The four of us stood in a line, and our chains clacked as we shifted back and forth.
As Lothaire came closer, Jax moved in front, like he would protect us all. His large muscles flexed as he stared at the vampyre.
They were two massive men coming head-to-head.
Where Jax was handsome and covered in pretty chains, Lothaire was harsh and menacing. There was nothing soft about him.
Don’t move. Hold yourself still.
The realm’s two suns were hot and heavy above our heads. It reflected off the steel of the stadium.
Sweat burned my eyes, but I didn’t blink. Sand boiled beneath my feet, but I didn’t shift back and forth.
I was numb.
Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and my muscles tensed with anticipation.
It didn’t matter that I was probably about to get savaged by a vampyre; there was something exciting about the impending conflict.
The uncertainty of who would win.
The heat of battle was when the numb felt most alive, when it felt the most of…anything.
Life, death, blood, violence, that was all I was. All I would ever be. All I wanted to be.
Hold still. Let him focus on the men. Then you attack.
Lothaire’s single white eye flashed as he smirked at Jax.
As the vampyre spoke, his voice was a gritty, raspy drawl that projected loudly through the stadium. “Ah, classic, the big alpha steps forward to protect the pack. I’ve done this standoff with beast packs thousands of times. It bores me. You have no idea the manner of creatures I deal with daily. You cannot fathom the power they possess.”
A low rumble shook through Jax’s chest, and Lothaire arched his brow at the sound.
For a second, something close to confusion flashed across his face, but then the bored expression returned.
He knows you can’t shift. He isn’t expecting resistance.
“Let’s get this over with,” Lothaire drawled.
Then, before any of us could react, he moved impossibly quick and slammed his fangs down across Jax’s jugular.
Hold still. Do not give yourself away.
Cobra and Ascher lunged forward as Lothaire savaged Jax’s neck with his teeth.
The vampyre casually flicked one of his hands toward them, and a black shield shimmered into existence.
Cobra and Ascher bounced against it and back.
Jax’s gray eyes clouded white, and his head lolled back as if he’d been immediately entranced by the vampyre’s bite.
Lothaire’s scarred face rippled as he drank from Jax’s neck, and the already massive vampyre seemed to expand in size as Jax’s legs gave out.
The vampyre’s hand around Jax’s neck was the only thing that kept the alpha upright.
My heart beat erratically in my chest as the life was drained from Jax’s body.
As long as he isn’t decapitated, he will survive. Focus on the threat.
I scanned the stadium and noted that in the front row, the fae queen was grinning like she’d won a war.
Aran was pale beside her, her mouth parted in horror.
For a split second, we made eye contact.
As if she could sense the numb, the coldness in my eyes, Aran shook her head slightly.
She was trying to warn me not to do anything, to let it unfold and not interfere.
I looked away from her.
When it is time, attack.
Finally, Lothaire released Jax and dropped the big man onto the sand.
Lothaire wiped Jax’s blood off his lips and smiled. His voice projected loudly through the stadium, “Give him three hundred years, and he might be powerful enough to slake my beast. But he is too young and, most importantly, too undamaged to fulfill my needs. His soul is…kind. He isn’t an elite.”
The vampyre shuddered as he said “kind,” like it was the greatest weakness.
I had no idea what an elite was, but if Jax wasn’t one, then none of us were. We were screwed.
Remain calm and alert. Play weak, then attack.
Jax’s large body lay slumped facedown in the sand.
Next, Lothaire dropped the black shield and sauntered up to Ascher.
With no preamble, he slammed his fangs into Ascher’s tattooed neck.
Again, Cobra lunged forward. The black shield shimmered into existence and stopped him.
Stay still. Do not exert energy until you have to.
Quicker than with Jax, Lothaire threw Ascher’s limp body onto the sand and licked his bloody lips.
The vampyre’s muscles expanded, and his tan skin practically glowing with vitality as the alpha blood coursed through him.
