The fae crowd screamed, their voices a symphony of bloodthirsty excitement.
My ears burned from the overwhelming noise, but for the first time, I didn’t want to cover my ears and hide.
I welcomed the vibrations as they coursed through my bones and shook my body.
It was a pleasant distraction from the pain in my gut and the burning hole of anxiety in my chest.
Stress sweat poured down my forehead, and I wiped it away with my chained hands.
Once again, in the early hours of the morning, a fae had knocked on our door and told us it was time for the next competition.
We had all fallen deathly silent.
It had been a few days since the sex clinic. Ever since, there had been a tension in our group.
Secrets had been revealed, and no one knew what to do about it.
Everyone was too stressed and worried about the vampyre to fight over the facts that Cobra was perpetually a snake beast and I had a homicidal voice in my head.
Never mind the big elephant in the room, the fact that Jax had brought me to the edge of arousal for over an hour and hadn’t let me come, while the men had watched because I’d wanted to lose my virginity at a fae sex clinic.
Tension strummed, a reminder of why we had left things unsaid.
First, we had to survive.
Then we could worry about the lack of communication and concerning emotional dynamics in the group.
We also had to deal with the fact that Xerxes was an omega soldier of the fae queen who was supposed to be keeping us in line, and Ascher had betrayed our asses.
In terms of the group dynamic, we didn’t have problems.
We were the problem.
Strong alpha personalities that wanted to control, a lot of homicidal energy, and an omega with a knife fixation who hated alphas.
I sighed heavily, stopped worrying about the dumpster fire that was my life, and tried to focus on the imminent threat.
My wrists were cuffed in front of me and attached to a chain that connected me to my alphas.
The chain reminded me of the queen’s dungeon, and the memory of that wretched hole sent shivers down my back.
It seemed like eons ago that Legolas had told us we had all been trafficked from the beast realm. How he’d wrongly thought we were his salvation.
The revelation should have been the most traumatic thing to happen.
Now I stood at the entrance of a gladiator stadium, ready to fight one of the most terrifying monsters to ever live while I was cuffed.
And it wasn’t just the chains.
The energy of the Fae Games was different today.
All the competitors waited in one wing of the stadium. They didn’t separate us like usual.
And terrifyingly, our group was in the front.
My lip burned with pain as I gnawed on it.
The air strummed with tension, and my intuition screamed at me to shift into my alpha form and fight. I pushed through the tingling sensation, but like usual, nothing happened.
The shifting ban was still in place.
I looked over toward the screens projected over the stands and bit down harder on my lip.
The fae queen was massive on the screen. She sat front and center, in the first row.
She wasn’t what made me sick.
It was the turquoise-haired beauty that sat next to her.
Aran.
My best friend wasn’t glowing with health like usual. She wasn’t bristling with fire and rage.
No, she was the opposite.
The diamond collar around her neck seemed larger and heavier, and her head fell forward like she couldn’t support the weight.
Aran shifted, exposing her profile, and I gasped.
She sported two wicked-bruised black eyes.
That wasn’t all.
The side of Aran’s pale face was a patchwork of hideous green-and-blue bruises. They traveled down her neck, under the collar, and disappeared beneath her black dress.
Aran shifted like she was uncomfortable, like it hurt to sit, and she stared down at her lap.
She didn’t look at anyone.
Beside her, the fae queen smirked with satisfaction. Every few seconds, she looked over at her daughter’s abused form and smiled.
The cunt had attacked my friend.
In the dark entrance to the stadium, I turned my head to glare back at the half warriors.
It had been two days since the sex clinic disaster, and I hadn’t seen or heard from my best friend since.
It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
Those half warrior fuckers had tattled to the queen that Aran had been at the sex clinic, and not the stupid elite-fae party she was supposed to attend.
It was their fault.
The queen never would have known about the sex clinic if the half warriors hadn’t tattled.
Xerxes leaned against the wall next to us as he sharpened his blades, and I wished I was unchained, holding the weapons.
Demetre and the twins didn’t look back at me as I glared at them. All three of them stared at the big screen with expressions of horror.
Their gazes were on Aran, who was covered in fucking bruises because of their actions. They looked sick.
Good, I hoped they felt like utter shit.
I hacked as their alpha scents grew harsher and clouded over the sweeter scents of my men.
Demetre’s scent was usually burning steel, but now it smelled like an explosion in a foundry.
Shane’s gunpowder scent gave the impression of a machine gun that had been fired repeatedly.
Even Noah’s leathery scent was deep and harsh, less like cooked leather and more like burning flesh.
Their scents were caustic.
The half warriors were freaking the fuck out.
It didn’t take away the fact that Aran was covered in bruises. They were still going to pay for what they’d done to my friend.
I would ensure it.
Noah’s face was also bruised, and I wondered unsympathetically what had happened to him.
He was almost healed. Aran wasn’t.
She sat hunched over with a collar around her neck, next to her abuser.
I remembered the way the half warriors had taunted her, how much hatred had been in their eyes, and I couldn’t help but think a part of them had wanted to hurt her.
They might look remorseful, but I’d seen the angry way they snapped at my best friend.
A sharp tug on my chained hands had me drawing my attention away from the half warriors.
Jax said, “Focus.”
With a deep breath, I swallowed down the urge to kill the half warriors.
Instead, I gnawed on my lip and concentrated on the figure seated in the center of the sandy fighting pit.
In the middle of the sandy arena, he sat on a shiny golden throne.
The vampyre.
Black hair was atop his head in a braided ponytail that was so long it dragged through the sand.
It should have looked feminine. It didn’t.
A massive scar was jagged across his face. It ran through his right eyebrow and slashed downward across his lips.
He was also missing his right eye, and a single pure-white eye glinted underneath the two suns of the fae realm.
