Chapter 10
I fell hard, the pain making it difficult to breathe.
Flame landed on her feet beside me. I tried to stand, to make my body obey, but my limbs wouldn’t respond. She snarled and lowered one heavy paw onto my chest, pinning me to the ground.
The tygress queen lowered her giant head to me. I braced myself. I would never see Edith or Quinn again. Never regain my memories. Tears streamed down past my temples into my hair, but I kept my eyes open, tilting my head to the side to look away.
Intense ice blue stared back at me, one warrior along the grated enclosures out of place in his Ambush Master uniform.
Hatred slithered through me as I locked eyes with him. Let him watch me die; it was his fault. A strange bubbling laugh nearly burst through my lips. Scorchhole.
I could feel the tygress ripping into my clothing, tearing my dress open.
I winced as I felt the heat of her breath against the wound in my chest. She opened her mouth. I closed my eyes.
By the grace of the goddess of compassion, please let this be over quickly, I prayed.
Her tongue was rough, licking over my skin. Blessed numbness and then a healing warmth. I cracked my eyes open. Flame’s golden eyes were right in front of my face; then they flared again, as silver as the star on her forehead.
Definitely hallucinating.
Flame growled, low and deliberate, her breath hot against my cheek. I was pinned beneath her, my body too weak to fight back. Then, without warning, she lifted her paw from my chest and pressed it firmly into my open palm.
A jolt slammed through me.
There was a blinding flare of red, and shock seared through my veins like molten fire. A scream tore from my throat, Flame’s roar twining with it, the sound shaking the very ground beneath us. When the light finally dimmed, I was gasping, my vision swimming, my pulse thundering in my ears.
Something intense and warm swept through my body—either from blood-loss hallucinations or from what I could swear was some type of magic.
So this was what dying felt like. I’d expected it to be less painful.
Get up.
What?
It is time. The voice threaded through my subconscious.
For what? I shook my head feebly.
Flame nudged me with her head, her fur prickly. Come.
I wrapped my arms around her wide neck and let her pull me up until I could stagger to my feet.
The world tilted and swayed beneath me. My ears were ringing.
The crowd was in an uproar. The remaining candidates were staring and gesturing.
I was lightheaded from the blood loss. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my vision.
Why was everyone pointing at us and shouting? I didn’t understand.
Flame turned her massive head toward me, and her nostrils flared. To my utter astonishment, she knelt slowly until her stomach was flat against the ground, just as she had last night.
Climb onto me.
Now the crowd fell silent.
I hadn’t imagined it. The tygress was talking to me in my mind.
Her voice was low, not quite human, and her words came a bit slowly, as if it took her some effort to formulate the thoughts. We must proceed with the Queen’s Ride.
“Why?”
Because we are their queen.
I am no one’s queen.
Flame chuffed as if she were laughing. Her stare was so insistent that I stepped toward her. My chest no longer hurt. Of course not, because I was dead.
My eyes flickered to check—Blake was in that same spot, eyes now almost triumphant.
What was Blake Axefire doing in my afterlife?
I hesitated, and Flame flicked her tail with impatience.
The gesture reminded me of my sweet Couscous, pulling a faint smile from me despite my exhaustion.
I grabbed a fistful of Flame’s fur and managed to hoist myself onto her broad back.
My heart raced as I straddled her, her muscles rippling beneath me. I sat astride the tygress queen.
Flame let out a low rumble that vibrated through my whole body. Slowly she got to her feet. I swayed, trying to keep my balance without a saddle or reins, or Blake behind me. I leaned close to her ears, inhaling the warm, musky scent of her fur.
My wound—the desperate thought trilled through my brain like a siren. I should have been dead, several times over. But when I grasped at my chest, I felt only a thin scar through the ruined fabric of my dress.
Flame padded forward on her silent paws, carrying me through the sand. The other tygers moved back as we approached.
Am I in the realm of the dead?
She chuffed again. You humans are so amusing. I healed you.
By licking me? Can you do that for everyone?
She made a sound that I could only describe as a snort. Do I look like a healer?
So, it’s only me?
Yes. You are my Bonded rider.
Yes, my brain and heart throbbed in ancient agreement. I could feel her within me, like we were bound together as one. The descriptions I’d heard didn’t do the Bond justice, this feeling of togetherness, of oneness emanating from my center.
I wasn’t alone anymore.
Flame was mine. And I was hers.
She swung her massive head around, locking her golden eyes onto mine. My palm still tingled with the imprint of her paw.
A laugh of disbelief bubbled, mixing with tears of exhaustion.
I’d done it. I’d survived this death arena.
I’d Bonded with a tyger. No, not just a tyger. The tygress queen.
Every eye in the Arena was locked on us: nobility, commoners, the surviving candidates, the other tygers. The weight of their stares pressed down upon me, their expectations. What did this mean?
Flame picked up speed, her muscles surging beneath me as she broke into a run around the Arena. The wind whipped through my hair. I leaned forward, gripping her fur as we moved as one. It felt more natural than riding with Blake in control. Our Bonding made it entirely different.
The walls of the Arena blurred. A wave of love and exhilaration swept over me. Flame was beautiful.
Clever, too, not to mention brave, resilient, perfect—
I let out a wild, wet laugh, drunk on adrenaline. On the back of this magnificent tygress, I felt unstoppable. From Flame came a surge of exultant joy. She, too, was glad to have found her rider.
