Is he a witch?she wondered as they unbuckled from the taxi and stepped out. Somehow, she doubted such a mundane, disgruntled man could yield magic.
“What now?” Kit asked, his muscled arms crossed as if to comfort himself. Unlike the taxi driver, he looked at the arena with open distaste. “We won’t be able to catch your father in a public arena. This place is for lowlifes.”
“To catch him, we have to know where he is,” Gentry huffed, annoyed. To say the witch had been sullen since she’d torn the Favor was an understatement. He hadn’t so much as looked at her, choosing instead to answer the taxi driver’s small talk points.Yes, the weather has been real shitty, sir. No sir, my mama wouldn’t like me taking a lady to a fighting arena. No clue what’s gotten into me.And so on.
He’d emphasized the word lady, and Gentry had rolled her eyes as she’d processed the very country, very passive-aggressiveadmonishment. So she wasn’t a lady. Did he consider his failed attempt at seducing her last night gentlemanly?
Calling it afailedseduction attempt is a bit of a stretch, she admitted to herself. She’d very much wanted to finish what they’d started. Kit was a gorgeous man who could kiss like a god.
Too bad he was a bit of a priss.
It didn’t bother her, what the freaking assassin thought was lady-like. Screw him. “Also, who are you to call anyone a lowlife?You’rethe guy who was about to snap my freaking neck a couple nights ago.You should feel right at home here. Lead the way, country boy.” She gestured with a flip of her wrist.
Kit flushed, the color only slightly deepening his tanned skin, and he strolled forward. Gentry followed him into the ticketing area, and let him do the talking and paying. There were no lines, which made sense because it was mid-morning.
The place wouldn’t be busy, but she knew her old man. Remembered that it had always been bright and early when he would leave Gentry for his many, many vices.
The little time she’d spent researching at the hotel had been fruitful. She’d been able to check her father’s alias to see which set of gambling rings he’d migrated to this week. A couple years ago, when she’d discovered her father’s fake-ass name — Scot Hemingway Trudit, she’d been disgusted to see him combine both her mother’s and his mother’s maiden name to hide himself. He’d lost all rights to refer to his family when he’d sold Gentry out to save his own ass.
Once she’d had his alias, verifying his identity had been a cake walk. The cowardly witch only ever placed his bets if the minute of the hour was a multiple of five. It served as his fingerprint, one Gentry instantly recognized.
After Kit paid for the tickets, the ticket clerk waved them through the lines of double doors that lined the humongous circular arena.
This is going to be the tricky part, Gentry felt herself deflate once she saw the absurd numbering system that went from row 1A-Z to 200 and various stairs leading up and down. Her father always varied where he sat from day to day. She adjusted the cap where she’d shoved all her hair — at this point, it was more likely he’d recognize her first. Or worse, all these mystical boogiemen Kit prophesied about would show up to finish the job he’d started.
Keeping her head down, she entered the arena through the row 25B entrance. She tried not to stare at the incredible breadth of the seats, which were staggered just like any other place that wanted its audience to look down in one place. Only it was far, far higher than any other place Gentry had seen before. The steep incline between the sand-filled arena floor and the first row of seats had to be at least 30 feet. And the entrances for the fighting monsters were at least half that height. Damage littered the walls, some bits suspiciously close to the first row.
Gentry felt a thrill of fear and started climbing the stairs. She’d read about the Wilds, but had yet to see one of its monsters.
The Wilds spread half the continent, and only Skadra stood between it and civilization. Overrun by magical animal chimeras who’d been created by both witches and fae alike during the War, no magic-less human would stand a chance against them.
According to the history books, each monster was designed to be aggressive and their appetite insatiable for death. It’d been a type of biological warfare — whoever brewed the craziest, evilest monster won the battle. But then eventually the creatures became too much for either side to control, and that was how the Wilds were birthed.
Skadra witches maintained the Veil between the Wilds and decided who — and what — was allowed to cross. The Veil kept the rest of the world from burning. At least on this continent, others were said to be completely overtaken by the creatures.
Gentry took a seat a healthy twenty rows up, and tried to tear her eyes away from that blood-soaked arena. Kit sat at her side. She hoped they didn’t stand out too much. The crowd was sparse, the early bird gamblers mostly littering the front rows. They looked like ants from where they were sitting.
As she trained to scan the crowd for any sign of her father, he murmured, “You’re going to need some enhancement to your sight to be able to spot him out.”
She paused and gave him a skeptical look. Letting a witch magick her eyes sounded like a very stupid idea.
“I couldn’t harm you even if I wanted to”—Kit rolled his eyes—“and I sure don’t want to sit in these bleachers any longer than necessary. It’s a harmless spell. Little Benny would be able to do it in his sleep.”
Gentry blinked and shook her head, not enjoying the thought of that smiley young witch anywhere near this bloody arena. But Kit was right; she couldn’t make out any distinguishable characteristics of anyone with her current sight. Everyone looked like an ant. “Are there any side effects?”
“No side effects.”
“Okay”—Gentry swallowed her pride and turned in her hard plastic bleacher seat to face him—“go ahead then.”
Not wasting time, Kit placed a big hand on her face that covered her jawline to the tops of her cheekbones. He leaned forward as if to kiss her and repeat their performance from last night, his gaze focused in a way she hadn’t seen since he’d tried to kill her. His palm burned with heat as he murmured a few non-English words under his breath. Fascinated, Gentry watched his lips as he spoke in a language far too fluent and beautiful to come out of a human mouth. This was the first time she’d heard the arcane language spoken aloud, and it reminded her of the embarrassingly large number of years she’d studied it when she’d been a kid.
She’d wanted to be like her father, had been unable to accept that some people were just born special and others weren’t.
As soon as he finished his spell, Gentry felt her eyes heat with magic, the sensation surprisingly pleasant. And just like that, the warmth of his hand retreated, and she was left dealing with a million new details her brain struggled to keep up with.
The small granular structure which made up the bleacher seats.
The fine bits of sand on the arena’s floor which was dyed a slight red from blood. Tufts of fur and a multitude of fangs, scales, and talons littered its sands and some were even embedded in the walls.
