the arena. Arena was the only word that could describe the room that I found myself in. I looked up, and to my stupefaction, I saw the moon and stars shining down from where the roof should have been. The building looked like some sort of abandoned factory. There were torches burning all around, and dozens of preternatural eyes were trained on me. Slowly, a bead of sweat trickled down my temple.
Elaine and company led me to the center of the large room. She looked around, into the faces of all the creatures that she loathed—her deadly little minions—and then gave a nod of her head. The blond vampire left the three of us alone in the middle of the arena. Elaine began what only could be described as a pep talk to her followers. She went on about how today was only a setback, and once I was disposed of, their quest for a war would come to pass.
Yadda freaking yadda.
I looked around the room, searching faces and eyes for anyone that might be able to help me, for anyone that wasn’t under the spell Elaine wove. My heart plummeted at the realization that there wasn’t going to be any help coming from anyone except me. I gingerly wiggled my fingers behind my back, pleased to feel needle-like sensations accompany the movement; feeling was returning to my hands and arms. My ears picked up on something Elaine was saying, and I turned my attention back to her to see if I could make sense of her insane babbling.
“I will take care of the warper myself, to show you all that I am worthy to be your leader. Tonight, we will fight to the death for your entertainment.” She smiled at the raucous burst of applause and cheers that came from the crowd surrounding us.
She had truly lost her ever-loving mind! A cold sweat broke out on my brow, and I felt like people do right before they throw up all over themselves. Surely, she didn’t mean for us to fight one-on-one to the death. I licked my parched lips as she walked over to me with a sly grin painted across her face.
“This should be a fair fight since I’ve trained in combat and defense just as much as you have, perhaps a little more. You can’t use your warper powers for at least another twelve hours, so it will be an even match.”
I blanched at her casual disregard for my life. “Elaine, you don’t mean to go through with this, do you?” I knew I sounded desperate, but I would swallow my pride if she’d only change her mind.
She looked into my eyes, and I saw determination and a thread of insanity lodged there. Why hadn’t I seen it before?
“I won’t feel the slightest remorse when I cut your throat and your life spills onto the floor tonight; you will be nothing more than another dead creature on my checklist.”
I flinched from the venom in her voice.
“Let her go, and get out of the circle.”
The shifter abruptly released my arms, and I rubbed each one slowly to get the blood flowing back into them. Elaine watched me from a few feet away as she removed her blouse, leaving only her shift and skirt to face me. A man approached her from behind, carrying something wrapped in velvet cloth. My stomach lurched when she pulled a dirk almost the exact same size as mine from the folds of the cloth.
I looked down at my shift with its missing hem and felt for the small knife strapped to my thigh. It was gone. I pulled the dirk from my boot and swiftly cut a slit up both sides of my shift to my thighs. To hell with appearances.
Elaine made a few lunges and practice jabs, getting used to the feel of her dirk as I scanned the area surrounding me, looking for exits and trying to formulate a plan.
“You won’t get away, Sage. I have given orders to have you killed instantly if you try to leave this arena.”
I focused my eyes on the woman I had hoped to become close friends with and saw nothing in her to leave me any hope of avoidance. I shook my head and ignored the human-sized weight that had squatted on top of my chest. I didn’t want to kill her, but I would do what I had to in order to survive. I centered myself and tightened my grip on the sgian-dubh in my hand. A ripple went through the crowd surrounding us, but I didn’t have time to care about our morbid audience.
Elaine lunged toward me with her dirk raised in a forward-thrust motion aimed directly for my chest. She wasn’t pissing around.
I leapt out of her way and barely avoided being skewered by the tip of her knife. I cried out when the blade sliced across my left arm. A hiss echoed throughout the room. Great, I was bleeding in a room filled with bloodsuckers. Now wasn’t that just the icing on my crap cake.
