A large shadow resembling a large, muscular cat stretched across the sands from an arena entrance. The shadow swayed rhythmically as the cat prowled back and forth in discontent from behind those bars.
It was too much. Gentry screwed shut her eyes, wresting control back from her overwhelmed brain. Then she opened them again and pointed her hyper-focused vision at the first row directly below them. She skimmed over it quickly, not expecting to see her father in the front seats.
A man with his patterns, sure, but her father was no idiot.
He always had someone after him, so he often disguised himself when visiting the gambling venues he frequented. He certainly would never sit in the front row, where any of his debt collectors, the people he borrowed from, likely sat. So she looked over the individuals who were scattered throughout the dead stadium. Her heart sank as she realized her father wasn’t one of them. Either that, or his disguises had significantly improved in the time she’d been locked up.
“Is he not here?” Kit asked, sounding perfectly unsympathetic to her predicament. “Skadra’s a big city, you know. Finding him will take time we don’t have.”
Gentry was just about to snap back at him when the stadium speakers crackled to life. “~Ladies and gentlemen ~ Demonstration 3-Oscar-Charlie-Zebra is starting. A reminder that any interference from the audience, whether physical or magical, is strictly prohibited within the bylaws of Skadra. Violators will be fined and/or will serve as part of our round-up crews in the Wilds. ~Noooow~ please enjoy Demonstration 3-Oscar-Charlie-Zebra. In our west corridor is a newcomer to our stables — a rare female wyvern found stuffing its belly full of smugglers just on the other side of the Veil. Give it up for Throat-Crusheeeer!”
Despite the low number of attendees in the stadium, the hoots and hollers of the crowd had Gentry slinking back into her seat in disapproval.Drunken idiots. Bloodthirsty. Without conscience.
If Gentry didn’t have her stupid curse, she’d hack into this gambling pit’s systems and donate their bloodsoaked money to an animal’s rights organization.
But her curiosity got the better of her — she’d never seen a wyvern in person before. With her focused vision, she looked at Throat-Crusher. Wide, muscular shoulders led into an even more powerful body. A forked tongue that slithered out every few seconds. Beady, ravenous eyes. As her kind could weigh as much as 900 pounds, the wyvern looked similar to a roided-out, meathead dragon except her wings were black and webbed like a bat’s. Tufted ears rotated on her boxy head, illustrating that her ancestors hadn’t been sculpted by evolution but by a wartime scientist who’d fused the bodies of a Komodo and bat by pumping them full of the blackest magic imaginable.
All chimeras such as Throat-Crusher were sculpted by magic users for one deadly purpose — to track and destroy any magic in the vicinity. They were forgotten relics of the war, banished tothe Wilds because the creatures were too prolific and unruly to extinguish entirely.
Throat-Crusher zeroed in on the closest group of spectators. Her forked tongue lashed out again, testing the air for magic. Then she launched off her powerful haunches into the air, her body a missile designed to eliminate the closest source of magic—
But then Throat-Crusher hit some invisible barrier in the air and crumpled. She plummeted to the ground with a smack.
The crowd erupted with triumphant jeers and the announcer joked,“And that’s why we ward this place, folks. Throat-Crusher will earn her breakfast today. Because… staaanding at our east corridor at a slim seven hundred pounds and freshly healed from his three back-to-back wins last night is… T’kug the Hospitable!”
Gentry gasped aloud when she saw the tall, gaunt orc who entered the arena. She hadn’t read the gambling casino’s list of stock, hadn’t realized that it included humanoids.
T’kug didn’t look anything like the orcs she’d seen on television. He wasn’t fat and bald with snaggle teeth deforming his ogre-ish face. No, he looked far more monstrous than that. His bright orange eyes made his face look hawkish, and his nose and lips were more equine than many a human. His limbs were long and toned, and he crept along the circular arena floor with a preciseness that showed it wasn’t his first time hunting in the sands. He stalked the wyvern, and Gentry saw the tiny blade glint hidden in his palm.
Gentry jumped when Kit touched her arm. “Focus on finding your father,” he murmured, “watching this shit isn’t worth it. They rig the results. Every time. Their fortune tellers work overtime so that the house always wins.”
She wondered if the reason he sounded so disgusted was because he’d lost money in the past. Something told her thatwasn’t the case. She detected a thread of sadness in his slow, relaxed drawl.So killing me is okay, but animals is a no-no.Got it.Rather than making her angry, the insight made her like him more.
Shit. Was she starting to likehim? It was one thing to want to fuck him — Gentry had nearly crossed that line last night. But to genuinely like the personality of a man who’d tried to kill her?
Squashing her embarrassment deep, deep down, Gentry focused on the conversation at hand. “Seers. I thought that type of magic was just made up for bad television.” At least, that’s what her father had always told her.
“That’s what gamblers say to justify the money they waste,” Kit said, not unkindly, “but all these big businesses have one. The seer calls the winner, and the house skews the advertisements and coverage of these fights in their favor.”
Gentry kept her eyes on the witch beside her as the shouts and curses of the match rose and echoed in the colosseum. A horrible scream split the air. Wyverns couldn’t scream. Not like that. Kit didn’t flinch at the sound, but rather pursed his scarred lips as if disappointed by the sound.
Despite herself, Gentry looked back down in the sands.
Throat-Crusher perched herself proudly on the orc’s body, her talons digging into his flesh, drawing blood. Her head was buried into the nape of the huntsman’s throat as she claimed her prize.
The orc flailed helplessly for his life, beating his fists against scales too armored to feel his blows.
“His knife is too small to penetrate her scales,” Kit murmured, “the house wins again.”
Gentry realized he was right as she spotted that tiny knife swallowed up in the orc’s grasp. Its blade bounced off Throat-Crusher’s silky green scales. A shudder went down her spine as the blade slipped and fell harmlessly to the bloodsoaked sands.
T’kug the Hospitable stopped struggling.
The announcer hit his mark. “Aaaaand that’s it, folks! T’kug simply couldn’t compete with one of the Wilds’ apex predators. What a shame that Throat-Crusher didn’t give him a hospitable end like T’kug did his previous opponents! What a run! Give a big round of applause to Throat-Crusher — our new champion!”
The crowd booed and hissed their disapproval. Some threw their tickets at the arena floor, but they landed harmlessly against the invisible barrier, making the field shimmer from the iridescent pieces of paper. Others simply shot obnoxious spells into the air in protest.
Her heart shuddered to a stop when one spectator stood up and opened his wallet while he rocked on the balls of his feet.
