The Butcher and the Ballerina (The Memory Puller #2.5)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

I n the cage fighting rings of Kheimos, there was only one rule: no magic.

In a city full of Fae where magic was a hard thing to avoid, the restriction leveled the playing field and added tension to the fights.

Deathstalkers wore mouth guards to disarm their venomous bite. Windriders sported nessite-lined cuffs to prevent them from summoning the wind.

And Beastrunners, like Ronin Matakos, were forbidden to shift into their animal forms.

But Ronin wasn’t a stickler for rules. Not anymore.

So when his opponent—a scrawny, but scrappy hyena bi-form named Ned—swiped at his chest with claws extended, Ronin revealed his own much larger, sharper ones.

The referee slammed a fist on the cage. “Against the fucking rules.”

“He doesn’t want to take a chance on these, anyways.” Ronin’s savage smile revealed thick fangs. Ned trembled.

“So are those,” the referee grunted. “Put ‘em away before I end the fight.”

A chorus of boos swelled in the stands. The crowd was out for blood. What did they care how it was spilled?

Retracting his claws and rushing across the ring, Ned’s bare feet splashed in a leftover puddle of viscera as he reared back and smashed his skull into Ronin’s forehead.

Ronin staggered and Ned swung, wearing himself out as fists, feet, elbows, and knees collided in a symphony of grunts and fleshy smacks.

Ned even managed to sneak a bite to Ronin’s neck.

“You trying to fucking mark me, baby?” Ronin ripped his opponent away and threw him against the cage with an echoing clang.

Loosing a mad cackle, Ned scrambled back toward Ronin, who swept his leg out and dropped the other male to the floor.

Ronin pounced.

Locking his knees around Ned’s hips, Ronin lost himself to the euphoric frenzy of knuckles cracking teeth, crushing cartilage, and breaking bone. Blood flew from his fists, soaking the cage as the crowd roared its approval.

Wrath of Vestan, he fucking loved this part. Violence was his favorite high.

Well, top three at least.

Groans burst from the handful of risk-takers daring enough to bet against him, the current champion of the Northern Territories and the perennial odds-on favorite.

The referee called the fight, then strode into the cage to raise Ronin’s wrist and declare him the winner.

The crowd surged to its feet.

“Butcher! Butcher! Butcher!”

A contented growl rumbled through Ronin’s mind.

They call for me, his wolf purred . Let me come out and bask in their glory.

No fucking chance, Ronin grumbled back.

He hadn’t let his beast out in nearly three centuries.

He couldn’t, even if he wanted to.

Ronin took in the rapturous crowd, allowing himself a moment to savor their admiration, then ripped his wrist away from the referee and exited the ring.

His was always the last fight of the night—the marquee bout that kept the crowd in the stands, betting more drachas than they could afford and ordering more greasy food and over-priced drinks. Ronin got a cut of the night’s earnings, so he didn’t complain about being kept in the reeking, blood-soaked arena well past midnight.

Ronin stalked into the locker room, then shucked off his sparring pants and unwrapped his fists.

Blood came away on his fingertips—his or the hyena’s, he couldn’t tell. Likely a mixture of both, based on the scents. Ned had been dragged to the healing wing. Ronin’s opponents usually were. Beating the shit out of them ensured he’d have the shower to himself afterwards, at least for as long as it took the staff to counteract the healing suppressant the Fae fighters consumed.

He stepped into the stall, and scalding water erupted from the faucet, streaming over his muscled shoulders as he dipped his head, palms resting against the tiles.

Casting a glow upon the steam, ice-blue tattoos swirled across his arms and torso—a cage of the Empire’s making.

Three centuries ago, during the Empire’s war with the humans, Ronin’s white wolf had slaughtered over two thousand mortal soldiers on the battlefields of Aethalia, delivering the Fae a decisive victory. The feat earned him a new nickname—the Butcher—and he was celebrated across the territories. Cheered at parties. Showered with gifts. Revered as a continental war hero. Emperor Leonin Erabis himself had even commissioned a grand portrait of Ronin’s wolf for the palace in Delos.

Ronin Matakos had been on top of the world.

For a time.

Everything had changed during the Accord negotiations, when the Emperor yielded to some very assertive human voices who weren’t too keen on letting the most notorious killer of their kind go unchecked. A political concession and nothing more; the humans were headed for the colonies and Ronin was staying on the continent, so how much of a threat could he really pose? Not to mention, the war was over.

