“You wouldn’t normally be worth our time except to hunt you down for the kill, but you requested a challenge. Who am I to deny us a fight?” Cressida asked.
Some members of her god pack cheered; there were just as many who didn’t. Patrick couldn’t smell a goddamn thing other than grass and pollen that made him want to sneeze. He hoped Jono was reading everyone’s scent because Patrick was focusing on body language. Maybe it was the flickering firelight from the tiki torches, but some people didn’t seem thrilled about being there.
“Dire,” Sage said as she methodically started removing her diamond earrings.
Devin smirked at her as he started undoing his jeans. “You could always walk away, love.”
“Don’t call me love.” Sage handed Jono her earrings before slipping out of her Louboutins and handing them over as well. Her engagement ring was safe in Marek’s hands back in New York. “Say again the terms, dire.”
Devin kicked aside his jeans and underwear, standing naked in the firelight. “When you die, the rest of your pack is forfeit.”
“And when I put you on your knees to show throat, we’ll earn pass-through rights and Jono’s pardon.” Without looking away from Devin, she lifted her platinum necklace with its turquoise pendant wrapped in fae magic away from her throat and passed it to Patrick. “Hold my necklace.”
Patrick tangled his fingers around the warm metal chain, listening as a quiet murmur rose up from the London god pack. Devin’s smile faded, and Cressida looked positively murderous.
“This was werecreature against human. Magic is forbidden in the challenge ring during a fight,” Finley snapped.
“Which is why Sage removed her necklace,” Jono said as Sage unzipped her dress and let it fall off her shoulders and slip down her body. Wade reached down to pick it up and shake it clean. “We agreed on dire against dire, not human against werecreature. Not our fault your sense of smell is shit.”
“You thought I was human. Your lack of due diligence is your failing, not ours,” Sage said calmly as she removed her bra and underwear and passed those over to Jono as well. “The challenge was called and I am here to answer.”
Across the challenge ring, Cressida’s face contorted in a way that wasn’t human. Patrick couldn’t be sure it was even a shift of skin, because the expression looked too monstrous for it to be anything but demonic. Then it was gone, replaced by a fury fueled by hate that was just as ugly in its own way.
“Kill her,” Cressida snarled.
Devin shifted fast, but Sage was faster. The months of training and fighting and learning to shift fast in order to survive meant she had all four paws on the flagstones before he did. Sage was massive in her weretiger form, a ferocious beast that looked nothing like the tigers in the wild. She was all dull orange-and-black fur, defined muscles, articulated limbs, and teeth that reminded Patrick more of a saber-toothed cat’s than anything else. The only werecreature Patrick had seen who was larger than her was Jono.
Despite her size, she was quick on all four legs, lunging across the challenge ring for Devin in a blur Patrick could barely track. The werewolf dodged, but couldn’t escape the swipe from her claws, and got raked across his side for his efforts. Sage’s claws were larger than his, wickedly curved, and cut deep. Blood spurted from the wound as Devin twisted out of range with a pained snarl, sliding across the flagstones.
Sage followed him with an agility that looked bone-breaking, twisting her body into a charge Devin had no other choice but to meet. This was supposed to be a fight, and he couldn’t win it by running away.
Devin went low, aiming for her throat, but Sage had a longer reach with her front legs. She slashed at his face, forcing him back again or risk losing an eye for the rest of the fight. It would grow back with the shift to human, but no one wanted to be half-blind in the challenge ring.
One minute into the fight and Patrick realized Sage was playing with Devin. He’d seen her fight for her life before in other battles, seen her rip the head off a soultaker after werewolves drove the ever-hungry demon to the ground. Alone or with their pack, Sage was a force to be reckoned with that most other packs never saw coming.
Devin might have fought his way into being dire for the London god pack, but he hadn’t been fighting against gods and the Dominion Sect. Sage was prepared for underhandedness—Devin wasn’t prepared for the sheer ruthless brutality Sage brought to the fight with her size and strength and cunning mind that outclassed his.
Werewolves made up the majority of werecreatures in the world. People infected by the werevirus gleaned from wildcats or bears were rarer on certain continents or countries, but they tended to be the hardest to take down in a fight. Sage was used to fighting werewolves. It became immediately apparent Devin was not used to fighting against someone larger and stronger than he was.
Patrick took his eyes off the fighters in the challenge ring and scanned the crowd of god pack members on the other side. Some people looked surprised while others appeared grimly worried. One or two had a vicious smile on their faces, and Patrick figured Devin maybe wasn’t the most popular dire around.
When his gaze passed over Cressida and Finley, Patrick found only one of them staring back at him. Cressida wasn’t watching the fight; he couldn’t be sure she even seemed interested in it. Despite the distance separating them, Patrick could see the way her lips were pulled back in a snarl, the shadows brought on by flickering tiki torches not enough to hide the sharpness of her teeth.
The grating feel of hell grew sharper against his shields, digging past his magic and into the damaged parts of his soul that always seemed to know where to find bits of hell in the world these days. No one else bearing witness to the fight seemed aware of the hellish taint—or if they were, they were used to it.
Neither option was a good one.
Patrick’s fingers twitched as he resisted the urge to touch his dagger and draw attention to it. The magic and prayers that resided inside its matte-black blade came and went as it pleased, but when faced with a threat from the hells, it always answered the call. The last thing he wanted to do was tip off a demon about his ace in the hole.
“Damn, I’m out of Jaffa Cakes,” Wade grumbled, shaking the box upside down to prove he had nothing left. “Sage! I’m hungry. Can you hurry up?”
“Wade,” Jono ground out. “Not the time.”
“But I’m hungry!”
Sage let out a roar that sounded less like pain and more like annoyance as she slashed at Devin. Wade crossed his arms over his chest and scowled mulishly. Patrick watched as she faked a dodge and twisted sharply on her hind legs to leap onto Devin’s back and drive him to the ground. He let out a howl that was abruptly cut off when Sage clamped her jaws around the back of his neck, sharp curved fangs digging through fur to latch onto skin, spilling blood.
If she wrenched her head to either side, she’d break Devin’s neck and kill him.
