Which was why I closed the space between us before he could complete the command. I raised my palm that I had opened up to let him feed. As soon as our skin touched, the flare of an invisible connection latched on to him. He froze in place. I touched my finger to the squelch of blood on his chest.
I drew a perfectly round circle. Then I crossed it out and slapped my palm against it again.
The phantom that had hold of my speech fell away. In its place was a cell-deep connection that anchored Andrei to me. He’d drunk my blood. Even outside of my body, I was its master. “I don’t know if you would really call it a hurdle,” I said.
The arena quietened. Andrei’s lips parted. His eyes turned the same red as my blood. Fangs bit into his bottom lip.
“Did you want to say something, Andrei?”
He convulsed as though possessed by a demon. His eyes watered at the same time the tendons in his neck stood out. My cheek twitched with the strain of keeping his compulsion at bay. When he opened his mouth, I was certain he was going to try and compel me.
“I forfeit.” It came out in a rush like he could no longer hold it in.
My knees gave way.
The whole place came alive with sound and colour. A second later, Andrei collapsed next to me.
The barriers went down. Several bodies crashed into me at once. Charles and Luther both hugged me and jumped around screaming at the top of their lungs that they were rich.
All of it was drowned out by the clapping. It confused me at first. Why were they clapping? The mirrors showed me an image of my perplexed expression. I just didn’t get it. Everywhere I turned, supernaturals were on their feet. They were giving me a standing ovation.
I couldn’t help thinking maybe I actually died in the games. That would have made a hell of a lot more sense.
Nephilim guards came to usher me away to get cleaned up. Some faceless medic looked over my injuries and pronounced them non-critical. I would be able to stand until they handed over my prizes. Well, wasn’t that a relief?
I was alone in the little holding area just inside the change rooms when I heard footsteps behind me. I sucked on a straw from my glass of ambrosia. My teeth bared anyway. Tiberius came up beside me.
“Impressive,” he said.
I managed to bite back the snarky comment. Growth.
He sighed. The evening sunlight streaming through the open doorway highlighted the white in his hair.
Tiberius pulled out a ring box from his pocket. “Stealing is a crime,” I told him. Although, it was still technically his ring until it was presented to me.
“I know this will be yours soon. But I just wanted to pass it on to you myself.”
“Why?”
He glanced down at me. Crow’s feet cracked the skin around his eyes. “Call it a gift of gratitude. You took the long way, but you ended up at the right decision.”
Dude was cruising for a bruising.
Tiberius held the box out to me. What could I do but take it? He had such a mournful look on his face. It made me think that despite his comment, he regretted giving it up.
I touched the velvet-covered box. Invisible claws latched on to me. A portal opened up and swallowed me whole. It spat me out in a boxed room with a low ceiling. The walls of the Dominion prison materialised around me. I had a second to register the axe bearing down on my neck and the –
57
Kai
Everyone keeps telling me the fear of something is much worse than the event itself. Fear overwhelms your mind. It makes it impossible to think beyond the worst you can imagine. I can imagine a lot of bad shit. Even though I’d experienced the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person, I wasn’t supposed to believe it could happen again. If I ever got my hands on whoever first coined that notion, I would gut them and strangle them with their own entrails.
That would come after I ripped Basil’s arms and legs off for convincing me that we would never find out who was trying to kill Alessia if I hovered around her all the time. I’d have to think of something creative to do with Gran and Professor Mortimer.
“This isn’t normal,” Basil had said. “You don’t just become forsaken overnight. We need a way to draw them out. But they wouldn’t dare do anything while you’re in the picture.”
So I had agreed to give her space.
They didn’t know about the bond. She didn’t know about the bond. She’d kill me if she did. Thanks to the seal, most of the connection was dampened.
I’d survived a lot in my short life. But I would take battling demons in the Hell dimension with my hands tied behind my back over the gnawing ache of a one-sided bond any day of the week. She would have felt a tiny fraction of it. Just enough to make her slightly crazier than she already was. Nothing compared to the constant clamour in my veins that made me want to peel my skin off or kill something. The only way I got through it was knowing it was insurance. That she would never again be taken from me into another dimension where I couldn’t track her.
When the bond triggered and tore me from the arena’s infirmary, I thought I was prepared for anything. The teleport held me in limbo. The other location was warded. It would be easy enough to punch through, but it would take time. Angelfire gathered. Slowly, deliberately, and then a surgical strike to overload the wards.
I came through on the other side of the teleport in the dank bottom section of the Dominion prison. The level they relegated to the worst demons and criminals that ever stalked the dimensions.
The draining began
