4. Eshe
Eshe
The crowds went still as I approached the man.
To them, I was merely a weak boy with little arms and a small frame, until I surprised them with my velocity. And they didn’t know the best part was that I was a woman.
The blasphemy!
“Boy, are you sure you want to do this?” The announcer raised his eyebrows at me and kept his grinning face on.
I nodded, passing the announcer as I met my opponent. He was tall—of course—beast-like, with tattoos across his chest. He scoffed and shook his long-haired head.
We moved in a circle, studying each other’s movements. I kept my knees bent, staying light on my feet, ready for anything.
But I wasn’t going to be doing this silly dance for long. I ducked and swung my leg into his outer thigh. He went for me simultaneously, crossing his fist through the air. I missed his advance with my own maneuver and threw an elbow into his side with as much force as I could muster.
He stumbled to the side, but not by much. His jaw twitched as he cracked his neck to the left. He hadn’t touched me yet. I wondered what he was thinking.
A moment later, he crossed an arm only to lean in further with his next fist. I dodged out of his range, shoving the back of my elbow into his other side.
This time, he landed an iron fist into my ribs, and I stumbled.
His next fist connected with my face, and it sent a pleasant thrill through my body.
The crowd was cheering for the man, shouting his name. “Corrah! Corrah!”
This gave him a boost of confidence, and he stepped with the wrong foot. I took the opportunity and slammed my knee into his thigh, twisting his leg inward, and threw a palm up into his nose—crack—and shoved my other elbow into his cheek.
He plummeted to the ground a second later, echoing against the silence of the crowd.
Corrah! Corrah! I sang in my head and rolled my eyes.
“Well done, small beast.” The announcer smirked. He seemed genuinely surprised as he handed me my prize money.
Though most of the crowd was growing restless, I heard a few cheers for me. Small beast.
I’d give just about anything to see their reactions to a woman being the one they were cheering for. The atrocity of having one step into their arena. But it was not worth risking my sweet revenge.
“You are something, I will give you that,” the announcer muttered with his hands on his hips.
Were all men slow at watching and learning from each other? Within half an hour of watching these men fight, I memorized their techniques and had the upper hand.
“There is someone who wants to challenge you.” The announcer waved his hand across the arena to a tall man with a thick red beard, crossing his arms, looking like death. “Brakan. Two wins in a row get you double the prize. What do you say?”
Lifting my chin, I found several pairs of eyes on me from where Brakan was surrounded by others with only linen trousers and no tunics.
This was allowed since it was forbidden for women to step into the arena—except for the occasional scandalous woman.
I hadn’t seen a lot of half-naked men in my life, and shimmering sweat dripped from their broad shoulders past their strong, tan core.
I tried not to stare because—well, a man wouldn’t!
I perused Brakan’s large form. It was tempting… to fight him and beat him into a pulp.
I weighed the purse in my hands. “Sure. Why not?”
I had to be careful, though. Mongah’s techniques could bring more attention to me than I would like.
Maybe it was too late.
The way their eyes followed seemed as if they wanted to hunt me down, and not in the way that made me curl my toes, excited for the chase.
Brakan approached me.
“Another round?” He grinned with a missing tooth, as if he were hungry for revenge that was not going to happen.
I lowered my voice. “Another lesson, old man?”
His grin was wiped from his face with a flash in his eyes.
A little fuse for a little—
A fist slammed into my jaw.
God, if I wasn’t thinking about what his small—
A knee rammed between my ribs. My body flew across the sands.
Fucker!
That was it.
I lifted my eyes to his and tunneled my focus.
Like a snake, I kept my body glued to the sands and swung my legs hard onto his shin. Brakan tumbled, momentarily losing his footing. I grabbed his ankle and yanked, sending him to the ground.
I fought his arm as I pinned him on top, straddling his hips. Forcing an elbow hard against his high cheekbone and another into his eyebrow. He attempted to throw a fist, but I pressed my foot against his wrist faster than he was able to free himself. Another elbow across his bleeding brow.
A fist rammed into my left side, throwing my entire body off his and landing me on my back.
I lifted my legs in front of me as Brakan circled me.
Like a stupid man, he lunged for me, but when I took a fist to my ribs, I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled on his neck to lift myself onto his back like a spider.
In the blink of an eye, my arms strangled his throat.
His body was growing weaker and weaker—just a few more seconds. I pressed higher, cutting the airflow even more.
