by H. D. Gordon
With a wink that earned another snarl, the male turned his enormous back to me, a pretty strong statement of trust on his part—to turn his back while I was in this form, or any form, really.
But I wasted no time in switching back into my two-legged self, and like a true gentleman, the warrior unclasped the black cloak hanging from his back and handed it back to me without looking.
I wrapped it around my shoulders, soaking up the warmth that lingered in the material, and said, “You’re Fae.” It was not a question.
The warrior grinned as he turned back to me. “Half Fae,” he corrected, and ran his tongue over an elongated canine. “Half Vampire. And I have a name. It’s Yarin, as I’ve already told you.”
I knew that it was rude, but I couldn’t help it. I stared at Yarin as if he had two heads. I’d never met an actual Halfbreed before. Such interbreeding was taboo among the supernatural races. But… I had to admit that the results were not esthetically displeasing.
Yarin smirked, a look coming into his deep brown eyes that suggested he knew what I was thinking.
“You’re kind of attractive yourself,” he said, and winked again.
A ridiculous rush of heat flushed my cheeks, and I cleared my throat. “Where are you taking her?” I asked.
“Somewhere safe,” Yarin said.
“Where? With whom?”
“Well, now, those are mighty valuable secrets. Just let me have the child and we’ll be on our way.” He raised a dark brow. “Unless you want to take her back to that shithole they call Dogshead.”
“Where are your wings?” I asked.
“Half Fae don’t have wings.”
“But you can fly?”
“One does not need wings to fly.”
I was wasting time. These were unnecessary questions. But…
As if sensing the reluctance from me, Amara stepped slowly out from behind my back and toward the Halfbreed warrior. She looked so very tiny standing in the large shadow of him. To my ultimate surprise, Yarin dropped down smoothly into a crouch, resting his large forearms on his knees, and gave the child an easy smile.
“Hey, there, sweetheart,” he whispered quietly, though I picked the words up easily with my strong hearing. “You’re going to be okay now. We’re going to take care of you.”
Amara glanced back at me, and from the look on her face, I could tell that she already trusted him. My eyes narrowed just slightly, wondering if he’d used some of the persuasion ability Fae kind were known for, but made no move to stop her when she said, “It’s okay, Rukiya. I’m ready to go with him.”
Hearing my full name spoken in her tiny voice tugged at that cold muscle in my chest. I swallowed once and met the warrior’s eyes.
“Give me your word she’ll be safe,” I said.
“I give you my word,” he said with a small bow of his head.
He opened his arms to Amara, but to my utter shock, the child ran toward me and threw her arms around my legs, as she was not tall enough to even reach my waist. Now, my eyes burned, but I blinked back any traitorous tears.
“Thank you for saving me,” Amara said.
I ran a hand through her hair, not trusting my voice not to break should I attempt to speak. Amara pulled back and stepped into Yarin’s muscled arms.
“You could come with us,” Amara added. She looked to the warrior that held her, his handsome face gentle and kind. “She could, couldn’t she?”
Yarin’s brown eyes went to the collar around my neck, surely knowing as well as I that the magic in the thing would strangle the life out of me once the Master noticed I was gone. Amara had escaped while they’d been about to brand and collar her. If it had been after, I likely would not have even intervened.
Once you were stamped and collared, you were owned. There was no escaping after that.
“She could,” Yarin mumbled, the two words carrying the weight of all the others that had just gone through my head.
“You made me a promise,” I said to the warrior. “I suggest you keep it.”
This earned a small tilt to Yarin’s mouth, but I shifted into my Wolf form in the next heartbeat and slipped out of his cloak so that he could reclaim it. In a move that could have lost him a couple fingers, he surprised me again by patting my chocolate head and scratching behind my ears before clasping the cloak to his shoulders.
“Hold on,” he told Amara, and then the two of them shot upward into the night sky, the blast of their departure stirring the fur around my face.
I didn’t have the time to watch them disappear into the darkness.
I turned back in the direction of that invisible boundary… and ran.
13
Shift, fight, survive.
Those were the rules of the game. Two Wolves entered The Ring, one came out. It was simple, brutal, and sometimes, lightning quick.
It was worse when it lasted longer, a drawn out execution.
I could hear the crowd, could feel the excitement and anticipation hanging in the air, before I reached the area where the fights took place. My tongue lolled out of my mouth as I slowed my pace at last, gulping down air like a just-surfaced swimmer.
For a few moments, my head spun, my heart beating rapidly near my throat. The streets of Dogshead were quiet and empty as I padded through, heading in the direction of that wild energy. For the past two days I’d been able to avoid the reality of my fight with the Bear, had been able to push it to the rear of my consciousness in order to focus on other matters, but as I drew nearer The Ring, there was no way to ignore it.
My side ached, lingering pain from the fight with the Hounds and Gravedigger, and on top of that, a stitch had formed from my long run out to the edge of Bo Benedict’s land and back. I stopped at the waterhole near the kennels and lapped at the foggy, stagnant water for as long as I dared.
