The guards smashed through the heavy outer door that bounced off the hard flagstone wall, splintering.
They skidded to a halt at the sight of me.
The Shadows were thick, heavyset creatures with jutting brows and crooked teeth.
Carved from the same inbred genetics as those at my feet.
Their eyes drifted from me to their unconscious brothers to my feet, and back up again.
A steely resolve came over them.
In their eyes, dark and brutal thoughts.
If being caught by your fated mate was bad, it was even worse for the likes of me.
I was a M’rora.
I was their mortal enemy.
Any one of them would jump at the chance to snap my neck.
I didn’t cower when they pulled weapons from the darkness.
I wouldn’t turn and run.
I wouldn’t get far even if I did.
The Shadows moved toward me with slow and cautious steps, not wanting to end up like their unconscious brothers.
They edged toward me one step at a time, Shadow weapons dark and gleaming and evil.
A single figure stepped from the cell beside Emma’s.
She was a delicate waiflike creature, little bigger than a twelve-year-old child.
She looked like something from the fairytale stories we told each other back home.
It made me sick to think about what they would do to such a beautiful creature in this place.
“Get back!” the guard with protruding fangs said. “I said back!”
The waiflike creature peered at them before turning to me.
“Fated mate?” she said in a high voice.
I nodded.
She pointed over my shoulder at the door at the far end of the hall.
“She go that way,” she said. “You rescue her. You be good to her.”
“I will,” I said.
The Shadow snarled and turned on the tiny creature.
“That’s enough out of you!” he growled. “Get back in your cage before we have a mating ceremony right here and now!”
The girl turned to the approaching Shadows and didn’t move a muscle.
And then her shoulder spasmed.
Again.
And again.
Each time with greater force.
She wrapped her hands over her head and convulsed.
Her delicate bones snapped and she fell to the floor.
She writhed, her limbs flying out like she was performing a hypnotic dance.
It looked excruciating.
Each of her bones snapped one by one.
And then…
They morphed.
They became larger, longer, leaner.
And one hell of a lot more dangerous.
Her fine hair turned course and long.
Her nose crunched as it extended.
Her legs bent backward, her feet becoming long with terrible black hooked claws on the end.
By the time she was done, she was twice as tall and longer than two sleeping M’rora.
Her dangerous yellow eyes glinted and she slurped at her teeth with her long tongue.
“Easy now!” the Shadow said, backing up and waving his hands to calm her.
The giant wolf threw back her head and howled.
It was a starting pistol.
The Shadow guards turned to run but were blocked on the other side.
The other figures in the cells leaped forward, outnumbering the guards five to one.
The prisoners attacked first but the Shadow didn’t let their end come easily.
They drew back their weapons and went to war.
I turned and ran down the hall.
The Shadows’ screams nipped at my heels.
A precursor of the howls of pain Emma would feel if I failed her.
Emma
“Stand up,” Narissa said.
I did as she said without question.
I entered a strange catatonic state after receiving the medicine.
Not only could I not summon weapons from the shadows any longer, I lacked the will to do so.
I was locked inside myself, unable—or perhaps more accurately, unwilling—to fight back.
Run! You have to run! Now!
But no matter how much I hollered at myself, my traitorous body simply would not respond.
After revealing there was no way out, Narissa never made eye contact with me again.
And I could no longer speak.
No voice, no self-control.
No hope of ever escaping this place.
I whimpered under my breath.
It was the only form of communication I now had available to me.
I could wiggle my index finger but even that action was robbed from me after a few more minutes passed.
I wondered when the drug would wear off and felt a sense of terror unlike anything I had ever felt before at the thought it might never wear off.
And even if it did, it would no doubt be too late for me to do anything about it.
Tonight, I would not only be claimed by my dark fated mate, I would be claimed multiple times.
Worse still, the blue poison had blunted my ability to control myself but did nothing to dull my mind.
I could still feel everything around me.
I could feel the comb running through my hair, gently massaging my scalp.
I could feel the moose Narissa applied to shape it, whisking it up and twisting it into a style I had never thought of before.
Then she took me to the dressing area.
“Please remove your clothes,” Narissa said.
There was a sense of rote in her actions as if she didn’t even think about what she was doing.
Or she was so used to doing it, it no longer surprised her.
She did what she had been told to do.
She dressed me in three dresses before settling on the second.
A sheer yellow garment that left little to the imagination.
It was cut low but flowing, the silk tickling the tops of my thighs.
I felt exposed.
I always wore more than this when I went to bed.
This was happening, I thought.
I was going to get fucked by a gang of strangers.
Alien strangers.
I glanced—inwardly, at least—toward the door.
Run! If you go now, you can get out of this place!
But there was no running.
There was no escape.
What I’d seen earlier in the arena was my destiny.
My destiny?
Was that me thinking, or was the blue poison now infecting my thoughts too?
Narissa nodded appreciatively and took me over to another chair.
She added make-up, just enough to make my features pop.
“I’m sorry,” Narissa whispered in my ear as she added another thin layer of blusher to my cheeks. “I’m sorry it has to be this way. I’m sorry it has to be like this for any of us. It is what it is. Later, the medicine will wear off. If you’re smart, you won’t