What I didn’t see was his hand that went for my head.
That was the first mistake I made.
I swung my head left and right from his hands that reached behind him. I no longer had the upper hand because of one simple problem: keeping my identity intact.
I jumped off Brakan, but he swung around, reaching for me.
I looked up from where I landed, my face still covered, but the man’s face paled.
He might not have caught me, but he did catch the end of one of my scarves.
Though he swore under his breath, the other fighters in the arena fell silent, one man after the other. The crowd even held its breath.
I was all too aware of my hair settling past my shoulders.
My lungs begged for air.
I took a cautious step back, heart pounding against my bruised ribs.
Think, think, think.
The veins along Brakan’s neck became more and more pronounced. Through tight lips, he hissed, “What. Is. This.”
Despite the numbing sensations down my arms, I spoke in my normal voice. “This is a woman. Nearly broke your neck with one hand.” I lifted my hand and waved it around.
Red covered his trembling face. “You conniving whore,” he spat. “If you don’t leave this instant, I’ll finish what I started.”
“Your threats are empty if you do nothing with them. Didn’t your father teach you anything?”
I knew I was digging myself a deeper grave, but hell, my identity was already stolen from me, and I wasn’t keen on letting them kick me out like I was some disobedient child who didn’t know better.
The crowd roared. The sounds of shouting and spitting into the arena rang in my ear.
“Last chance, bitch. Get out—”
“But I never got my practice. I was hoping for some training today after the warm-up I had with you all.” My lips curved. I could feel the heat radiating off Brakan from where I stood. “Come on. Don’t let a woman down—though you might be used to that, aren’t you?”
The men in the arena migrated our way, and I could make out some of the shouting. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the announcer speaking to some of the trained men.
Think.
I could—well, I could just use this problem as my practice, couldn’t I?
Excitement ran down my spine. Oh, this could be fun.
“She needs to go, now!”
“This is an abomination!”
“Throw her out!”
I let out a nervous chuckle.
Ten—no, there were fourteen men now surrounding the segmented training area I was in.
“Go get him!” someone shouted to the man in the sage pants. “He’ll deal with this. It’s his arena.”
They were getting their boss involved. What a mess.
I clicked my tongue. “All because I’m a woman.” I shook my head and placed my fists on my hips. “You just couldn’t handle it, could you?”
“Shut it, you piece of filth.” Brakan was getting louder, pacing back and forth. “Alley-bred whore.”
He was in shambles. No, really—he was about to implode with rage.
Good, I wanted a fight. They had wasted enough of my training time.
Within a moment, the men parted on the sands.
“Move!” A man with a thick, black beard and beast-like form stormed over.
Okay, maybe this one wouldn’t be practice—no.
Probably a challenge. My heart quickened.
A beautiful challenge. My lips curved into a smile.
His head was cleanly shaven, displaying tattoos, and his eyes were as dark as the night sky.
The confidence in his walk and the way the arena silenced, parting for his arrival, indicated he was their master.
Even though his mouth and nose were partially covered by a beige scarf, he might have even been handsome if it were not for his scowl.
“What the fuck is going on here?” His eyes were full of fury as he took me in. His nose flared beneath the scarf.
I narrowed my eyes.
He narrowed his.
Oh, shit.
“Get. Out.” The man slowly walked toward me, hesitating, as if I were a disease.
“Make. Me,” I bit out.
His eyes flickered for a moment.
He took one more step toward me, shoulders tense.
My chest heaved. Air was sucked from my lungs.
He looked as if he could fight a storm and beat it into submission.
“You have”—he lifted a finger—“one minute before you regret this, you despicable harlot.”
Blood rushed into my head. I wanted my fist to ruin his pretty face. “Name-calling has never worked on me. Try again.”
“Ezra! Finish the woman! Let us go back to our fighting!” Brakan shouted from our left, but I barely heard him.
Ezra.
Ezra.
I looked deeper into his dark eyes, and my heart raced to my throat.
Was it really him? It couldn’t be. The Qahl would not be down here in the arena, like a commoner.
He would have been on the platform, on the dais, dressed in fine robes, surrounded by guards.
It was meant for royalty. Not to mention, the fighters would be treating him like a Qahl and not like one of them.
“Ezra?” My mouth filled with a bitter taste.
A flash went by in those all-too-familiar brown eyes, but he didn’t answer me.