Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
CADEN
Three days of hunting—three days of torturing the man who’d kept her caged—hadn’t cooled the fire in me. If anything, it had awakened the part of me I’d buried cycles ago.
Someone had hurt her. Someone had used her.
And in the middle of her darkest night, she’d reached for me…and I’d never come through.
As if her grief hadn’t already dragged up ghosts of my own, I now had to live with that guilt on top of it.
Which meant sleepless nights. Again.
The clang of the gate slamming shut yanked me back to the present. Across the cage, my opponent waited.
He was massive. Broad shoulders that strained against scarred skin, chest mapped with old burns and fresh ink.
His nose had clearly been broken more times than anyone could count, set crooked and jagged, and one ear was little more than a mangled lump.
He paced the edge of the ring like a caged animal, head low, locked on me with a predator’s focus.
The crowd roared his name, a guttural chant that rattled the metal beneath my feet. He soaked it in, rolling his shoulders, grinning wide enough to show the only two teeth he had left.
Not some desperate man looking for coin or release. This one fought for the pleasure of it.
Good.
Because tonight, I needed a challenge.
The bell rang—if that rusted hunk of metal counted as a bell—and the cage erupted.
He came at me like a battering ram, head down, shoulders driving, throwing wild haymakers and elbows like clubs. When they landed, the impact crackled through me; when they missed, it was a gift.
I stepped aside instead of meeting him head-on, catching bone and leverage, folding his weight over my hip.
His first real mistake was committing to a full swing. I slipped the line, grabbed his wrist, and torqued. Something in his shoulder snapped, loud enough to draw a cheer.
My forearm drove into his ribs. His breath burst out in a sharp exhale, but he came back with a howl, smashing his forehead into mine until stars burst behind my eyes.
The crowd roared for blood. His blood. My blood. They didn’t care.
He swung again; this time he aimed for my head. I ducked, caught his wrist, and twisted, forcing his bulk off balance. My knee came up into his gut, and the air whooshed out of him.
He staggered back, then roared and ripped a length of metal from the cage. The crowd exploded as he snapped the bar against the steel until the end splintered off. A spear.
He lunged. I pivoted, but not fast enough.
The jagged edge tore across my ribs, ripping through skin and muscle. White-hot pain stole the breath from my lungs.
I slammed into the cage, one hand clamping over the wound. My fingers came away slick with blood. The crowd howled for the finish.
It should have dropped me. This hit should’ve dropped me.
Instead, as I forced myself upright, something moved beneath the pain, a second pulse under my skin. Warmth spread along my ribs, dulling the burn as the bleeding slowed.
It wasn’t visible to anyone else—the wound looked the same, the blood still there—but inside, I was being held together by something that wasn’t mine.
No one else could reach me like that. No one else could heal me like that, and keep it hidden from every eye in the Human World.
I clenched my jaw, torn between the relief and the terror of it.
She was here. How the hell was she here?
More importantly, if anyone realized what Emma was doing, if anyone caught even a flicker of translation, we’d both be dead a second later.
I couldn’t block it, not without revealing my own haze.
I let my gaze sweep the crowd, heart hammering as I searched the blur of faces hidden beyond the floodlights. Shadows shifted. Bodies leaned and screamed and jeered. And then… There.
Big blue eyes.
Wide, unblinking, caught on me like I was the only thing in the room.
For a moment, the world stilled. The crowd yelled. My opponent paced. And between us, in that impossible space, she held me together.
I shook my head. Once. Barely more than a twitch.
The warmth vanished instantly. The wound throbbed again, blood damp against my shirt, but inside, the damage had eased enough to keep me moving.
The hulk came at me again, stabbing and jabbing, driving me toward the edge of the cage. The bars rattled with every near hit while the crowd shrieked for blood.
I caught the rebar once, twice, the impact bruising my palms, but he tore it free each time. One shove forced me to a knee, the jagged point hovering a breath from my eye, his rancid breath hot against my face.
Desperation turned ruthless. I drove my forehead into his nose—felt the crunch—twisted under his arm and kicked the back of his knee. He dropped just enough for me to wrench the rebar free. The jagged edge sliced my palm, but now it was mine.
No hesitation. I rammed it into his side, right under the ribs, and drove until his roar turned to a gurgle. His body thrashed, blood spilling warm across my knuckles.