Though Ronin could manage small displays—thickening his fangs, elongating his fingernails into claws, even popping out his white tail—the tattoos prevented him from making a full transformation.

At the time, Ronin had been furious about the sanction. Why should he be punished by the very Empire whose orders he’d been following? For becoming the weapon they’d trained him to become? Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d killed innocents on those fields. Those human soldiers had been just as capable of savagery, demonstrated by the Fae casualties piling up in the months prior.

But three hundred years later, he only nurtured a quiet rage over his caging. Had begrudgingly resigned himself to his fate.

His wolf, however, had not. The caging of a Beastrunner’s animal was a very specific type of torture. With no outlet or means of release, it was a daily occurrence that the beast howled and snarled and ripped against Ronin’s chest, begging to be unleashed.

Over the years, there were only three things that Ronin had ever found to calm the creature: fighting, fucking, and Delirium, Trophonios’s glorious invention. The elixir, brewed from human memories, held Ronin and many of his fellow Fae within its addictive thrall.

Ronin could feel his wolf within him now, curled against his heart, bathing in the afterglow of the night’s violence.

Footsteps clacked against the tiled floor and Ronin whipped his head around, droplets splattering the wall.

Dimi, a Deathstalker female who worked for the fight promoter Sorreno, plunked a hefty sack of drachas on top of the stall’s ledge.

“Your cut for the night.” Dimi’s forked tongue slithered across her lips as she dragged her serpent’s eyes up Ronin’s glistening, naked body. “And the boss has a message for you.”

Ronin shook the water from his hair, then wrapped a towel around his waist.

“Tell Sorreno I’m fucking done for the night.” He ran a hand through his wet, white strands. A calculated move to pop his biceps.

“But not done fucking, we hope.” Dimi’s pupils dilated.

They’d enjoyed each other before. In this very locker room, in fact. She’d been a spry and enthusiastic partner, but he had a taste for fresh meat tonight—the gorgeous new Windrider waitress at the Frosted Crystal who’d been flirting with him for the past week. And was about to earn a very generous tip.

“Anyway, we didn’t mean that boss,” Dimi said. “We meant the big boss. Skanisse.”

Ronin reigned in his shock. The High Councilor of the Northern Territories had been at the fight tonight?

Dimi handed Ronin a slip of paper. “Told us to give this to your hot ass.”

Ronin snickered. “He didn’t say hot .”

“Added that bit ourselves.” She winked. “You seem tense, Butcher. You want to burn off some energy before you go?” Her head tilted back as Ronin towered over her.

“You wanna play with me again, Dimi?”

Her eyes slid shut and a quivering breath parted her lips. “ Please. ”

High Gods , Ronin could never resist it when they begged. Wielding his savage beauty was one of the few weapons left in his arsenal.

He cuffed her throat, her pulse pounding against his fingertips, then traced the tip of his tongue down one of her fangs, careful to avoid the pointed end. She shuddered, the bitter scent of her venom prickling his nose.

“I’m not in the mood for seconds tonight,” he whispered against her lips before nudging her out of the way and heading for his locker.

Dimi’s hissing laughter followed her out of the humid room. “Someday, Matakos. You’ll cave again.”

Not fucking likely , he thought as he changed into his typical all-black uniform: a long-sleeved t-shirt, utility pants, and loosely-laced boots.

Shrugging on his leather jacket, he plopped onto the bench and opened the note. Messages from High Councilor Skanisse were rare, and since his caging, Ronin had done his best to stay out of the Imperial orbit. But given his history and reputation, the Empire—and its representatives—did occasionally come calling.

Written in the High Councilor’s familiar chicken-scratch was a short message: Imperial Affairs HQ. Tomorrow morning at eight.

Ronin groaned. Way too fucking early. Especially given his plans for the remainder of his night.

He ripped up the note, then tossed the pieces in his locker and slung his equipment bag over his shoulder.

As he rushed through the empty underground halls of the arena, he wondered what Skanisse wanted this time. When Ronin had previously been summoned, he’d been nothing more than a glorified babysitter. Dragged around to some secretive event or another, the cornerstone of Skanisse’s wall of muscle.

Ronin slipped out a side door and into the hazy night, welcomed by the halos of magically-powered street lights. Snowflakes needled his face and hands, melting upon contact with his Beastunner heat.

As he trudged through the slushy streets, his thoughts turned to the Crystal’s new waitress and the plans he had for her taut little body.

Whatever Skanisse wanted tomorrow morning, he wasn’t about to let it mess with his post-fight ritual.