by Lan Chan
She was leaning forward this time. Diana had her arm around Sophie’s shoulders. Astrid held on to her wrist. It was a shackle to stop Sophie from casting a spell and interfering with the games. Smart move. If I had my powers, I would be struggling not to give Chanelle a little push as well. More than once, my eyes had done a scan of the vicinity, trying to find something I could throw at her head.
Bradley grew tired of being the mouse. The next time he ran at Kai, he disappeared at the last second. He stayed gone for a long beat.
The crowd inhaled. Speed was a relative term amongst supernaturals. No one, not even Kai, was faster than a teleport. Bradley appeared behind Chanelle. Max surged forward, but even standing so close, he wasn’t fast enough. Bradley clocked Chanelle in the back of the head. Kai’s form materialized at the last second and yanked her forward so that Bradley only just clipped her.
He pushed her aside and launched himself at Bradley. A blur of golden skin and fur intercepted him part-way. Kai and Max rolled across the mat. They grappled with each other, trading places at the top. It said something that Max hadn’t gone furry and Kai hadn’t pulled out his angel blade. That didn’t mean he held back when he braced his left forearm against Max’s chest and slugged his across the jaw.
The force behind the hit would have knocked anybody else unconscious. Max laughed deep in his gut and latched on to Kai’s throat. Bradley used the distraction to level a brutal kick at Kai’s side.
The flex of Kai’s muscles told me he’d seen the kick coming. He’d just chosen not to evade in favour to keeping his advantage over Max. That didn’t mean he would take another attack lying down. The next time Bradley went for him, Kai burst from above Max in a flurry of rolling fists.
Bradley brought his arms up to protect his head. It left his torso wide open. Kai raised his brow in chastisement. He would teach Bradley a lesson he’d tried to ingrain in me for months without success. Never take your eye off your opponent.
Kai jumped into the air. His knees and elbows came together in a flash of momentum before he uncurled in mid-air and brought his fist back. The hit landed right where Bradley had his fists raised. He screamed as the bones in his hand shattered. This lesson was clear: blocked or not, Kai would fight his way through no matter what.
I gagged as Bradley’s hand flopped. He stared at it like an idiot. Kai would have gotten another punch in if Max hadn’t swept his legs out from underneath him. They landed in a crouch, both of them too graceful to fall any other way.
The cheering of the crowd swelled. They egged the boys on, loving the idea of them going head to head. I wanted to scream my rage at the top of my lungs. Kai and Max clashed again. This time, they wrestled with each other. Any time it appeared as though one of them had finally gotten the upper hand, the other counter-balanced and slipped away. They did things that defied human logic. It brought home that they were decidedly not human.
Max grabbed Kai in an arm bar, his legs holding down Kai’s torso and neck. Kai linked his hands together and drew them up against the knee at his throat. He pushed up, rolling Max off-centre by driving his own body back. Kai turned into Max’s body in an explosive move that gained him the upper hand again.
Tired of being physically overshadowed, Bradley brought his angel blade out to play. Not caring that he would effectively slice his partner in two if he didn’t wait for a clear shot, Bradley swung the blade. Kai and Max separated to avoid the blow. Max roared.
Bradley didn’t seem at all perturbed as he refocused on Kai and began to hammer blows. Kai leaped out of the way each time. While the boys grappled with each other, Chanelle paced the floor. She was being less than useless. It made no sense because I knew she could fight. Astrid would wipe the floor with her, but she had other talents she could use. It wasn’t until the next time Max decided to weigh in on the fight that Chanelle whistled at him.
Her angel blade appeared in her hands. Like the rest of her, it was a delicate rapier with a glowing green handle.
Instead of pointing it at her opponent, Chanelle moved until she was lined right up with where Sophie sat. I launched out of my seat only to be restrained by Andrei. I kicked at him, but he was too strong.
