Our swords clashed and he grunted as sparks flew. His eyes flared again at my strength, able to push him back with a simple twist of my wrist and reliable angling.
Baylen was tall as I was but he did not possess the martial acumen I did. I needn’t use force to defeat him—he was doing a fine job of that on his own.
My boot came up and caught him in the stomach.
With a grunt of expunged air, Baylen stumbled back.
I went on the attack, carving my sword and dagger through the air in precise strikes. With every lucky parry he managed, backpedaling, I cut into his forearms and body twice over.
When he finally managed to shuffle back from my onslaught, his chest rose and fell in great heaves. His shoulders were high and tight, blood trickled past his lips. A dozen shallow cuts marred his body, spilling red onto the slats and into the cells below.
Many seated vampires were now standing, practically licking their chops as the coppery scent of their favorite beverage filled the air like honeyed perfume to their bloodthirsty senses.
“W-Who the fuck are you?” he breathed.
I took a step toward him and he quailed, flinching.
“Someone you’ve never known, Baylen Sallow. You were defeated the moment you stepped into this ring.”
He lifted his sword, trying to redouble his efforts . . . but he was bone-tired now. Our quick bout had sapped his energy. He couldn’t summon the requisite rage to dispatch me.
I raised my sword and dagger, sure-handed. “You told me to fight you, Bay.” I tossed him a small smile. “Well, here I am. Come at me.”
“Fuckingbitch!” He screamed and charged again, despite everything.
Two quick cuts knocked his blade aside and split open his chest. It was another shallow cut—a stinging one he wouldn’t soon recover from.
His longsword fell to the ground with a clank.
“Is that all, Brother?” I asked innocently.
Baylen charged at me barehanded, unwilling to give up.
My dagger bit into his thigh and he howled, pitching toward me as momentum carried him.
I swung my body around his back, closed my bicep and forearm around his throat, and tightened my hold until he was gasping and groaning for breath.
Baylen swung us in circles. His feet quickly tired. His face turned red then purple. I let my shortsword drop so I could stiffen the hold. The edge of my dagger pressed against his neck, just above my arm.
He collapsed to his knees with me grappled behind him. His hands fell, spittle and blood drooling from his lips. “D-Do it,” he croaked in a voice only I could hear.
I was two seconds away from finishing him.
Then my eyes lifted to the audience. The vampires were on their feet as one, smiling grimly, encircling us. They saw their next victim in front of them—supplicant, on bent knee, with a dagger to his throat, ready for his blood to spill across the slats.
I looked down, my eyes tracing over the scars that stretched from Bay’s temple to his cheek. Scars that had been won making a half-measured attempt at protecting me one last time, before it all went to shit.
There was beauty to those scars, because I had known the boy before they’d appeared. Before manhood had stolen him from me.
My gaze tracked to the table where Master Lukain sat. He finished a hushed conversation with his four-fingeredaccomplice, who dipped away from the congregation once all eyes were on me.
Then Lukain gave me a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
For some reason, it angered me, Lukain telling me to finish off this young man he’d never known. To put an end to it and earn my freedom.
Where is there freedom in a place like this?
I stared into the hungry eyes of the vampiric audience. The leeches, so eager it shone in their eyes.
