To feast on her blood?
Those urges were gone, now. But they’d been there.
Even when my beast so desperately wanted to protect her.
To claim her.
“Thor likes to pretend he’s a good boy, but he likes the taste of blood. Want to know how many he’s taken out?” Watcher glanced between the winged male, then directed his stare at the female. Still, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t respond. “His count is forty-three. Forty-three fellow shifters have fallen thanks to him. That’s why he’s the best.”
Watcher took his eyes off her for a moment,just long enough for her to shudder. It made my chest hurt. I didn’t want her to fear me.
It took too much strength to remain still. To not show him my anger.
“He’s good for an execution,” Watcher added, putting his whip away. “We don’t need any deaths. The King wants to keep the army well trained and alive. Keep the shifters in fighting order. There’s no one strong enough to take Thor, anyway. Well, except for the monster we pulled out of the Old World.”
Watcher shook his head, and without another word, he moved towards the other end of the prison where the wolves were kept. Some of the more…feral beasts were hidden in the darkness there.
As he left, I took in the female again. Her eyes followed the retreating pair, cheeks flushed with anger. It tinged her scent. I could almost see her vibrating with the emotion.
I didn’t understand it. The male was clearly not alone in his mind, like many of the soldiers here in the prison.Heused his power regularly on those who might try to oppose them. Guards would change; one day, they would have light in their eyes, would question the methods of thekingand those within his direct command, but the next, there would be nothing. The dullness in their expressions meanthe’dlearned their thoughts and wiped them from the soldiers’ heads.
But perhaps the female prisoner didn’t know that. When they were out of sight, she finally pulled her eyes away from the shadows they’d disappeared into, casting her stare to the floor of her cage once more.
My beast wanted to feel her gaze upon him again. And yet, he didn’t want to see fear in her eyes. She’d feared the words Watcher used to describe our role in the Pit.
Maybe I should have felt guilt, but I couldn’t. For those of us trapped, death was better than fighting forhim.
She could see that, too.
But that didn’t mean she should have to suffer like us. That she should dielike we would.
My beast didn’t like the idea of her dying. Of her suffering.
That was not a fate we wished upon her.
And I would do anything to ensure she never would.
22
Ivy
Sleep was something I couldn’t access while in my cage. And I missed seeing Orion in my dreams.
But every time I tried to fall into the darkness of my own mind, there was always something to pull me out.
The crack of a whip being used against one of the shifters nearby.
The shouts of the guards as they walked between the rows and rows of cages, goading the beasts into a fight.
Hell, they even fought amongst each other over trivial bullshit. They took bets on which shifter would win the next fight in their games, and they had no concept ofinside voices. Or, to my horror, sometimes they stole some time together in the very back and fucked each other—loudly.
My brain hurt. From the noise, from the lack of sleep. From the tears I shed whenever I closed my eyes and was faced with the worst of my memories.
The only thing keeping me remotely together was the bear in the cage beside me. His presence was warm, steady even. And I appreciated it more than I expected—or deserved.
I couldn’t look at him and see the killer the demon described. Which was insane, because the beast beside me looked like he could destroy every shifter in here with his ownpaws. Even caged, he was massive, and his presence should have been imposing.
But it was his eyes, a deep, warm brown, that told me otherwise.