Time was up. As if to punctuate the point, a high-pitched whine tore across the night, the final death scream of a dying Dog.
I wondered who it was, but supposed it didn’t matter.
I just needed to get back to the kennels in time to hear my name called for the fight.
As I padded closer and closer, slipping between squat wooden structures and over low wooden fences, I picked up an unfamiliar scent on the air and stopped dead in my tracks. My ears flattened on my head and my glowing eyes scanned my surroundings for the source. I was being watched by someone… or something, and I could feel it.
A low warning growl rumbled up my throat from deep in my belly. My tail was held still and low, my head lowered between my haunches.
I was just about to head on my way, knowing that if the watcher was any real threat, whoever it was could just get in line behind the threats directly before me. But then I looked to my left and saw duel flashes of red staring back at me. The eyes were just two scarlet-glowing orbs in the shadows of a nearby structure. Unblinking and utterly transfixing.
They were the eyes of a predator, their beauty disturbingly enthralling.
I sent a low snarl in that direction, and just before I entered the kennels (little more than a few rows of mud huts where the Dogs slept) there was a flicker of white beneath those glowing red eyes, as though the owner had flashed a smile.
There were only a handful of stolen moments to contemplate this mystery before the thoughts of glowing eyes and flashing grins in the darkness were swept away by the deafening roar of the crowd, and the sound of my name being called on the other side of The Ring.
No time to rest, then.
It was time to kill or die.
The announcer, still wearing his striped suspenders and stained white shirt from earlier, gave me a semi-suspicious look as I came running up in my human form, having snagged my clothes on the way back out of the forest.
“I was about to call the Hounds,” he hissed, the cards listing names and stats fisted in his fat hands. “You just barely made it, girl. Now get up there so I can announce the fight.” His gray eyes darted toward where the Bear was already standi
ng beside the enormous metal cage that was The Ring and then back to me. He snorted and added, “Good luck.”
I barely heard him. I was already zoning out, stepping into that space where survival was pushed to the forefront. The atmosphere surrounding The Ring added to the feeling. Metal bleachers were lined up around the chain-link, octagon-shaped cage where the body of the Dog I’d heard shriek moments ago was being dragged away by Murphy the Gravedigger. Following him, the water boys would come with a bucket of water and splash it over the mats that made up the center of the octagon in a half-assed attempt at washing the blood away.
Now I stood on one side of The Ring, and the Bear stood on the other. The crowd around us, full of stone-still Vampires and drooling Wolves, murmured their anticipation at the match up. My eyes scanned the gathered for Goldie, but I did not see her among them. I sent up a silent prayer to whichever gods might be listening that she had pulled off her part of the plan without falling into danger.
And just as I was finishing the silent plea, the Announcer pulled open the door that led into The Ring, and waved an impatient hand at the two fighters to enter. The Bear approached from her side, circling the octagon cage so that those in the stands could get a good look at her. I did the same on my side.
We reached the cage door at the same time.
The Bear shoved me to the side and entered first, earning laughter and shouts of approval from the crowd.
I gritted my teeth and followed after her. The metal door of The Ring clanged shut behind us. A thick metal chain was wound around the opening, sealing us both inside. From the raised wooden platform constructed around the cage, the Announcer paced back and forth, beady eyes scanning the crowd, revving them up with his introductions.
Inside The Ring, I stood face-to-face with the Bear.
She was even bigger than I remembered, as if she had somehow grown wider and taller and darker in the last handful of hours.
The last handful of hours, when I’d been running myself ragged helping a slave child escape Dogshead.
The booming voice of the Announcer interrupted that rogue thought and forced me back to the here and now.
“Shift!” he bellowed, and the Wolves in the audience tipped their heads back and howled at the moon.
Inside the cage, I shifted into my Wolf form, the process taking a half minute or so longer than the usual instantaneous shift that I’d trained myself to be able to do. After, I shook myself free of the rags I’d been wearing, leaving them in a dirty brown pile against the chain-link wall of the cage.
That left only the task of watching the Bear make her slow, painful shift into her Wolf form, and though it was of course something I’d seen many times before, it was nothing short of gruesome.
She bent double, dropping to all fours and back arching as though a demon were trying to force its way out of her. Her bald, ebony head gleamed under the harsh torchlights that had been lit around The Ring. A deep, rumbling noise escaped her, the sound resonating through the mats and up my paws. I remained where I was, my chocolate brown fur raised along my back and my tail held low and still.
I wanted to look away, but knew that to do so would be considered weak. So I watched every bit of her painful shift. Every second.
Thick, black fur sprouted from her elongated snout, knuckles, and inverted knees. A bushy black tail grew out of the bottom of her back. Another pained grumble erupted from her mouth, where teeth as sharp as daggers had grown and were dripping long ropes of silver saliva.
After what seemed an eternity, the Bear completed her change. Standing before me now stood the biggest black Wolf I’d ever seen. In this form, she was easily the size of any of our most impressive male counterparts.
For the briefest of moments, my attention caught on something over her shoulder, on a pair of hypnotizing red eyes I’d seen only moments before, staring out at me from the shadows.