Lothaire shrugged and said to the stadium, “He has rage and control issues, a little trauma, but he is even younger than the first. Even weaker. In hundreds of years, he might be strong enough, or he might be the same. Not an elite.”
The vampyre stepped over Ascher’s prone body and smiled at Cobra.
This time, when the vampyre lunged, Cobra expected it and slammed his fist forward.
Lothaire smiled as Cobra’s fist cracked against his jaw. The vampyre slammed his leg into Cobra’s side.
With a laugh, like he enjoyed the violence, Lothaire barreled his fist into Cobra’s face with impossible force.
Tense your legs. Lean forward.
At the vampyre’s powerful punch, Cobra’s large body flew backward.
I leaned forward and halted his progress. Instead of taking us both to the ground, I angled my smaller body to absorb Cobra’s momentum.
My feet slid backward through the sand, chains dangling, but I kept us both upright.
A thought struck my numb brain, something I hadn’t considered before. I whispered quietly into Cobra’s ear as I pretended to help him gain his balance, “How do you activate your snakes?”
His eyes flickered to snake eyes as he immediately understood what I was asking. “The snake is now a part of you. Focus on the rage and let it—”
Cobra was cut off as Lothaire wrenched the chain attached to his wrist.
His body flew forward, away from me, yanked by the ridiculous force of the vampyre’s strength.
Lothaire caught Cobra easily around his neck with one hand and slammed his fangs into Cobra’s jugular above the diamond collar.
Unlike the other two men, Cobra kicked and fought as his life force was sucked from his body; however, eventually, his body stilled. His head lolled backward as he went limp in the monster’s grasp.
Stay calm. Reveal nothing.
But Cobra’s eyes were still open, snake eyes staring directly at me.
Lothaire dropped the third limp body to the ground. He licked his lips slowly and reached down to pick the jeweled man up one last time.
His long red tongue snaked out as he licked all the blood off Cobra’s neck.
“This one is delicious and almost powerful enough. With time, he could be an elite. He tastes like violence and power. Unbridled strength.” He paused and stared down at Cobra’s limp body. “But he’s too young and weak. Too caring. He doesn’t have the edge of brutality necessary for true power. His blood doesn’t burn.” He shook his head. “A shame.”
Use Cobra’s snake. He said you can control it.
At last, Lothaire turned his full attention to me.
His singular eye was startlingly white against his tan skin. Up close, I realized his eye wasn’t one-dimensional, like I’d thought. It sparkled with colors like a prism. A crystal.
He glanced at the stands, then back at me.
If I weren’t numb, I wouldn’t have seen the subtle, quick movement.
He made a deal with the queen to test elites. This is more than a challenge. He is waiting for her.
Lothaire smiled as he focused back on me. His harsh jaw bunched, and his muscles expanded impossibly large. His scar was stark against his tan skin.
The enchanted ring hid my scars.
If I weren’t numb, I would have laughed at the thought of seducing this beast with something as shallow as good looks.
Keep your body relaxed. Do not waste your energy.
“How are you an alpha?” Lothaire asked as he took in my short, scrawny figure. I was still wearing the oversized fighting clothes that didn’t fit me.
Stare him down.
He stepped over the three alphas.
Behind him, Cobra’s snake eyes blinked, like he was hanging on to consciousness.
Jax and Ascher were sightless and completely limp.
When Lothaire was an arm’s length away, he stared down at me and chuckled.
Unlike the other three, he didn’t throw himself at me and slam his fangs against my jugular.
He slowly bent forward, fangs flashing menacingly as the anticipation wound around us like a noose.
The stadium was silent. No one breathed.
A girl met a monster underneath the twin suns of a brutal realm.
If this was a poem, the stillness might have felt like fate.
I was numb—it felt like the moment before death. The calm before the storm.
My purpose for existing.
Focus on the jewels in your lower back.
I held myself still and concentrated on the heart of jewels embedded in my spine.
The vampyre’s massive hand snaked out, and he wrapped it around my neck.
His fingers overlapped, and he lifted me until my feet dangled.
I didn’t kick; I didn’t fight.