Instead of wearing white pants and a white shirt like the rest of us, he wore a perfectly tailored black business suit.
It should have made him look stuffy and out of place in the middle of the gladiator event; once again, it didn’t.
He stared at us.
Among the scar, his harsh jaw, and the deeply tanned muscles that covered his massive frame, he was the scariest man I’d ever seen.
Tension and malice radiated off him.
It made sense. He was a beast of lore so rare and dangerous they were more rumor than real.
Insanely powerful with unimaginable strength, they survived off of blood.
Although, Jax explained to us that they couldn’t live on just any blood.
Vampyres were so mighty that only the blood of powerful creatures could sustain them.
The older they got, the more powerful they became, and the harder it was to find sustenance.
That was why they were more rumor than real. Most of them died out because they couldn’t find powerful enough blood donors.
My stomach clenched as the fae queen smiled fondly at the vampyre.
She was dressed more seductively than usual. Her gossamer gown was cut low to show extensive cleavage, and her turquoise eyes were heavily lined with kohl.
The fae queen spoke, and the sound echoed loudly through the stadium.
Immediately, the crowd went silent.
“Today, I have a special treat for the realm. Lothaire, the most powerful vampyre in existence, has agreed to play a little game for us today.”
She paused, and the stadium screamed with excitement.
The queen smirked and licked her lips.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out who was keeping him alive.
Also, of course we had to seduce an ancient vampyre. Sun god knew even a young one would have been impossible to defeat.
We were screwed.
The men bristled beside me, and I tapped my foot faster.
Lothaire was a fitting name for the hard-looking man sitting on the gold throne.
The queen smiled. “Lothaire is a vampyre of refined tastes. One could say that he is only seduced by power. Any blood that isn’t sufficiently full of it disgusts him. So today, he will drain every competitor that he deems unworthy. He has agreed to participate in order to test people for his academy. He searches the realm for the elite.”
The crowd gasped.
My heart stopped in my chest.
What the fuck was an elite?
Also, she was telling me this monster of a vampyre ran an academy? I shuddered just thinking about such an awful place. My gut told me it was even worse than I imagined.
Mentally I scolded myself.
I had assumed we had to do a striptease or something to seduce the vampyre. Why was I actually an idiot?
They hadn’t told us before that he was only turned on by power. That seemed like pertinent information that needed to be shared.
Chains clacked together as all the competitors shifted on their feet back and forth. The game wasn’t what we had thought it was.
The tension in the entrance ratcheted up, like the air itself was thick with our anxiety.
We had no control over our fates.
There was nothing we could do. Lothaire would decide it for us.
We were all dead.
This wasn’t a normal battle; this was something different, something so much worse.
It was an execution.
Aran shifted to glare at her mom with disgust.
At once, the crowd screamed with excitement, like they had finally processed what was happening and they loved it.
I bit down on my tongue with so much force that I tasted blood. The coppery tang calmed me.
It also reminded me of the vampyre that sat before us and smirked.
With his figure blown up on one of the stadium’s big screens, his nostrils flared like he smelled my blood, even from far away.
Jax turned and took a moment to stare at Cobra, Ascher, and me. We all shifted closer, like we could draw strength from mere proximity.
Jax’s gray eyes were stormy. “We must remain calm. Just draining our blood won’t kill us, but if we’re decapitated while drained, it will. We can’t shift to save ourselves, so it is imperative that we remain calm and protect each other.”
My stomach writhed with maggots as I stared up at Jax.
This was really happening.
I wiped my sweaty palms across my trousers as I tried to mimic Jax’s strong stance.
“Harbingers of fae death. Death to the queen,” Jax whispered.
We all whisper-chanted it back.
I remembered the first time I’d heard the chant in the shifter realm. It seemed so long ago that my biggest worry was fighting off fae beasts at the portal.
“Alpha team goes first,” the moderator said in her singsong voice. The fae guards shoved our shackled forms forward onto the hot sand.
Xerxes omega-whined and stepped forward like he was going to follow.
He caught himself at the last minute and stayed back in the shadows of the entrance.
For a second, I couldn’t see anything as the twin suns reflected off the white sand and blinded my vision.
My feet burned as I walked barefoot out onto the hot sand, and sweat dripped down my brow.
At the bottom of the stadium, the air was oppressive. There was no breeze to cut through the humidity.
Instead of collapsing, I took a deep breath and widened my legs into a power stance.
Ascher was chained beside me. He shifted closer as if, somehow, he could protect me from the vampyre.
In slow motion, Lothaire stood up from his throne and sauntered across the hot sand. His business suit was immaculate and was tailored to fit perfectly over his bulging muscles.
My heart beat faster as he walked closer.
The man was a monster.
He was as tall as Jax, but he was thicker and wider. Something I hadn’t thought was possible.
As Lothaire walked forward slowly, his long braid trailed through the sand behind him.
His tanned features were harsh, and the air around him shimmered black.
Death clung to him.
He reminded me of a painting I’d seen in a library book that was called The Grim Reaper. A mythical beast of frosty death from the rumored god realm.
The powerful creature that sauntered toward us didn’t seem like he was from this realm.
Lothaire opened his mouth, and massive white fangs descended. They weren’t curved like my tiger’s or long and jagged like Jax’s bear’s. They were thin white blades that hung halfway down his chin.
Twin points glinted like needles.
He smiled at us, and the scar across his lips pulled tight.
I fought the urge to take a step back.
The stadium was dead silent. A million fae held their breath as the monster of lore approached.
We were four alpha shifters that couldn’t shift. He was the hunter, and we were the prey.
I searched for the lever in my brain, and sheer relief coursed through my bones.
The lever flipped with a satisfying click.
Break his teeth, and stab him with them.
The numb had recharged.
