I dropped into a combat stance, my muscles coiling with eager anticipation. “She deserves the person who is her true match.”
“On that, Theron, we concur. Except you’re not that person. I am.”
The arrogance in his tone made fury roar through my skull, but I didn’t get the chance to answer. Up in the arena, Clotho clapped her hands. “Begin,” she ordered. Just like that, the time for words was over.
Phonos exploded into motion, launching himself skyward with a speed that blurred his form. His wings caught air currents with deadly precision, carrying him in a wide arc around the platform’s edge.
Smart move. He knew I was stronger on the ground, but at a distance, he was far deadlier than I could ever be. His feathers hardened into razor edges, black plumage becoming weapons in seconds.
A volley of hardened feathers shot toward my chest, each one sharp enough to punch through bone. I rolled aside, feeling them embed in the platform where I’d been standing. If I’d been just a second slower, the projectiles would have torn me apart.
“Running already, Theron?” He called from above. “How disappointing.”
“I’m not the one who fled skyward.”
Flames erupted from my hands in spiraling torrents. The attack forced him higher, singeing the tips of his wings. More feathers rained down in response, turning the platform into a killing field of steel. I wove between them, feeling edges whistle past my ears close enough to part fur. One grazed my shoulder, opening a clean line across muscle.
The Keres had perfect aim, flawless timing. Each volley drove me toward the platform’s edge. He was herding me like prey, using his superior range to control the battlefield.
But he’d made one mistake. He was underestimating what a cornered Hellhound could do.
I feinted right, then dove left toward the barrier that marked the fighting circle’s boundary. “Hiding behind barriers?” he taunted, adjusting his flight path to maintain visual contact.
“Who’s hiding?”
I launched myself upward, planting my feet against the wall and using the barrier as a springboard. Power erupted from my feet, propelling me higher than any normal jump could manage. His eyes widened and he tried to climb away from my reach.
I caught his ankle, and my momentum carried us both across the platform in a deadly arc. We crashed into the ground with a bone-jarring impact.
He rolled away immediately, but I was already moving. We grappled across the slick stone, his superior speed matching my raw strength in a contest that shook the arena walls.
His talons found my ribs in rapid strikes, each blow precise and vicious. I answered with flames that blistered his skin wherever I touched him. Neither of us gave ground, neither showed mercy.
Then, Phonos opened his mouth and released his death screech. The sound tore through my skull like molten metal, bypassing my ears entirely and burrowing straight into my brain. Every rational thought dissolved under waves of compulsion. My vision bled crimson, ancient Keres magic already seizing control of my mind.
Kill. Rip. Burn. Destroy everything that moves.
The rage wasn’t mine anymore. It belonged to the screech, to centuries of Keres power designed to turn thinking creatures into mindless killers. My claws extended without my conscious command, flames erupting across my skin in wild, uncontrolled bursts.
I lunged at him with pure animal savagery. No technique, no strategy, just raw murder made flesh. He danced away from my wild swipes, using my blind fury against me as I stumbled over my own feet.
“There’s the real you,” he panted, staying just beyond my clumsy reach. “Nothing but a rabid beast. An inferior weave.”
The trance demanded I chase him, but somewhere deep in the red haze, a deeper power resisted. Callista’s face flashed through my mind, the way she’d been in my arms. We hadn’t gotten the chance to entwine our threads, but the memory of her choice, her trust, her love was stronger than any death screech.
Just like she’d been from the moment we’d met, she became my lifeline. I focused on that image, fighting off the brutality that wanted to consume me whole.
The rage refused to relent, clawing at my consciousness like a living thing. It whispered that killing was easier, that surrender felt good, that Thanatos would welcome my bloodlust. But I was more than my fury, perhaps more than Theron of Asphodelia. I was Callista’s mate, and I wouldn’t let Phonos’s magic steal that from me.
The crimson haze cracked, then shattered. I straightened, rational thought returning just as Phonos moved in for another attack. He expected me to still be lost in mindless violence. Instead, I grabbed his shoulders and drove him backward into the stone. Flipping him around, I slammed him down and pinned him beneath my weight.
He’d gambled everything on his screech lasting longer. But he’d failed, and now he would pay the price.
It took me seconds to find his biggest weakness. His right wing where it joined his spine. The base was thick with muscle and cartilage, designed to support his entire body weight in flight. But even Keres anatomy had limits.
“This is what happens,” I snarled, feeling delicate structures flex under my palm, “when someone tries to steal my mate.”
“Tear it off if you dare, Theron,” Phonos growled. “But know this. It won’t change the truth. She is meant to be my mate, not yours. Even wingless, I won’t stop until I prove that.”
