Then pull my jacket off and toss it to Noah.
He catches it without comment.
I tug my sheer top over my head, leaving just the lace bralette underneath. The air hits my skin and makes everything feel sharper.
I tie my hair into a high ponytail and flex my fingers.
Jace leans against the railing, arms crossed.
“You better not have given me someone easy,” I say, cracking my neck.
He scoffs. “Please. You think I’d let anyone go easy on you.”
Jace and I move downstairs. We move to the entrance under the guys; they won’t be able to see us from this side. The concrete feels colder near the edge of the ring.
The lights overhead flicker against steel beams, casting long shadows across the walls. The current match is still going, two older Guild guys circling each other like wolves, both bleeding, both refusing to give an inch. The crowd’s eating it up.
I stand just outside the gate, heart steady, breath even. My fingers twitch, not from nerves. From anticipation. Jace stands beside me. He hasn’t said much since we left the others. His presence is solid. Heavy without pressing. He watches the ring, calm. He’s probably already calculated the outcome.
The roar of the crowd swells as one fighter slams the other into the floor. Dust kicks up. Someone yells for blood.
“Is this your way of getting rid of me for good? Letting someone beat me to death in a fight?”
Jace’s eyebrow arches, then he scoffs, shaking his head.
“Why’d you say yes?”
He looks at me again, waiting for me to elaborate.
“To the fight,” I add. “You didn’t even hesitate. The others did. But not you.”
He studies me for a moment, eyes unreadable.
“You need this. Not to prove anything to us. Not to be strong. But you need to feel that you’re not a victim. Not tonight.”
The crowd screams again. A whistle blows. The match ends. Blood and sweat stain the floor. My name is called over the speaker. Jace turns fully to face me.
“You go in there,” he says, “and you fight for yourself. Not for anyone else. Not for what he did. For you.”
A beat.
“Just don’t break anything you can’t bandage. Lucian might actually kill me if you do.”
I smile.
“I make no promises.”
The gate swings open. The world narrows. I step into the ring.
The noise fades behind me, a distant echo of voices, boots on concrete, the metallic slam of the gate locking behind me. The lights overhead burnwhite-hot, casting long, stretched shadows across the floor. It smells like copper and dust and old sweat.
Across from me, my opponent steps in. She’s tall, wiry, with muscle and coiled tension. Her eyes flick over me once and she smirks like she’s already decided how this is going to go.
Good. Let her.
She’s older. Her knuckles are taped and bloodied; this isn’t her first fight. But that doesn’t scare me.
It focuses me.
