As the crowd joined in, stamping their feet, the chatter of voices quieted. The jarring sound of boots, claws, and hooves against stone became so loud it made my head pound, but abruptly the noise ceased, and a tense silence filled the air. The centaur smiled broadly and gestured dramatically with his hands. “And now, for the event we’ve all been waiting for,” he bellowed, “Let the first fight of the newbloods begin!”
At that, monsters cheered and howled, but I refused to tremble at the sound.Focus on the fight, Raine. You just need to stay back and pretend to be knocked unconscious.In theory, it sounded easy, but with over a thousand monsters watching my every move, I knew I’d have to make it look convincing.
Lana and the newblood from my side who appeared human, shot forward at the same moment that Sasha, the ogre, and the two demons from the opposite team came toward us. The five of them clashed in the center of the arena, and chaos erupted. Fangs sunk into flesh, giant limbs swiped through the air, and bodies were flung to the ground.
I shuffled my feet on the sand and grabbed my knives from my belt as Lana’s teeth sank into one of the demons. The demon thrashed for a few moments before the severe blood loss rendered her unconscious, and her body fell limp. Lana smiled wickedly as she let the newblood drop to the ground. Black blood dripped down her chin, and she made a show of running a manicured finger along her bottom lip and sucking the blood from it. Monsters in the stands shot to their feet, their applause growing wild as if the sight of the blood drew them into a frenzy.
Not far from Lana, the human-looking newblood from my team managed to place her flat hand on Sasha’s chest. For the briefest moment, the ogre’s eyes glassed over, the monster’s green gaze filling with lust, but the newblood from my team had moved too slowly. Before she’d touched the ogre, the ogre had already started to bring her arm down, and despite the haze of lust, the monster’s arm kept coming down until the ogre’s fist smashed into the side of the newblood’s head. The newblood from my team fell to the ground, her eyes rolling into the back of her head and black blood trickling down her temple. She didn’t get back up.
Oh fuck.I was starting to doubt whether I could successfully fake being rendered unconscious without actually sustaining brain damage or worse.If I get hit by that thing, it’ll kill me,I thought grimly.
“I hope that whatever you shift into, it’s something badass,” Nora said to me from a few paces away. “I told Samara her succubus power wouldn’t always save her.”
Succubus?I figured she had to be talking about the newblood who’d just been taken out by the ogre. I opened my mouth to reply, but the two newbloods with blue eyes from the opposite team began to sing, and I turned my attention back to the fight.Sirens—I was right.
In response, the siren from my team started up her own song, and I guessed she was trying to redirect their magic, but it wasn’t long before their power overwhelmed her, and she was striding toward them with a desperate love-sick gaze on her face. Nora and I tried to grab her arms to hold her back, but her silky skin slid from our grasps. The moment she was within striking distance, Sasha’s large green fist smashed into her, and her body crumpled to the ground.
I winced, but there was nothing I could do to help her. Gina, the banshee from the other team, started wailing in a pitch that was so high even the sirens on her team looked like they were in pain, and I quickly clapped my hands over my ears to try to block the sound. Beside me, Nora’s clothes ripped from her as she shifted and grew, brown fur sprouting from her skin as she transformed into a massive bear that equaled the size of the ogre. Standing on her hind legs, she opened her maw wide, and her roar shattered through the banshee’s wail.
Nora dropped back onto all fours and sprang forward, her bear form sprinting toward the banshee. As she ran and moved closer to the noise, black blood leaked out of her furry ears, but she didn’t stop until the banshee’s body was limp under one of her fat paws.
I removed my hands from my ears only to realize I’d made a mistake. The two sirens started up their song again, and I felt the moment their combined power gripped my mind. My knives fell from my hands, thudding to the sand at my feet as I smiled and strode toward them.
“Fight it, Raine. Their power is nothing to you!” Darian’s shout cut through the fog in my mind, and I blinked, my footsteps slowing until I had stopped walking altogether. I had no idea whether it was against the rules for him to call out to me like that, but the interruption was all I needed. The effects of their power washed over me, and I shook my head as my mind cleared.Their power is nothing to you. I repeated the thought in my head and began striding forward again. At first, the sirens must have thought I was still under their spell, as their smiles were wide and confident, but as soon as I picked up my pace and drew the sword from my belt, the smiles fell from their perfect lips.
Moving in close, I advanced on the one on the left, spinning and delivering a roundhouse kick to her head that had her out cold. When the other siren tried to come at me from behind, I pivoted, swiping her legs out from under her and lifting my sword to her throat. She glared at me but didn’t move as I kept the blade to her neck.
