A few minutes earlier.
Sadie flipped backward through the air.
Her white hair billowed around her golden face. The intensity in her ruby eyes was mesmerizing.
I held my breath as she leaped, spun, and kicked with finesse.
She was breathtaking.
The crowd no longer chanted obscenities. There was an eerie hush in the stadium as a million fae watched the small, unassuming girl fight like it was her life’s purpose.
Now they all knew what we did.
She was an alpha.
She was born for this.
Half of me was frozen with awe because Sadie was glorious. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the hard expression on her face and the deadly concentration in her eyes.
It was the same thing that had happened back at the compound: the outspoken little alpha was now a cold killing machine. She was as intense as Cobra.
Maybe even more so.
Speaking of Cobra, he stood next to me and was completely still as we watched Sadie fight above us.
From the outside, he seemed bored, but I’d been with him long enough to know that the fingernails digging into his palms, and the furrow in his brow, meant he was freaking out.
We all were.
Beside us, Ascher’s chest heaved up and down, and his amber eyes flashed like they were lit with a live flame.
I rubbed at my chest as a low rumble shook through it. The vibrations ran through my entire body.
It was his fucking fault the little alpha was fighting for her life above us. It was his fault we were in the games.
It was his fault I was trapped in this sun-god-forsaken realm and not in the shifter realm with my sisters.
If we didn’t get out of this realm soon, I would lose my ever-living shit.
After my mother had died six years ago, I’d made a deal with the oligarchy to send all the girls away with Jess to school before they were twelve years old.
It had all worked out because Jinx wasn’t even twelve yet, and she was already one of the star pupils. She was brilliant, but I worried about her.
Over the years, I’d noticed she had a tendency to get so consumed with reading or studying that she forgot to take care of herself. I made sure to always check on her over school breaks.
Plus, the school only housed children until they were eighteen, and Jess had been home alone for two years, running my mother’s florist shop by herself.
I visited whenever I could to make sure she wasn’t lonely.
Jess would expect a visit from me soon, and no way was I not showing up. I was her brother.
I was a calm man, but being a realm away from all five of my sisters was driving me insane.
And now Sadie was fighting for her life in front of me.
Rage like I’d never known ripped through me.
There was one thing I would not tolerate being fucked with—the women in my life.
I contracted every muscle in my body as I fought the urge to attack.
The urge to throw myself at Ascher and beat him till he bled. The urge to throw myself up at the half warrior who dared fight my little alpha.
Demetre was the name they called the bastard attacking her.
If I weren’t so angry, I might have been shocked. I had heard the stories and read the books. Everyone knew the half warriors were famous.
The Big Three were legends, more myths than men.
All I felt was hatred.
It didn’t matter that he was half alpha and half fae. It didn’t matter that he was famous, because every fist he swung at my little alpha sealed his fate.
He was a dead man walking.
My stomach rolled as a loud crack echoed through the stadium. He slammed Sadie’s body down against the platform.
For a split second, her tiny body was still as it vibrated from the force of his attack.
Her gold limbs trembled. She turned her head, and red blood poured from her nose, down her face as she kicked back with her legs.
My chest rumbled louder, and I fought the urge to vomit. After everything she had been through, everything she had survived, she didn’t fucking deserve to take any more abuse. I’d promised her I would protect her.
I was failing.
Inside my blood, my protective instinct reared until every cell in my body was tense with the overwhelming urge to help my little alpha.
I couldn’t think. My vision blurred; I could barely see.
A growl rumbled louder from my chest, and I gnashed my teeth until I tasted blood.
As I panicked, Sadie shone.
The platform they were on spun, and a grin split my little alpha’s face as she crouched low and showed Demetre her bloody teeth.
She was glorious.
They stopped spinning, and the platform broke off into hundreds of smaller pieces.
Midair, the two alphas leaped from section to section. They slammed fists and feet into each other. Jumping weightlessly through the air, they sparred like macabre soul mates meeting in the afterworld.
The large half warrior was tan, with his swirling sheet of black hair highlighting his bright-pink eyes; Sadie was golden, with her dancing white hair contrasting violently with her red eyes.
Usually, they reminded me of rubies. Now they reminded me of blood.
She grinned as Demetre’s fist pummeled her sternum, and she turned and slammed her foot into his knees.
The little alpha was magnificent.
Bile burned the back of my throat as my brain clouded with irrationality. I didn’t want her smiling at the alpha who was hurting her.
I wanted him dead.