“Max! No!” I screamed. The swelling roar of the crowd was too loud for him to hear me. I doubted he would have heard anything above the rush of protective instincts that would have flooded him as soon as he realised Sophie was in danger. Chanelle threw her rapier at Sophie. Max rushed to intercept it. If he was in his right mind, he would have known there was no way for the weapon to breach the barrier. Even if it had, Sophie could have protected herself with a magic circle. That too was a very last resort because Astrid would have batted the rapier away long before then.
But Max wasn’t in his right mind. All he could think of was Sophie and the very sharp point of the sword whistling through the air at her. The crowd surged to their feet when he sailed across the mat and grabbed the rapier before it even touched the barrier. The cheering would have lifted the roof if there had been one.
“Max!” I kept screaming.
He couldn’t see what I did from this angle. While he was distracted with the big blade, he didn’t see the needles Chanelle whipped out from the armguard. She teleported right in front of him and drove one, two, three needles into his throat.
Sophie would have shot out of her seat if Diana hadn’t had her in a vice grip. Charles roared at the top of his lungs at the same time Max did. The arena became saturated in the rumbling, primeval rage of lions. Until Max’s voice abruptly cut out. Smoke billowed from his mouth. Chanelle disregarded it all and pressed needle after needle into the joints under his arm, into his gut, and through his thighs. Everywhere the silver needles touched him, Max’s skin began to blister and burn. He was bleeding out of his throat. His right knee gave way.
Still, Max didn’t lift a finger against her. I elbowed Andrei in the face when it looked like Chanelle was going to drive a needle into Max’s eye. I was halfway to the mat when he grabbed me by the back of my shirt and dragged me away.
Kai appeared in front of Chanelle. He snatched her arm and teleported them away. Bradley tried to get at Kai once more. Tired of playing this game, Kai tossed Chanelle aside and rammed his fist into Bradley’s face. Bradley flew six feet into the air. Kai teleported above him, grabbed Bradley by the throat, and slammed him headfirst into the mat. Only one Nephilim got to his feet.
“It’s over,” Kai screamed. The elite guard must have agreed because the barrier went down. Kai crouched over Max’s body. Green light glowed from his hands. Sophie arrived a moment later with me following hard on her heels.
Nephilim guards approached. They tried to take Max away. Kai’s green eyes blazed. His hands became fists. He was in the middle of trying to heal Max’s skin over the needles. Idiot. Somebody else was going to get a punch at this rate.
I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes. His brows were knitted so tight when he glared at me, it was a wonder he wasn’t cross-eyed. “You’re doing more damage, jackass!”
I was going to slap him myself when he shook his head as though throwing off a compulsion. He stared down at where his magic was embedding the needles further. The green light cut off abruptly. He moved away and let the guards take Max so they could tend to his wounds. Though they might be painful, Max’s injuries weren’t life threatening. Once the silver was cut out, he would be able to heal on his own. Sophie went with them. She threw me a look that was simmering with a single message. I nodded at her.
Sophie didn’t get angry often. At her core, she was too nice a person. She wanted to see the good in everyone. That was why she put up with all my insanity. But even for Sophie there was a line. That line was all golden lion shifter.
Chanelle showed me her teeth as I made my way back to Andrei. Smile now, I told her in my head. If I had my way, she’d have no teeth left by the end of this.
54
The hum of the crowd died down a little. The elite guard allowed additional ti
me between the bouts to smooth over frayed tempers. It just wound my nerves up even tighter.
“Still think we’ve got a chance?” I asked Andrei. He’d become monosyllabic since I’d told him I would honour my agreement with Kai.
“Maybe.”
I stamped on his foot. “Hey. We’re supposed to be a team here. If you’re going to throw a hissy-fit, I’d rather go out there on my own.”
“You’d die in a second.”
“At least I would die knowing I have my own back.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I gave him a hard stare. “I get that this is important to you,” I said. “It’s important to me too. But you chose me for this, remember? You don’t get to tap out just because you don’t like something I’ve said.”
“It’s not what you say. It’s what you’ll do. Why honour something when he’s not going to change?”
“Why stop drinking blood if you don’t care about living?”
“Stop throwing that in my face!”
