Chapter 1 #2
My demon side shrugged a shoulder at the whole affair.
If the woman was weak enough to let her guard down, then she’d deserved to be pushed.
My other side was in absolute shock that anyone could push a person from such a height because that was fucking murder.
And couldn’t they have put a damned safety net under us?
Alas, I’d lived in this realm for five years.
Long enough to know that nothing would be gained by interfering.
My morals baffled demons. They couldn’t compute them.
It was like using the words “reason” or “compromise” with them.
The words didn’t exist here. Strangely, the word “kindness” did, in terms of killing something weak and sick.
The word “sorry” existed, too, but I wouldn’t get started on that messed-up meaning.
I placed one foot in front of the other on the path toward the thunderous rumbling of the roaring crowd. Their excitement was infecting the contestants. Their pace quickened, and I obeyed the demon call in me to chase the fight.
To seek the pain of others.
I listened to fresh screams as more demons were pushed off the walkway. Blues and greens crowded the far end, shoving off oranges and yellows. I smiled at them, enjoying how they skittered into the cave passage beyond to hiss their displeasure from the shadows.
I strode into the passage, holding in my relief for now. Nearly there. I wanted this done. I wanted to know if I stood a chance to win. I wanted to get through a week without him noticing my presence.
I tugged my hood higher.
He’d definitely be here, but fortunately for me, the asshole hated watching the game and usually slept through the entire thing.
He preferred to fight himself—with skill as he’d pointed out one hundred times.
I used to smirk with him over the clumsy contestants who’d never trained to fight a day in their lives.
They were nothing like us.
Facing him was inevitable. But I’d prefer to face him as I demanded my prize.
The thick stone of the passage muted some of the crowd’s roaring, but dirt and stone underfoot leaped with their stamping and yelling.
Demons lined either side of the passage, and I strode between them.
They avoided my gaze, shying from Oyx Wehy.
Most assumed I was strong because of who my father was.
But there were reasons to believe I could be weak too.
If they believed me weak, then all the better for me.
I’d made it this far, and now calm found its way back to me as I walked deeper into the passage. I’d prepared for this part for the last two months, training harder than I usually had reason to.
Unlike the inside of the Pinnacle, I’d witnessed the start of Tiers. This passage opened at one end of the arena. I’d need to reach the other side.
The noise of the crowd was deafening as I finally made it to the front.
I tugged up my hood again before peeking through the rusty gate. Not an empty seat in sight. There never was.
I glanced at my immediate company. To my surprise, five demons of red scales were playing the game.
I’d rarely seen reds play Tiers. They were mostly weaker reds—as evident by the dull hue of their scales—but reds nevertheless.
They would be my largest competition other than a group attack from the purples.
The guard on the other side smirked at me—or maybe my outfit? I’d done pretty well by covering my scales with a hooded, long-sleeved tunic. A scarf looped around my neck, and fingerless gloves covered the backs of my hands. Full-length leather pants concealed the rest of my scales.
My garb was a far cry from the surrounding G-strings.
Okay, not G-strings, but loincloths. Grimy and stained with ball-and-vagina sweat loincloths, I wasn’t kidding. Some of the women wore cropped tunics with their loincloths, but most of them wore what I called nipple string. That meant 90 percent nipple exposure, and only 10 percent coverage.
Which, whatever… get your tits out if you wanted to, but also… why not go the full 100 percent? Five years, and I’d never figured out the point of nipple string, and unlike fashion trends in the human realm, trends really didn’t change in this realm.
I met the guard’s gaze as he debated whether to make my life hell, but his smirk widened as he surveyed the surrounding reds.
He’d relish watching my death more. Nice to catch a break.
The crowd hushed, and those in the tunnel did the same. Every single demon here, despite whatever else they must feel, was determined to win. And I couldn’t let them succeed.
This was my single chance.
I couldn’t feel anticipation. I couldn’t allow myself to fear. I just had to win.
A whimper.
The stench of piss.
A cold voice swept into the passage.
He sat high in the stands, in the royal viewing box. He sat higher than any demon here.
I’d once had a wart frozen off with liquid nitrogen, and I still remembered my body’s confusion when the sensation became so cold that it felt searing hot.
That was what this cold voice did to me.
I loathed that cold voice more than anything in this realm or Earth.
His voice speared through the stone walls enclosing this space to hit me in the chest, and the gut, and right between my legs.
Cold, hot. Chilling, searing.
The cold voice was bored.
The cold voice belonged to a heartless and empty son of a bitch.
But he affected my body like no other could, every part of my body except my mind, which I’d painstakingly reclaimed.
I’d never relinquish control of my mind again. To do so would mean my death as surely as this arena could mean the same.
Never again.
“Let Tiers begin,” the demon king announced as he would for each of the game's four rounds.
He’d said the words a total of eight times while we were together.
He would have done so a total of twelve times while we’d been apart.
My shaking inhale drew calculated appraisals from the reds. They knew—as every demon in this realm knew about the woman with black scales. About the daughter of the last king.
They knew I was the mate-intended of the demon king.
And that I hadn’t been seen in three years.