Blood splayed, and the stadium erupted in screams.
The two beasts pummeling each other enraptured everyone. They jumped from platform to platform like they were weightless.
I rubbed my fist harder against my chest.
It didn’t matter that the little alpha could protect herself; every smack of a blow against her skin broke something inside me.
If the queen hadn’t made shifting impossible, I knew I would be a roaring bear attacking the man who dared hurt one of my team.
The fact that Sadie barely came to Demetre’s armpit didn’t help my protective instincts.
Logically, I knew she was holding her own and that it was an even match.
But my skin was tingling with instincts and irrational thoughts.
I trained women and men equally; I was fully aware that females had the physical and mental prowess for war. Sometimes, they were more logical and detail-oriented than the male soldiers. It made them more cunning and effective.
Yet all my prior experiences and ability to remain calm dissipated around the little alpha.
She wasn’t just another soldier.
My beast roared in my skull that she was ours, and that meant she didn’t fucking fight. We fought for her.
Images of my bear gnawing on her attacker’s mutilated flesh flashed before my eyes, and my fingertips tingled like my claws were trying to burst free.
A high-pitched whine sounded in Ascher’s throat as one of Demetre’s punches landed. Ascher didn’t get to act upset.
Anger coursed through me, and it took all my restraint not to body-slam Ascher off the platform.
He was the reason the little alpha was forced to fight in front of the bloodthirsty crowd while balancing above a perilous drop.
I raked my hands through my braided hair and focused on my little alpha. Fear, appreciation, and anger burned through me with equal fervor.
Mentally, I willed Demetre to just fucking fall already.
The longer the fight went on, the higher the chance that Sadie would slip up and let him get the better of her.
The little alpha might be cold as ice, but I’d seen her run. It was only a matter of time before her lack of stamina caught up to her.
I tugged at my long braids. If only Sadie could shift into her beast form. It was the only time I didn’t worry about her.
She was a massive saber-toothed tiger with teeth longer than my arm.
Right now, she could be snapped like a twig. Sun god help me, I needed to fucking feed her more.
I had been prioritizing her health by reminding her to eat, but I hadn’t been militant about it. That was going to change.
She needed more muscles.
Sweat poured from my forehead as Demetre’s blows rained harder and her body rattled with the impact.
My chest vibrated louder, a low growl working its way up through my heart.
Then a hand wrapped around her little throat. With a snap, my vision shifted red, and a low buzzing noise coursed through my skull.
With one arm, the fucker dangled Sadie’s squirming body above the deathly drop.
She was an immortal alpha, her body built to survive most anything and regenerate quickly. But she was young and scrawny, and there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t bleed out completely on the sandy floor.
Terror paralyzed my limbs, and every inch of my skin tingled mercilessly as my beast thrashed inside my skull, desperate to shift and save her.
Demetre smiled as he waved her little body back and forth. He was toying with her before he dropped her.
Something broke inside me, and I roared. Fuck the fae queen; no way was I watching passively.
I wasn’t alone.
At the same moment, Cobra and I threw our bodies forward onto fragments of the platforms that floated like stairs between us and Sadie.
In unison, we leaped from fragment to fragment, hoisting our bodies frantically higher and higher toward her.
Something happened between them. A black shadow flashed from Sadie’s to Demetre’s skin, and the half warrior twitched.
Sadie pried the hand off around her throat. There was nothing beneath her; she was dangling over empty air and a ridiculously far drop.
In slow motion, the hand released her neck, and she pushed away from him.
Sadie reached her hand forward, and a sparkling emerald object transferred from her attacker into her hand.
Cobra and I were too far away to catch her, and she plummeted past us.
I roared in terror as she hurtled away from us—toward the hard earth.
Cobra leaped atop the platform and slammed his body against Demetre with all his might. The fucker’s body flew toward the ground, but it didn’t matter.
Sadie was falling.
In a whir, Ascher threw himself off the platform as Sadie plummeted past.
He dove headfirst through empty air and hard sand with his hands outstretched—a bullet flying toward Sadie.
My beast screamed as Ascher grabbed our little alpha and wrapped his body around her small frame. It should have been my body protecting her.
Endless seconds passed as my vision shuddered and horror clenched my heart.
At the last second, Ascher flipped them midair and took the brunt of the fall.
In quick succession, three figures slammed into the sand.
The crowd was dead silent.
Then a thunderous roar shook the stadium as a million fae screamed at the same time.
Bile burned my throat as I looked at the bloody figures lying still in the bottom of the arena.
