My captors.
My torturers.
My jaws snap closed on nothing but air.
I try again anyway, throwing myself against the bars with a mindless intensity.
The two handlers startle backward half a step, and I preen at the bitter scent of fear now wafting off them. Theyshouldbe afraid of me.
The human steps closer to the bars, the remote clutched in one white-knuckled hand. “Back up,” he says. “In the corner.”
I only glare at him, lips pulling away from my teeth and spittle dripping from my jaws.
He scowls and narrows his eyes, then holds the remote up and wiggles it back and forth. “A good jolt now might mean you’ll still be feeling the effects by the time the fight starts.”
Don’t care.
The hair along my spine rises as I continue growling, gaze fixed on this familiar enemy.
The human chuckles, the confident sound made a lie by the lingering smell of fear. I snap my teeth and he jolts in place even though there’s no way in hell I can reach him across the distance between us.
As if embarrassed by his own reaction, the human’s face twists with anger and he bares his teeth at me in a poor imitation of a lupine snarl. “You think you’re so tough? Well,Ithink you’ll finally get what’s coming to you tonight, mutt.”
He sneers as he presses the button on the remote so hard his nail bed turns white.
This time he holds it down.
White-hot fire rushes through my body and my muscles seize. My legs give out and I crash to the ground with a sharp yelp, nothing but a broken animal consumed by pain.
But it’s a pain I’m used to, and I retreat into my mind to wait for it to pass.
Time speeds by—minutes, maybe hours lost—and my mind processes the next however long in only flashes of awareness. The pain gradually recedes, but the lingering aches and muscle spasms help cut through some of the mental fog, allowing me to pull myself back to the present and force my wolf and his blind rage to the back of my mind.
I never thought I’d be grateful for the agony this collar brings, but if my wolf were to stay in control, the animal’s drive to survive would overcome my wish for death.
And I can’t have that.
Not tonight.
Not now that I finally made the decision to be done with this place.
By the time the human part of me is fully in control, my wolf’s feral instincts locked away again, the cell door is open and the metal loop connected to the beta’s pole is around my neck.
“Get up,” says the beta, jerking on the pole and yanking my head into an awkward angle until I manage to struggle to my feet andrelieve some of the pressure on my neck. He half drags me out of the cell, and I’m forced to plod along behind him as he leads me through the tunnels, the human walking alongside with the remote clutched firmly in his hand.
We travel for a few minutes, twisting through the bowels of the casino until we reach a large service elevator. The human presses the button to call the elevator. Once the doors open, I’m forced inside. Head low, I press myself against the wall opposite the handlers, taking a few deep breaths to steady myself and clear my mind.
I can’t lose myself to the wolf, not tonight.
My human sidemuststay in control.
I pull up a mental image of my brother, of a time we were together down by the river splashing around and having fun. The idea that I’ll never see him again, that I’ll never again feel the sun on my skin—or the sensation of having skin instead of fur—hurts, but not as much as continuing to exist in this hellish half-life would.
The beta hits whatever number corresponds with the floor the entry to the pit is on and the elevator shudders upward, the shaky movement making it hard to keep my balance even on four legs. A few seconds later, it jerks to a stop, the door slides open, and the handlers pull me out into the long hallway that leads toward the pre-fight holding area.
The overly bright fluorescent lights along the ceiling hurt my eyes after the dimness below, but I ignore the discomfort and walk at a steady pace. As we draw closer to the set of steel doors at the end of the hallway, the sound of the bloodthirsty crowd begins to leak into the air. The beta yanks me to the right so he can use his access card to open the doors, then drags me into what I consider the holding area—a square concrete room that’s barely large enough for me, my two handlers, and the stupid pole.
The beta glances at his watch, mutters something to the human, then shrugs and leans one shoulder against the wall to wait. In here, the sound of the crowd is even louder, the mob of people, both human and shifter, hyped up and baying for blood.