Concentrate.
With every cell in my body, I focused on the snake that I knew was sleeping in my flesh.
It was like reaching for the numb, but different.
The more I concentrated on the snake, the more I could feel its presence. It was a piece of Cobra, and unlike him, an enchanted collar did not shackle me.
The snake was just out of my reach. I pulled against an invisible thread in my lower back, desperate to wake it up.
Pull harder.
Lothaire’s fangs were inches from my neck. He smiled as he went in for the kill.
I wrenched on the thread with all my might.
Fangs slammed into my jugular.
My subconscious froze, unable to tug the thread and wake the snake. So close.
There was a tingling down my neck and a sucking sensation.
I was too late.
My vision blurred.
Suddenly, the fangs removed from my neck with a pop.
For a long moment, disbelief, shock, and exhaustion clouded my brain.
PULL.
With all my subconscious might, I visualized the thread that tethered me to the snake.
Above me, Lothaire’s face wavered in and out of focus as he spoke, “This one is different. I haven’t tasted blood like this in a long time. This one might be elite.”
His prism eye focused on me as he brought me closer. We were face-to-face. Inches apart.
Lothaire’s heavy breathing projected around the silent stadium.
My nose wrinkled.
He reeked of despair, darkness, and death.
It hung around him in a cloud that rubbed my alpha senses the wrong way.
“Why do you taste like the song of the hunt?” Lothaire asked.
Four things happened in one blink of the vampyre’s eye:
- I yanked the thread with all my will, and the little snake zinged as it woke from its slumber.
- JUMP! I internally screamed at the snake. It leaped off my skin in a jeweled glimmer. Its fangs slammed into Lothaire’s chest.
- Twin knives embedded themselves, dead center, in the middle of Lothaire’s forehead.
- The numb said, I am the song of the hunt.
The silent crowd screamed as Lothaire stumbled backward, two knives buried in the front of his skull, all the way to the hilts.
They had the crest of the queen engraved on them.
Xerxes’s blades.
Lothaire continued to stumble as the shadow snake reared its head back and slammed inky fangs into his flesh repeatedly.
The vampyre froze as the snake’s poison coursed through him, two blades sticking out of his forehead.
But Lothaire still didn’t release me.
His left hand tightened around my neck, and I clawed at it with all my might.
Free yourself. Twist his thumb back.
I did as the numb said, but his grip didn’t lessen. His hand tightened further.
With poison coursing through his veins, and two blades spearing his brain, Lothaire should have fallen to the ground.
He stood ramrod straight.
I fought harder.
The air around Lothaire glimmered black. “You dare disrespect me. Do you know who I am?”
Suddenly, his mouth lunged at me.
Move your head.
His fangs slammed into the side of my throat, and he ripped out chunks of my skin. Warm blood flowed across my chest.
He didn’t bite. He mauled.
If I hadn’t moved quick enough, he would have ripped out my trachea with his teeth.
Pain coursed through me, and the numb shoved it aside.
Gouge out his eye.
I reached forward, but my muscles were weak from blood loss, so I barely twitched.
Lothaire slammed my body into the sand.
My back cracked, and my head slammed against the ground.
Above me, he snarled like a rabid beast as he flashed his fangs and roared.
From far away, Xerxes screamed my name.
I twisted my head. The omega was fighting about a dozen fae guards. Even if he got past them, he was too far away to do anything.
Vibrations shook the ground, and I twisted my head in the other direction.
Three fae guards stalked forward with machetes in their hands. The silver glinted brightly in the sun.
Three guards, three weapons, three unconscious alphas.
This was the queen’s plan all along.
On Lothaire’s neck, a shadow snake writhed and bit him over and over again.
Holes from the snakebites dripped blood down his tan skin, but the vampyre just snarled and slapped at it like it was a nuisance.
He looked down at me, and his nostrils flared.
This was the end.
I am the song of the hunt.
For a long moment, I lay on the hot sand, bleeding out as the world went to hell around me.
Suddenly, I understood.