Why didn’t you speak to me earlier?
We had not yet fully Bonded.
I thought back. I’d started hearing her voice in my head after she touched her paw to my Mark on the palm of my hand. Are you sure picking me wasn’t a mistake?
Flame snarled and reared back her head. I do not make errors. My body is young, but my soul is old. I am myself, and at the same time, I am connected to all of the tygress queens who have ever been born.
Something lodged in my throat, making it difficult to swallow at her words. Why have none of you ever Bonded before?
We have been waiting for you.
The sand flew underneath us. With every passing second, I could feel my love for her grow. The Bond gripping tight, growing stronger. Unbreakable.
A ferocious roar went up among the tygers, who stomped their feet as we completed our lap, every head following us. The ground trembled under their collective weight. Claws scraped against the earth, a primal drumroll accompanying our passage as we slowed to a walk in the center of the Arena.
I gasped as metal gates into the Arena opened and more than two dozen armored warriors flooded onto the sand, their swords glinting dangerously in the blazing sunlight.
Were they about to arrest me? Or would they try to catch Flame? My muscles tensed, preparing to fight, but it was taking all my remaining strength to hold on to Flame and to stay atop her powerful form.
They didn’t charge.
Instead, they leapt onto the striped backs of the waiting tygers in a practiced motion.
An ocean of fur rippled as the great animals loped forward and the warriors urged them on.
Instead of the savage beasts I’d seen earlier, there now stood a disciplined force of elite fighters.
As one, they pulled up on either side of us, falling into formation.
And at their head was the Ambush Master, astride Kingsolver, and behind him was Princess Malissa, looking stunned. Blake’s blue eyes raked over me, sweeping from head to toe, lingering on the blood drying stiff against my clothing, the place where my wound should have been.
My heart pounded beneath his scrutiny.
“Not dead yet,” I said with a smile.
He didn’t say a word, but the corners of his lips twitched as he nodded. He dropped his voice.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he admonished, as if it were my fault I’d nearly been slain. “Are you still bleeding?”
“Flame healed me,” I muttered as I felt a growl build in my tygress’s body.
With a toss of her head, she surged forward, nearly throwing me from her broad back. I clung on as we thundered across the Arena, away from Axefire and Kingsolver, as if she, too, were pissed off with them. The other Bonded tygers and their riders fell in around me.
Malissa rode at the front, high on her massive bronze tyger. She sat ramrod straight, fists clenched on the reins, as if it were taking everything in her not to scream.
“She’s a yin, and an Azure—” she said, her voice loud with projection across the Arena as she addressed the warriors. “How is it she even ended up in here?”
“You are yourself a yin tyger rider, Princess,” another voice said.
He was a warrior just behind her, balanced on a large black tyger with faint white stripes.
The man’s golden hair fell in his warm brown eyes.
There was something steady in his gaze as his eyes found mine—curious and intense.
He gave the smallest nod with a slight quirk of a smile.
Malissa barely spared him a look, her eyes locked over my shoulder on the Ambush Master.
Kingsolver padded forward, Blake moving with grace toward my side again despite the slight warning growl from Flame.
If you don’t like them, I don’t like them either.
I almost smiled.
“The Azure was arrested last night for harming a tyger,” Blake offered, his voice careful. “I placed her in the Arena as her sacred punishment. As is my right.” His words left no room for argument.
Blake and Malissa stared at one another before her eyes ran over him with a faint softness I didn’t expect. It was gone a moment later as she turned to look at me once more.
A shard of sadness pierced through me at the fury in her gaze. I was the only other yin rider, and it was clear she did not want me here.
We approached the throne, and the roar of the crowd grew to a deafening pitch.
I focused on the steadiness of my tygress beneath me, her muscles moving and rippling with each powerful stride, already a familiar and comforting sensation.
The king rose from his dark throne, his gold-and-silver robes shimmering in the sunlight. He was a large, bearded man with a cruel curl to his lips. His hair shone silver in the sunlight. His eyes glittered, and I realized they contained more than cold calculation.
His Majesty was seething.
For the first time since Bonding with Flame, the weight of reality crashed down on me.
It didn’t matter that I was Bonded to Flame now. The royal family still had the power to pass judgment, not just on me but on everyone I loved.
I was an Azure, a convict, and a yin. I wasn’t supposed to Bond. I was supposed to be dead.
And now I was riding their only living tygress queen. Flame and I had just made ourselves a threat.
The king lifted a hand, and a hush fell over the Arena, the silence broken only by the growls of the tygers and the clank of the warriors’ armor.
Beside me, I could sense Blake tensing, his arctic eyes fixed on the king. Even the tygers seemed to hold their breath, their tails twitching in anticipation.
“Step forward,” the king commanded, his voice echoing through the stillness.
Beneath me, Flame began to growl, a low vibration that rumbled through my legs. I urged her onward with a little nudge of my knees. Obediently, the great tygress padded silently across the sand.
I raised my eyes to meet the king’s furious gaze, fighting to keep my expression neutral even as my stomach churned with nerves.
What would he decide to do with us?
Black and white spots danced in my vision. I blinked hard, trying to clear them, but they only multiplied, growing larger, threatening to swallow me whole. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.
Blake’s unmistakable voice shouted something as the sky tilted.
The world spun violently around me, and I surrendered to the oblivion of unconsciousness.