“No! Not until you realise that getting your family out of the Book of Beast isn’t going to change a damn thing. Take a look at Sophie. Her great-grandfather is in that thing. She had to live with the stain of it for years. Her whole family were forced to move into a shifter compound to make sure they toe the line. Do you see her storming around raging at everything?”
“It’s not the same. She’s still got family.”
I scanned the front rows until I spotted a wrinkled prune in a thick, black velvet dress that might have been fashionable hundreds of years ago. “Last time I checked, that withered crone tried to help you. Aren’t you related to her?”
He scowled, but I caught his lips pressing together to stop from smiling. “Removing your family from the book without actually knowing the truth is meaningless,” I said. “I would have thought you of all people would understand that. I can help you find out the truth, but I won’t do it until you’re ready.”
He clenched his jaw but went silent again. I wanted to pull my hair out. The last thing I needed right now was to have to question his motives in the arena.
Jacqueline’s voice cut through the noise of the crowd. “Contestants to the arena.”
There was a very pregnant pause before the excited murmuring began. I got up to my feet and grabbed Morning Star. At the last minute, I rifled through the contents of the bag I’d brought to the arena and snatched the dragon scale out. Max had threaded a leather strap through the holes the dragon had bitten into it. Now I had a strap to hold the shield in place. It might not do much good, but it could give me a few seconds if things went badly. And I had a feeling they were going to go pretty badly.
Especially now that Andrei and I were suddenly not on the same page. Why did this stuff always happen to me?
We stepped out onto the mats. The barrier came up. A rolling sense of dread enveloped me. I turned and Andrei’s eyes were speckled with red. “No hard feelings, squirt,” he said. “Like you said, whatever happens in the arena, stays in the arena.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I snapped at him.
“We both have to win. I’ll watch your back until I can’t anymore.”
I wanted to smash the shield in his face again. The crux of the problem was that I needed him much more than he needed me. We had discussed a semi game plan before going to bed last night.
He was convinced that Kai wouldn’t hurt me even if he absolutely had to in order to win. I was convinced that given half the chance, Kai would beat the living daylights out of him. The only option then, was to use me as a human shield until Andrei could figure out a strategy to take Kai down.
We both stared across the mat at our opponents.
Chanelle was laser focused on me. Kai had his gaze locked on Andrei. I almost jumped out of my skin when Angus’s voice rang out. “This is the last team trial,” he said. “There will be no pause between this bout and the next. The team that wins will become each other’s opponents. Good luck.”
A voice in my head made me wince. Giselle was as subtle as a head cold. Remember what you are, she insisted. The Sisterhood does not run.
It was a flawed manifesto if you asked me. Then again, I wasn’t exactly the run-and-hide type.
The warning siren sounded. “You should have grabbed your swords,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.
“No point.”
Kai and Chanelle came hurtling towards us as soon as the siren sounded again. The crowd hollered. I pushed it to the back of my consciousness. There was no doubt we were royally outclassed. Underdog was too grand a description. Still, I gripped Morning Star and raised my head at Chanelle’s oncoming assault. At the last minute they both teleported. Andrei hissed and took a step towards me. He pushed me out of the way. I went sprawling. When the world stopped turning, a figure bathed in green appeared in front of me.
I didn’t even have time to inhale before Kai wrapped his arms around me and teleported us to the other side of the mat. I tossed the shield in Andrei’s direction. Kai dragged me back until we almost hit the barrier.
He forced me down onto the mat. I had to cross my legs otherwise my spine would snap. He braced his knees on either side of me, gripping my hand where I wouldn’t let go of Morning Star.
We were effectively cuddling in front of the whole supernatural community while Andrei was doing his best to dodge away from Chanelle’s lethal strikes. She’d been holding back this whole time. They had been playing a long game, and I’d fallen for it.
Andrei rolled against one of Chanelle’s overhead slashes. He dodged a cut that would have sliced his gut right open. She was trying to block him from getting to the dragon scale.
I struggled in Kai’s arms. It was hopeless.