Tearing my eyes away from the horrific sight, panic and the urge to do something steamrollered through me. I scanned the arena and locked eyes with the cunt who was responsible for Sadie’s pain.
About a hundred feet in front of us, the fae queen’s blue eyes flashed as she gloated in the stands.
“Help her!” Cobra bellowed at the fae queen as he clawed desperately at the crystal collar around his neck.
The queen smirked at us, and my blood boiled. I didn’t anger easily, but when I did…my vision flashed red, and my beast bellowed through my skull.
The cunt was dead.
I grabbed one of the smaller platforms that floated near my head. With all my might, I hurled it at the fae queen.
Whatever fae were controlling the platforms must not have expected an alpha to chuck them in a fit of rage, because it zoomed through the air and crashed into the stands where the queen had been sitting.
She moved at the last moment, and it missed her.
I roared with frustration.
Then the whole stadium went to hell.
The crowd screamed with excitement at the chaos and violence, and suddenly, a million fae were fighting. Fists flew and people screamed as they attacked each other in a massive brawl.
Pandemonium was contagious.
The moderator said something, but I couldn’t discern it over the sounds of chaos.
I knew from stories that only elite fae powerfully controlled an element. But every fae had a small affinity.
In the arena, the fae threw tiny balls of fire, brandished ice daggers, levitated their bodies, and chucked pieces of the concrete stadium at each other.
I didn’t care about the fae and their tantrums. My blood boiled that the cunt queen was still alive and fine while Sadie was lying broken at the bottom of the stadium.
Before I could chuck another platform at her, I started to drop from the sky. The levitating platforms, and all the competitors, fell toward the ground.
Whoever had been controlling them wasn’t doing it anymore.
“Reach for me!” I bellowed at Cobra as he plunged downward beside me.
He reached out his arms, and I grabbed him. With all my might, I threw him toward the stadium. He flew to the side and crashed into the brawling crowd unharmed.
The platforms dropped around me, and I launched myself across them, pushing off with all my leg strength and leaping ridiculous distances.
I fought against gravity as I threw my body toward the side of the stadium.
Sadie needed my help.
If I fell from this height, it would knock me unconscious, and I needed to help her. I needed to get to my little alpha.
With one massive grunt, I pushed off a platform with all my alpha strength. Hands outstretched, flying fifty feet through the air, I grabbed the wall on the edge of the fighting crowd with the tips of my fingers.
As I hauled myself over the edge of the arena, the crowd gave me a wide berth. They fought each other, but no one touched me.
In the middle of the stadium, the air fae hovered above the ground and smirked at the chaos all around.
On the sandy pit that was the floor, a large mound was raised hundreds of feet in the air. The earth fae competitors had caught themselves when they’d fallen from their platform.
Meanwhile, the water fae competitors had constructed weapons. They were all hanging safely off the side of the stadium. They’d speared themselves with ice arrows and somehow shot themselves against the wall. Elite fae were virtually indestructible; they’d be fine.
The surrounding chaos blended away as I stared at Sadie’s limp form on the sandy floor. She lay atop Ascher’s broken body in a pool of blood.
I roared with rage.
Cobra’s pale frame leaped past me as he jumped down the sides of the stadium. The jewels in his skin twinkled in the sun, and his gorgeous face was a harsh mask of hatred. We felt the same.
He was a beast of a man, hurtling himself forward at impossible speeds, his powerful muscles bunching and contracting.
I followed him.
We were both ruled by our beasts, desperate to make sure Sadie didn’t bleed out. Desperate to help our little alpha. She needed to be okay.
When my feet slammed against the sand, I sprinted as fast as I could toward Sadie. My chest rattled with a roar.
Xerxes stood over Sadie’s and Ascher’s unconscious forms and looked down at them with a shocked expression.
Ascher’s entire body was covered in blood.
Sadie lay atop him, her limbs at odd angles.
Cobra fell to his knees beside her.
“Don’t touch her. You could make it worse,” I alpha-barked when he reached for her golden limbs.
For the first time in a long time, I prayed to the sun god, asking for the blood to be Ascher’s and the little alpha to be all right.
Her broken body would forever be imprinted in my memories, a nightmare I would have for the rest of my immortal life.
“She needs help!” Cobra yelled back at me. Fear and desperation rolled off him in waves.
His frosty scent burned, like stabbing an ice pick through your skull, his alpha pheromones screaming, Back off!
“I know.” I pulled at my braids. If we moved her, we could cause her to bleed out.
