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