I only had time to notice that those eyes were set in a terribly beautiful pale face, though the grin I’d glimpsed in the darkness before was gone.
Then the Announcer yelled, “Fight!”
I gave myself to the beast within me, maintaining only the essential cognitive parts that made me woman. There was little room for the girl I was when I walked upright, and no space for doubts or insecurity. Those things in The Ring meant certain death.
The Bear wasted no time moving in, clearly not a fighter that had to rely on speed or stealth. She was all size and brute strength.
She charged me—teeth and thick black fur flashing. I slipped to the side and nipped at her flank before she spun around again to face me. Somewhere far away, I heard the surprised response of the crowd, but paid them no mind.
My focus was pinpointed on the beast I’d been locked into a cage with, as well as the beast that had been released within me.
Speed would be my greatest ally against this behemoth. I could not afford to be caught between her powerful jaws.
Just as the thought crossed my mind—as if the idea had created the reality—the Bear caught my left rear flank and tore easily through fur and flesh. A squeal almost escaped my mouth, but I clamped my jaws together and tore free of her grip.
The scent of my own blood floated up into the night.
I dashed to the side just in time to avoid the powerful clamp of her jaws once again. Her mouth snapped shut in the exact spot my throat had been only moments ago.
That bite had been a deathblow.
In response to my continued evasion, the crowd hissed and booed.
She struck, I moved. Again and again.
Until various objects struck the outside of The Ring from all around—tomatoes and heads of cabbages purchased at a vender in Dogshead for just this purpose.
The moment I’d been waiting for came with the onslaught of items being chucked at us from all directions. Tomatoes splattered like mini bloody heads against the chain-link, the heads of lettuce making the metal jingle like the necklace of a proper lady.
This distracted the Bear for the heartbeat of time that I needed.
She was a top Dog, after all, a known champion. She was not used to having things thrown at her.
Me, on the other hand… I’d had the opposite experience.
So as the enormous black she-beast glanced down at an overripe tomato that had strained through the cage to land in a red mess at her paws, I moved.
Every ounce of power I owned went into my forward lunge. My eyes locked on the target of her thick neck. My jaws stretched wide.
I clamped them shut on her throat a second before I felt her mouth snap shut around my back.
Searing pain shot through me. Hot and bright like lightning from above.
I almost lost my grip on her neck as the world bounced in and out of focus. For the very life of me, I hung tight.
My body was whipped from side to side as the Bear tried to shake free. She’d removed her teeth from my spine, but the fire of her bite still ravaged there. I could taste her blood in my mouth while my own blood wetted my fur.
My teeth had sunk deep. She should be dead already. A smaller Wolf would have been.
A terrible thought rocketed across my mind unwanted: Maybe she can’t be killed.
My body whipped to the opposite side, my grip slipping.
One more good shake, and I would be thrown free.
My back and thigh were burning like the fires of hell, my energy waning.
Finish her, little Wolf said a familiar voice in my head. I was not entirely sure I hadn’t imagined it.
But I summoned the reserves of my strength and closed my jaws entirely.
Hot blood filled my mouth. A swirl of rabid hunger filled my soul.
I lost my grip a moment before the Bear collapsed over sideways, her throat a gaping mess of meat and fur and her dark eyes wide as though she just could not believe it.
From the shocked silence that befell the crowd, I knew she wasn’t alone in the sentiment.
14
Getting back to th
e mud hut where I slept was a blur of happenings.
The announcer had made some stupid joke about a twist ending, and finally, the chain locking up The Ring was removed and the door opened.
People continued to throw food at me as the Bear was dragged from the cage. It took Murphy and two other Dogs to carry her. The crowd hissed and booed, the most vulgar of names bouncing off of me the same as those rotten tomatoes and brown heads of lettuce.
But I was allowed to pass.
I’d made it. I’d survived. I’d killed the Bear.
There was no pride in the knowledge. With the injuries to my back and leg, I would be lucky if I lived through the night.
Just make it back to the hut, I thought. And thought and thought until I stumbled through the arched opening of my muddy home and promptly collapsed on the pile of horse blankets and hay that was my bed.
From there, the world darkened and disappeared.
I knew before I opened my eyes that I was still in my hut. The smell of the muddy clay was unmistakable, but what I didn’t know was how much time had passed.
Or who was with me.
I placed the scent a moment after my gaze settled on him, and I tried to sit upright, but a wheezing hiss escaped me and I lowered my head again.
“Easy, little Wolf,” Ryker the Hound said. He nodded his golden head toward my back. “You took quite the beating.”
I was still in my Wolf form, and since I didn’t feel like speaking directly into his mind, I said nothing. Instead, I scanned him for a weapon, wondering with a jolt if he’d come here to kill me since the Bear had failed at completing the job.
He was crouched near the entrance to my space, his forearms resting casually over his knees and his sapphire eyes gleaming in the darkness. He carried no knife or blade that I was aware of, though I suspected he didn’t need either to kill me. Especially in my condition.
“You won,” he said.
I only lowered my ears and looked up at him.