“Out of my way!” the blue-haired fae princess yelled as she ran across the sand toward us.
Instinctually, I threw my body in front of Sadie and roared a warning. No way was I letting this cunt near my little alpha. She’d just been sitting next to her heinous mother in the stands.
“It’s me, you big oaf!” she screamed back, and my brain struggled to connect dots that were just outside my reach.
“It’s me, Aran! I’m Aran! I can help her, so move before we lose her!”
Aran?
The facial features and bright-aqua hair slightly resembled the beta warrior I’d trained. The princess crossed her arms and tilted her head in the same way Aran had. Her aqua eyes were full of terror as she glanced behind me at Sadie.
Holy shit.
We’d been training and fighting beside a fae for the last months. Every time Ascher and Cobra had wanted to beat up Aran, and I’d stopped them, flashed through my mind.
Aran wasn’t just any fae; she was the lost fae princess. Daughter of the evil queen.
I blinked in confusion.
She was also Sadie’s best friend. They’d been inseparable back in the shifter realm. He had apparently been a she.
So much was happening.
My instincts told me to trust her.
I locked my jaw and moved to the side so the princess, Aran, or whoever could look at Sadie.
Aran pressed her fingers to Sadie’s neck and squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them and said frantically, “We need to bring her to the medical bay. She’s not too far gone. But we need to move now.”
“Nobody can touch her,” Cobra snarled but didn’t look at Aran. Clearly, he was still refusing to talk to women, even in this tense moment.
“Oh, shut the hell up. I never liked you,” Aran growled back with fire.
“Move!” I bellowed at the two squabbling idiots and gently lifted Sadie into my arms.
I didn’t want to disturb the little alpha, but I had to trust Aran. We were prisoners in the bloodthirsty fae realm. We didn’t have many choices.
With Sadie cradled gently in my grasp, I ran out of the arena. Cobra ran beside me and clutched the little alpha’s hand in his like he was afraid to let her go. Aran ran ahead and led the way.
We left Ascher behind. He was larger and more resilient than Sadie; he would live. Frankly, if he didn’t, I didn’t care. It was his fault the little alpha was unconscious in my arms.
Xerxes followed behind us silently. I didn’t know why the omega was watching us, and I didn’t trust it.
After Ascher’s betrayal, I would not ignore my instincts ever again.
When he’d first arrived, I’d thought the horned bastard’s demeanor and attitude were suspicious.
I had ignored my suspicion, and look where it had gotten us.
Now my gut was screaming at me that Xerxes was going to bring trouble.
His cinnamon scent was sharp and spicy. If Sadie weren’t limp against my chest, I would have confronted him.
I shook my head and focused on following the fae princess, who was sprinting through the massive stadium.
Aran led us down long tunnels and then turned abruptly and pulled a big purple lever on the wall. A floating platform appeared.
She stepped onto it, and I hesitated, remembering everything that had just happened on floating platforms outside.
“Come on, hurry!” Aran ordered, and I reluctantly followed her.
The platform plummeted, and I pressed Sadie to my chest gently, afraid that the sudden movement would injure her.
After endless seconds of falling, the platform came to a soft stop. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
Holy shit.
There was an entire world under the stadium.
Green grass and a forest of trees surrounded a massive palatial complex. It was a building within a building.
The only sign we were under the stadium was that there wasn’t a sky above, just exposed industrial beams thousands of feet above.
I didn’t gape at the underground world because Sadie was still limp and unresponsive in my arms. Blood coated her body.
“Hurry!” Aran yelled and ran to a small glass building that sat among trees across from the massive structure.
“I need the best healer. Heal her now!” Aran screamed as we entered the glass building.
A dozen fae immediately sprinted toward us.
My chest vibrated with a growl as I placed Sadie’s limp form onto a gurney.
Before I could order them to take care of her, the doctors whisked her away and slammed the door shut behind them.
“Fae doctors are extremely private, and healing is intense. No one is allowed back with patients,” Aran grumbled and flopped into a comfy chair in what appeared to be a waiting room.
I ignored her and pounded against the door. Cobra screamed expletives and demanded to be let in to see “his kitten.”
The door never opened.
After what felt like forever, I grabbed Cobra and shoved his shaking form into a chair. I slumped beside him and said nothing.
Both of us trembled with rage and fear.
Xerxes stood like a statue against the wall, and I took the opportunity to death glare at him.
Our little alpha better be all right.
No other option was acceptable.