I twisted the rebar free and drove it again, higher this time, until his body jerked once, twice, then went limp.
For a second, all I could hear was my own ragged breathing. My blood, his blood, the stink of iron and sweat mixing heavy in the air. My vision tunneled. My hands shook.
I’d barely scraped by. One wrong slip and I’d be cooling in the dirt instead of him.
Without Emma, I might’ve ended up there anyway.
The crowd erupted, a storm of voices that shook the bars around me. Some jeered, some screamed approval, but all of it was fuel thrown onto the fire of the pit.
The cage emptied in a surge, bodies pressing toward the exit as though the smell of blood only made them hungrier. Hands clapped my shoulders as I pushed through, people shouted congratulations I didn’t hear. None of it mattered.
Until I saw her.
Her hair caught in the stuttering neon; sky-blue eyes fixed on me in a way that made the whole world tilt.
Emma stood right beyond the pit, still as stone in the chaos. And next to her: Levi Cloutier. Standing there like they were old friends, like he had any right to her closeness.
How the hell had that happened?
The smug bastard was leaning in far too close, his grin sharp with entitlement. He held a glass out to her like it was an offering, his other hand hovering near her elbow, casual enough to look harmless, intentional enough to make me want to break every bone in his body.
My ribs throbbed, every step a slice of pain, but I barely felt it over the cold fury tightening in my chest.
I took a step forward, then another, but before I could close the gap between us, a hand shot out and grabbed my arm.
Sean’s grip was iron; his face carved from suspicion. He leaned in close, a hiss under the roar of the crowd.
“Ye better have a good explanation for this.”
I met his stare but said nothing. He knew all too well the cages were nothing compared to the battles I fought in my sleep, where the demons didn’t wait for a bell or a referee.
I shook him off without a word and crossed the last few feet in three long strides.
My hand found Emma’s wrist, the pulse there leaping against my fingers like it recognized me too, but before I could form the words, Levi slid in between us like he’d been waiting for the moment.
“Hell of a fight, Colt,” he drawled, before he clapped me on the back like we were old comrades instead of strangers.
His gaze slid to Emma—lingered a heartbeat too long—before his grin widened as he slung an arm over her shoulder. “No wonder nobody here wanted to bet against you.”
The rage in me burned cold, colder than the rebar I’d just driven through a man’s ribs. My hands curled, aching for a second fight with only one survivor.
Emma saved the man’s life when she shrugged him off, right before I smiled at him without warmth, and leaned in until my breath brushed his ear. “You so much as lay another finger on her,” I murmured, the threat low, “I’ll rip off that hand and make you watch it twitch.”
His smirk faltered enough to satisfy me. I straightened, calm and collected again, then reached for Emma’s arm. “Excuse us for a second.”
She didn’t even get a full breath out before I dragged her across the room. Her heels screamed against the floor; she turned and twisted, but I tightened my grip until her protests shredded into nothing.
I shoved her into the darkest corner, shoulder-first, and forced her back until the curtain swallowed most of us. The wall hit the small of her back; my hand still clamped to her wrist like iron.
Control yourself, Colt.
With my other hand I slammed my palm flat against the wall beside her head, boxing her in. I leaned in until our breaths mixed, my shadow devouring hers. Up close, the light caught in her pupils, blown wide.
“What the hell is your problem?” she hissed, all hot and bothered.
My lips twisted. “You could’ve gotten us both killed with that little stunt of yours,” I bit out, each word clipped.
“Oh, excuse me for trying to save your ass, Colt. Had I known it would turn you into this caveman, I would’ve happily let you bleed to death.”
I didn’t answer right away, because words were fucking impossible when she looked like that.
The lighting hit her enough to make every inch of her glow.
That dress clung to her hips like it was painted on, the hem teasing the tops of her thighs every time she moved.
Those boots—tight, black, unapologetic—made her legs look like sin in motion.
And that mouth, fuck. Soft, defiant, the kind of mouth you could ruin yourself on.
I dragged my gaze back up, forcing my jaw to unclench. “You didn’t know I was going to fight tonight,” I growled, more to cover the rasp in my voice than anything else.
She frowned, confusion flickering across her face. “I healed you after I saw you, you idiot.”
“Not the fucking point, Thompson.” My pulse hammered as I leaned in closer, close enough to feel the heat rolling off her. “Did you dress like that for anyone else?”
Her breath caught, but she held her ground. “What?”