Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
DECLAN
T hey’re coming again. They’re going to make us fight. Kayden’s voice fills my head.
I refrain from putting my fist through the wall.
I haven’t been in the ring much in the last month. None of us have. It was almost starting to feel like they’d forgotten about us, abandoned the fights all together. No such luck.
My wounds have all pretty much healed, and every time I’ve had Brianna in my cell, I’ve felt like my old self. Like my dragon and I are on the same page again, cohabitating.
How do you know? Ewan’s voice is the next one to invade my thoughts, and I’m glad he asked it, so I don’t have to.
I can hear the vans approaching. If it’s not to fight, then I don’t want to know what other torture I’m in for.
I hate the resignation in Kayden’s voice. I hate knowing that interacting with Brianna, even just to get treats, has impacted us all.
I feel like I’ve made friends here, but only after she came into my life.
And if any of us get paired against the other now, I can’t imagine how much harder it would be to kill either of them.
I’d do it, to protect what I have with my mate, even if she’s unclaimed. But I’d hate doing it and it would probably damage my soul.
I can smell our guards before they even open the door, feel the prickle of their damned electro-shock sticks. The first few times, I could smell fear on them, hesitancy, and even disgust. Now, it’s just bloodlust. A brutal desire to watch us bleed, watch us tear each other apart, and a desire to have control over us.
“Come on, dragon. We’ve got a special fight planned for you tonight.” The guard standing at my door is new, with a square jaw and a military-short buzz cut, and a maniacal grin that makes me believe without hesitation that he intends for me to die tonight.
Before I can really think about it, before I can even think about Brianna and what it would do to her if I died on the two nights she dared to have time with someone who isn’t held captive, he jams his shock-stick into my side, full blast.
I feel the jolt radiate through my ribs, up and down my whole body until I collapse, hitting my knees hard on the concrete floor and seeing black spots in my vision.
Fuck, this guy seems intent on making sure I suffer.
Prodding me again, this time without a jolt, he snarls out, “Move.”
I’m still hunched over, my footsteps uneven and uneasy as my extremities still twitch from the electric bolt, but I stumble forward, knowing that if I even dare to take my time, he won’t hesitate to shock me again.
Ewan, Kayden. If I don’t come back, you have to tell Brianna what happened. You have to make sure she knows I would fight death itself to be with her.
We know. And so does she. Ewan’s tone is gentle, even though even mentally it sounds like he’s gritting against the same sort of jolts as I am. No one who’s heard you make her come could doubt your devotion to her.
I almost want to laugh, but my assigned guard prods me again, this time with a lesser shock, but enough to remind me what awaits me if I don’t keep moving.
Climbing into the back of the van, I put all of my thoughts toward Brianna.
She’s what I fight for now, and even if they match me against one of my brothers, I’m coming back to her.
This arena isn’t one I’ve been in before.
It lacks the stomach-turning combination of bleach, blood, and piss in the air. There’s no fear caked into the stones.
But even without all the tell-tale markers that signify fights that have come before, everything else is the same. The same narrow corridors, the same dingy lighting and uneven stone floors, the same crackle of magic, just waiting to rip my dragon from my skin.
The guard stays close enough to keep his damned shock-stick pressed against my spine, but not close enough that I could lash out and rip him limb from limb.
Even if I could, there’s nowhere to go but forward.
Into the ring.
Into the pits of hell where only one opponent will emerge.
Just like every other fight, a door of metal bars slams behind me, separating me from my guard, from anyone else, and he gestures at me to extend my wrists.
If I could just somehow keep him from putting those cuffs back on me, I could get out. I could find a way to get the runes off my back, and I could take Brianna far from all this. I could even find my heartstone to present it to her and beg her to be mine forever.
I could take her back to the Tourmaline clan land. Even with a destroyed castle, even with all the death that occurred in my family home, we could make a life there.
Away from the humans who would kill us both, just because we’re mates.
It’s a fantasy, a dream I’ll never achieve if I can’t figure out how to escape. One that my opponent would happily take from me, if he has any hope of finding the same joy for himself.
As soon as my cuffs are released, I strip out of my clothes, not really wanting to destroy them. Not when they hold even the slightest scent of Brianna.
The seconds of silence I wait in that damned barred cell stretch out into an eternity. There’s no roar of a crowd, no sense of an opponent’s mind, nothing to separate my thoughts away from the fact that I have two shitty choices.
I have to kill whoever, whatever they send into the ring with me. I have to get back to Brianna. I have to survive. Survive, by destroying someone else who’s just as much a prisoner as I am.
The gates raise, and I hurry forward into the arena.
It smells clean, like a new car freshly off the lot. Factory new even. The runes glow with a fresh application, like it’s the first time they’ve been activated. The magic feels stronger too.