Rage bubbled up inside me. It hammered at the seal. My magic surging up in the wake of the emotion that usually had me losing control. “Get off me!” I grunted.
He didn’t say a word. If I didn’t know for sure that I’d crack my head open if I headbutted him, I would have done it. Anything to rid myself of this feeling. I would have preferred for him to attack me. It was better than being shunted off to the side away from the fight like I was useless.
Irritating as he was, Andrei had grown on me a little. My heart lodged in my throat as Chanelle smashed the hilt of her rapier against his shoulder. He went sprawling. I was so busy trying to get out of Kai’s hold that I didn’t see he’d allowed the hit to give him space to lunge for the shield. He reached it a millisecond before she brought the rapier down again. It clashed with the dragon scale.
Now that he was protected, Andrei was able to gain some ground. In order to take out Chanelle, he would have to get a direct hit and then pummel her until she lost consciousness. I wasn’t sure how that was going to ever happen. Of the two of them, I was certain Andrei was going to run out of steam first.
She batted at the shield, drawing out the foregone conclusion. I tried to wriggle out of Kai’s hold. He latched on to my ankle.
I turned my head and looked him right in the eyes. My rage was reflected back at me in luminous green. I hadn’t forgotten how those eyes lit up when they looked at me. It was a punch in the gut to see them up close after so long.
My magic stormed the seal. It pushed and shoved and screamed, but there was no budging it. I was human. Michael was seraphim. There was no contest. The futility of it had me reaching for the impossible.
Kai’s hand came up to clutch gently at my throat. His mouth twisted into a smirk. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. My eyes must have flicked to his nose, revealing my intent to go for the headbutt anyway.
Equal parts rage and desire slugged me in the chest. Kai forced me to turn forwards again so he wasn’t in danger of having his nose bitten off. “If you don’t make too much fuss, I might take it easy on him,” he whispered, his mouth pressed against my ear.
“Are you kidding right now?”
“I would never joke about this.” I would never joke
about you, was what I heard. I gripped Morning Star even tighter. He tried to press his thumb down on my pressure point to get me to drop the blade. I held on until he had to let go or break my wrist. He let go. This was going to hurt a lot before the end.
Chanelle was dancing around Andrei. Sweat dotted his brow. She feinted to the left. He tried to anticipate but his leg slipped on something on the mat. Her arm whipped out and nicked him on his left. Blood, bright and slick, soaked into his T-shirt.
I wrestled harder. If I had to dislocate my shoulder to get away from Kai, I would do it. He sensed as much. That was why he raised his palm to my temple. I gave a startled, frightened yelp. He was going to render me unconscious.
Andrei’s head snapped up. Before Kai’s angelfire could take hold of me, Andrei barked out a command. “Stay awake!” His compulsion wrapped around my mind. Kai’s angelfire bounced off me. It refused to settle. Cop that!
But the moment of distraction cost Andrei. While his attention was on me, Chanelle teleported behind his back. Oh god no. Always keep your eye on your opponent! Her blade flicked out. It was pointed right at the base of his skull where it met his spine. A hit like that would kill him.
I screamed at the top of my lungs. Andrei turned but he wasn’t fast enough. The glint in Chanelle’s eyes was maniacal. My heart thudded in my ears. She slashed out. I thrashed against Kai. But instead of spearing him, Chanelle sliced through something on Andrei’s neck. She teleported and grabbed the light amulet. His T-shirt tore with it, exposing his pale skin to the light.
Within seconds, the sun began to eat away at him. “No!” I screamed. Instead of killing him outright, she was going to let him die in agony. A patina of red washed over his eyes. The wry mask that he wore for the world cracked as the sun fried his skin. Reaching out in a move that would cost him, Andrei grabbed the tip of Chanelle’s rapier and yanked her closer. His left hand bled as the edge of the rapier dug into him. Chanelle jerked forward in surprise. Andrei slashed out with his right hand. His claws flayed her cheek. Huge gashes appeared. My stomach lurched at this sight of her face stripped open.