Elaine and I circled one another, sizing each other up for our next move. This time, she swung her knife toward my neck just as I swung my dirk low. I bent backward far enough to allow her blade to pass over my head and immediately straightened and spun, ready for her next move. Elaine stood in front of me wide-eyed with blood seeping through the side of her chemise. I smiled and saluted her with the edge of my dirk.
Her eyes glazed over, and she threw herself in my direction. I met her halfway, and our weapons rang throughout the arena as they glanced off each other. She grabbed my arm with more strength than I would have credited her. I kicked her as hard as I could when my dirk began slipping, knocking her to the ground. Elaine jumped to her feet so quickly I wondered for a split second if she had some kind of preternatural ability. The thought was wiped from my mind as she swiped my legs out from underneath me; I landed flat on my back, and all the air whooshed out of my lungs.
From somewhere in the arena, I heard what sounded like a sonic boom, followed by howls of fury. The sounds were the least of my worries, though; Elaine was on me before I could gulp in a
breath.
She leaned all her body weight onto the dirk poised above my heart. My own weapon lay just a few inches away, but if I let go of her hands, she would have had no trouble thrusting hers through my heart. My arms started to wobble, and the dirk slipped down another inch, puncturing the skin above my left breast.
Time seemed to suspend around us, and even though I could tell there was some kind of battle raging around me, it all felt very far away and inconsequential. I raised my eyes to look into Elaine's crazed face and knew that if I died right that moment, I would die without ever having fully lived… without ever having allowed anyone to know the real me. I couldn’t let Elaine steal that away from me.
I found a burst of strength hidden deep inside myself that had nothing to with my warper powers and everything to do with my need to survive. Bucking my hips hard enough to dislodge Elaine’s body from mine, I rerouted her dirk away from my chest. With my right hand, I reached out and grasped the hilt of my sgian-dubh just as Elaine’s dirk came back down again and tore through my chest a mere inch above my heart. An anguished scream was torn from my lips as blackness veiled my vision.
I turned my head just in time to see a body fall close to me, his eyes open but not seeing. As I glanced up, I could see Elaine’s wild eyes and was sure she, too, was oblivious to the war going on around us. She only had my death on her mind.
My fingers involuntarily flinched around the dirk still in my hand, and something inside me snapped. Running on adrenaline, I swiped my dirk across the front of her chest, and she stumbled off me in shock. She was bleeding from shoulder to shoulder as she got to her feet.
Gathering every ounce of strength I possessed, I heaved myself up off the floor. Reaching up with my left hand, I jerked out the knife that was protruding from my chest. The bloody weapon clanged to the ground, and the searing pain nearly buckled my knees.
Elaine looked over at me, seething with hatred. I shook my head, pleading with her to just stop, but she charged me anyway. Everything happened so quickly, but it seemed at the time to play out in black-and-white movie stills. She charged, and I lifted my dirk just at the right moment for her to run directly into my blade. I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to.
Her eyes widened in shock as the hidden knife she had retrieved fell to the ground. She landed on her knees, and I went down with her in an unwilling embrace. I jerked the dirk free from her chest, and she slid to the ground in front me. Her eyes swung around wildly, taking in the massacre going on around us, and a trickle of blood escaped her mouth.
As Elaine’s eyes slowly dimmed in defeat and then finally closed in death, I felt tears streaming down my face, but there was nothing I could do to stop them. No matter the reason, I had taken a human life.
I looked down at my blood-soaked shift and staggered to my feet, even though my legs felt like they wouldn’t hold me for long. The battle around me had died down, and dozens of bodies littered the arena. I looked across the floor and saw Aldwin shouting across the arena at someone I barely recognized. Soren stood there, covered in blood and looking like a dark, avenging angel. He glanced over in my direction, his eyes widened, and then he looked back at Aldwin.
I smiled at my guys and gave a little wave with my finger. Aldwin was running in my direction and saying something I couldn’t make out when I toppled forward into oblivion.
Time Warper: Fated, A Sage Hannigan Novel Page 31