It wasn’t until the thunderous applause stung my ears that I realized the fight was over. The centaur who had spoken earlier was standing at the end of the balcony, and once again, he stamped his hooves on the stone floor. Again, the monsters in the stands copied until the sound reached deafening levels. Just when I was sure my eardrums would burst, the stamping abruptly stopped, and an eerie silence fell over the amphitheater.
My chest rose and fell in measured breaths as my gaze fell on the remaining members of my team. Lana was standing near another unconscious demon, her chest covered in black blood, and her fangs still elongated as she smiled at the crowd. Near her, Bri stood with a sword in her hand, and from her stance, I guessed she’d also been fighting the demon. A few yards away from them, Nora’s bear towered over the fallen ogre with triumph.
“Well, wasn’t that exciting?” bellowed the centaur, and in response, the applause around us grew loud once again. When the noise quieted enough for the centaur to speak, he continued, “The first fight is over, and it looks as though we have a winning team! Tomorrow night, the winners from this round will face off against one another in one-on-one combat. But now, let us celebrate tonight’s victors!”
CHAPTER 19
~ Raine ~
Myhandsgrippedmyknives loosely as I eyed Samara across the arena. The celebration the night before had been much like the party on the first night of the Week of Orash. Monsters had flocked to me to congratulate me for being on the winning team, and I’d played my part and acted as arrogant and proud as the other newbloods. Thankfully, no one asked me how I’d been able to overcome the sirens’ power.
Tonight, for my one-on-one fight, I’d been pitted against the succubus who had been on my team.Samara. Again, my arms and shoulders were strapped with leather, but in contrast, Samara wore a gauzy red dress that ended at her knees. A huge slit ran up the center of the dress, and whenever she moved, her long legs were on full display.
I knew she was sour about the fact she’d been taken out by Sasha, the ogre, the night before, and I suspected her dress was intended as a statement. That she was powerful and didn’t need any extra protection to fight against me. Samara didn’t have any weapons strapped to her, but she still had her succubus power, and I knew better than to underestimate her.
After the previous fight, Locke had scolded me for getting too involved in the fight but pretending to be knocked unconscious wouldn’t have helped me. I still would have been on the winning team. In any case, the vampire again instructed me to lose my next fight. If I lost against Samara, I wouldn’t have to compete for the remainder of the Week of Orash, so I could see the logic in that. The tricky part was I had to do it without letting Samara draw blood. Considering the succubus didn’t have any claws or weapons, I was liking my odds, but it was still risky.
The centaur, whose name I’d since learned was Henral, announced our fight, and the monsters in the stands watched Samara and me intently, the crowd seeming to hold a collective breath as everyone waited to see who would make the first move.
Samara finally ventured forward, darting across the sand toward me, and I kept my gaze trained on her. She was fast, her movements graceful, and it wasn’t long before she was within striking distance. My fingers twitched on the hilts of my daggers, adrenaline spiking through me as the urge to either move away or attack had me gritting my teeth, but I stayed where I was.All right, Raine. You just need to block her a few times, then pretend to get hit and fall to the sand. Sounds simple enough.Except I also needed to make sure she didn’t touch me. According to Kade, the power of a succubus was similar to a siren’s, except instead of bewitching their victims through music, a succubus’s power was transferred through their touch.
In a blur, Samara’s left hand lashed out, and I kicked it away instinctively. As if she’d expected the action, Samara spun around, and her long fingers clamped around the exposed flesh of my right hand.
The moment our skin collided, my body relaxed, and all thoughts of defense and self-preservation floated from my mind as her power seized me. Samara’s lips twisted into a victorious smile, and I barely noticed the look of malice in her eyes. All I saw was how perfect she was. From her curved hips to her full lips stained with red, I wanted her more than I wanted anything. As she shook her head, her long black hair flicking behind her shoulder, desire made my body heat and my head grow light.
“It seems the shifter newblood is now under the influence of our new succubus! This fight will be over before it’s even begun,” a voice floated to me from somewhere far away, but I didn’t care about what they were saying, nor did I care about the faint sounds of booing and cheering coming from somewhere around me.
The daggers slipped from my grasp, and I went to step closer to Samara in a daze, hoping to press my body against hers and feel her soft skin against mine. Before I’d even moved forward, one of her hands landed on my shoulder, stopping me.
“To your knees,” she commanded, and I obeyed, dropping down until my knees hit the sand. My lips parted at the impact, and as Samara bent her knee, exposing a long stretch of bare leg, I moved forward, running my tongue up her calf, up the side of her knee, and further up her thigh. Even though it was my body that was moving, it was as though I had no control over my movements.
