Chapter Nine
I turned away, my heart hammering. The roar of the crowd melted into white noise. All I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears and the echo of one name in my head.
Adam.
A movement on the massive screen caught my eye. It showed Reuben—Chief—in close-up, his hard gaze focused on me. Then he nodded. Not to the crowd. Not to the cameras. Not even to me.
To someone else.
My stomach dropped as the truth dawned. His nod mightn’t be to me, but it was about me.
This was just another damn prison.
I spun toward the nearest exit, shoving past two drunken men, one in a tailored black suit and white dress shirt, the other in a cheap, yellowed T-shirt and ripped denim shorts.
Someone yelled, but I didn’t stop. I needed out.
I needed air. I needed distance between me and every camera in this cursed place.
I didn’t make it far.
Two men in the same gray suits as the security outside stepped into my path. They weren’t here for the show. They were Reuben’s men. They were here for me.
“Sorry, Miss,” one said, voice even and eyes cold. “You’re not cleared to leave just yet.”
My wings strained under my denim jacket, instinctively twitching to break free, to launch me up and away. If only they weren’t next to useless. One day I’d learn how to use them properly so that I didn’t just glide. Either way, I couldn’t blow my cover.
If I did, all this would have been for nothing.
It didn’t stop me from taking a step back, straight into someone behind me.
“Watch out, bitch,” snarled a woman with bright red lips, heavy diamond earrings and manicured crimson nails that looked like talons wrapped around her wine glass. I flinched. Clearly the wealthy were no more civilized here than beggars were on the street.
The second suit drew me away. “Chief says ringside.”
My heart gave a few frantic beats. The closer to the action, the more likely I’d be seen. I shook my head. “No. I don’t want—”
“It wasn’t a question.” He probably didn’t want to forcibly drag me there, but the threat hung in the air, a silent warning that he’d do whatever he was ordered to do. My options were narrowing fast.
The crowd cheered as Bloodhound flexed and cracked his neck, the big screen above showcasing his every move.
Chief stood immobile in the ring, like a statue, watching everything unfold. Calculating. Cold.
Only once I was escorted to a ringside seat, level with the raised platform, did he finally turn his head and lock eyes with Bloodhound.
The lights dimmed.
A beat. A hush.
Then the spotlight snapped on, bright and unrelenting on the fighters.
The announcer’s voice boomed, “Ladies and gentlemen, your main event! Chief versus Bloodhound!”
The crowd roared. The cameras swept over the fighters as they circled, bodies taut, coiled seconds before striking. The roar faded to a dull hum in my ears, replaced by the rhythmic slap of fists striking flesh. My whole body tensed at the brutal dance before me.
The cameras captured every bruise, every splatter of blood, every calculated strike, magnified for the hungry audience. It was raw poetry in violence, each punch and block a cruel choreography.
Leaning forward, I found myself drawn in by the unspoken code beneath the chaos. Unlike the cold brutality of the lab, this was something else.
This was performance.
Chief’s sweat mixed with blood. His eyes fierce but measured, disturbingly calm. There was honor in his fight, a quiet discipline born not of instinct, but calculation.
The people came willingly to watch the fighters pain, to savor their suffering. This wasn’t survival, it was entertainment, a dark dance that thrilled and numbed empathy.
Bloodhound landed a sharp strike, followed by another. Chief staggered but didn’t fall. The crowd erupted. I stayed silent, my mind spinning. How could anyone crave this? How could they find pleasure in others torment?
Maybe I didn’t see this as entertainment because I’d been a victim of cruelty.
Still, despite the chill in Chief’s eyes, despite my new set of chains he kept me in, he’d risked everything to protect me.
I pressed my palms to my hot face, trying to steady the storm inside.
The crowd’s savage cheers felt distant, echoes from another world I didn’t belong to.
I’d known pain in sterile rooms where every injury was a tool of control, where every cut, every scream had been calculated to break someone down.
Here, violence was a ritual that was worshipped. Admired. Cheered.
A sudden grunt pulled me back. The fight raged on. Chief, bruised but unbowed, blocked a savage blow, his expression unreadable beneath his sweat and blood. The cameras lingered on his face, bright lights carving him into a living sculpture of power and pain.
The crowd roared again, a tidal wave of bloodlust. I clenched my fists, defiance rising.
I might be caught in their game, but I refused to become part of it.
I closed my eyes, seeking a moment’s reprieve from the chaos.
I’d had more than enough. The roar dimmed to a hum, the sharp smells and sounds blurred. Just for a breath, I escaped.
But I felt Chief’s gaze settling on me, heavy and unyielding. Not just the weight of a fighter in battle, but something more—a warning.
A sharp grunt broke the fight’s rhythm. A misstep. The crowd’s roar faltered, their collective breath held tight.
Opening my eyes, I saw Chief lurch back, nearly losing his footing, his focus broken for a fleeting second.
Then he didn’t hold back. With a roar, he lunged at Bloodhound, fists striking with sickening thuds that reverberated through the air. Bloodhound returned a punch, a kick, before Chief’s blow to the side of Bloodhound’s head sent him down for the count.
I didn’t recall much after that. Only that one of Chief’s men came and got me, then led me out of the seating area and backstage. I angled my head down as I walked, avoiding the cameras as much as possible, but I was certain my face had been captured yet again on the big screen.
Reuben found me backstage minutes later after he’d accepted his title. His face looked grim. Sweat clung to him, darkening his skin and dampening the edges of his hair. Bruises already bloomed along his ribs and jaw, and yet he still radiated power, undiminished and elemental.
He stayed silent as he unwrapped the bloodied dressing and tape from his knuckles with a brutal kind of grace, his muscles flexing beneath his skin. His hands were rock-solid and strong even as they trembled slightly.
“You can’t ever leave like that again,” he said at last, his voice low and clipped. “Not when I’m in a fight. Not when it’s me against the world.”
There it was. The command in his tone. The chains wrapping tighter and tighter around me.
I lifted my chin. “And what if I need to get out?”
His eyes narrowed, just for a second. “Then you tell me. You don’t run.”
Don’t run. Who did he think he was talking to? I wasn’t some reckless child. I might be na?ve but I was far older than my years, where I’d spent every second calculating endless risks to buy myself a breath of freedom.
My fists clenched at my sides. I hadn’t clawed my way out of Adam’s gilded cage just to end up in another.
Reuben peeled the last of the bloodied dressing and tape from his knuckles. “Give me ten. I need to clean up.”
Take your time.
But even as I turned away from him, a part of my mind betrayed me. I pictured the water streaming over him, hot, fast, purging the blood and sweat from his skin, that same body that had moved with brutal grace in the ring.
I swallowed hard, hating the flush of heat rising to my cheeks. Hating that I still reacted.
No.
Whatever fire flickered between us, it didn’t change the truth. He might have risked his safety for me once, but he wasn’t my savior.
Not anymore.
And I wasn’t anyone’s property.
Not ever again.
I’d promised Reuben a week and that was what I’d give him.
Unlike the humans who’d shown me nothing but broken pledges, I’d never broken a promise, and I didn’t intend to start now.