It’s about time, Declan. My opponent’s voice fills my mind, clear and as sharp as a dagger’s edge. There’s no hiding the fact that he wants to destroy me, to end me, but why?
I search my memories to match the voice, to try to place my opponent.
Even as he steps out of the shadows of his own caged area, I don’t recognize him. He smells like he’s dragon-born, though. Not tourmaline, surely, but I don’t know that I’ll be able to place his clan until we shift.
Gods, the pain is worse than it’s ever been, as bits and pieces of my dragon claw their way to the surface, ripping through my skin. It’s like being trapped in my human form for this long has made the magic worse.
Or maybe it’s knowing that I have a mate that’s causing this pain.
The vivid green of my opponent’s scales can only mean he’s an amazonite.
Not one I’ve ever met, unless it was when we were still younglings. The scars covering his back betray the fact that he’s been fighting in these battles for at least as long as I have, and undoubtedly mean he’s been destroying vicious opponents along the way.
As soon as I unfurl my wings and stretch into my full dragon form, he attacks.
Your clan betrayed us all, and when I heard there was a tourmaline dragon in the fighting rings, I knew I would get the honor of killing you. I would get the honor of ripping the scales from your flesh and avenging all the shifters who suffer now because of your arrogance.
While his rage screams inside of my head, his teeth and claws dig into my neck as he tries to wrench me around, trying to throw me like a rag-doll around the arena.
He caught me off guard, but I manage to get my feet back under me. I refuse to give into his teeth, refuse to go down without a fight. Especially when he’s blaming me, my clan, my brothers, for our current predicament.
You think if I were to blame for this, if this is truly what my clan wanted, that I would be a prisoner, just like you?
I shake him loose and spring off the floor, trying to get airborne, trying to put some distance between us. I use the walls to get some more height before turning to make sure he’s not too close.
Why should I believe you’re a prisoner at all? Your clan exposed us all. Maybe this is your way of trying to destroy all the other clans, to become the only dragons left on Earth.
He’s scaling the wall, digging his claws in as he climbs.
One of his wings is crumpled, hanging limply behind him, as if he’s lost the ability to use it at all. Maybe he has. These fights, the magic that binds us, doesn’t guarantee healing, least of all damage to our animals.
Who crippled you?
He leaps off the wall, trying to collide with me midair, bellowing out a blast of fire as he attacks again.
Crippled? He scoffs inside my head. Even if I am crippled, I can still kill you.
I dodge his fire and swoop back up to slam into him from below, talons ripping into his softer underbelly as I drive us both up toward the high roof of the arena.
I’m not even sure it’s a roof at all. It looks like a blanket of stars, a sliver of moon.
Sights I haven’t seen in so long.
The amazonite tries to twist, snapping at me with furious jaws. Barely missing getting his teeth into my neck again.
I feel the crackle of magic just before we reach some invisible barrier above us, and I adjust, steering back toward the floor of the arena.
But not before the amazonite’s good wing clips the magical barrier.
The scent of burning flesh, melting scales, permeates my nose, and I release him from my talons, just to put some distance between me and that smell.
The amazonite isn’t as lucky, though, as he now has two wings he can’t use to brace himself against the nearly imperceptible air currents in the arena. He slams into the wall, contorting right and left to try to gain some purchase with his talons. Anything to help slow his descent.
Just before he smashes into the stone floor, I manage to catch him, rolling us both as we grapple together.
His teeth clamp down into my leg, causing even more rivulets of blood to fall from my scales.
I kick at him, sending him flying into the opposing wall. The sickening sound of bone crushing stone as his head hits the wall echoes around us.
You won’t win. You can’t. His voice is weaker, almost distant, and it looks like he’s having trouble focusing on me, his eyes shifting around erratically. I have to defend my clan.
Shit. I’ve never wanted to take another dragon’s life, and I really don’t want to do it now, even if it’s the only way to get back to Brianna.
What is your name? If I ever make it out of this hell, I’ll make sure your clan, your King, know that you fought valiantly. That you did not give in to defeat.
Even as I ask him, I stalk forward, ready to put an end to his suffering, to his pain.
Silas. I am the fourth prince of my clan. My father cannot know I died this way.
I jerk my head down once in a quick nod, just before I open up all the fire I can muster.
It rips at my gut, nearly destroying me as surely as it’s decimating Silas, but I don’t stop until there’s nothing more than a charred skeleton remaining.
Knowing this was the only outcome I could allow, knowing that Silas was already damaged beyond any repair even the most skilled witches could heal, does nothing to drown out the sounds of his screams echoing in my mind as he draws his last breaths.
My moment of freedom, my moment of being in dragon form, is cut short when a dart penetrates my softer scales just under my chin and the world around me goes sideways.
All I can think about as I collapse is Brianna.
I did this for her. For us. I just hope she doesn’t hate me for it.