And it made their false king angry.
Though the bear and I circled one another, I kept Dante in the corner of my eye, always in line with my vision. He rose from his throne, lips moving, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The bear shook his head hard as if he were trying to shake something from it.
I knew of Dante’s capabilities. The power to enter one’s mind. There was no magic like that left in my world, only magic of the elemental kind, power tied to the world around us. Over earth, sea, fire, and air, but not mind.
I waited for the false king to assume control over the bear, to take the other male’s mind and use him to attack me.
I had both been a threat and a means to an end. He thought he could steal my mind like he’d done to the blank-eyed soldiers. He thought he could use me against my own people. There’d been whispers of taking back my world, of using me to get the Primals to bow tohim.
It would have never worked. We were few, but we could build an army, too. He would never have been prepared to go against us, not in our shifted forms.
The bear dropped to the ground with a low growl. From the corner of my eye, I watched the false king approach the barrier between the ring and his throne. There was blood dripping from his nose. His chest heaved with harsh breaths.
Though she couldn’t join him, my fated stepped up to the bars of her cage, eyes flickering between the fallen bear and Dante.
For a moment, the entire Pit fell silent as they waited for the bear to rise. To share that same blank eyed stare as the others who sat silently in the back.
The red-headed shifter moved through the shadows, unnoticed by everyone but me, and only when she disappeared did I return my attention completely to the bear.
Beneath my paws, I felt for the fissures between the rocks. Searched for the weaknesses in the ground, in the walls. There were many beneath the arena itself from too many years of being used as a fighting ring. The tunnels beneath the Pit were ready to cave in.I felt the length of them stretching far beneath the mountain.
It would take only one subtle shift in the earth to make that happen.
To send every one of these soldiers to their deaths.
37
Thor
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
Kill the creature.
Tear his head from his body.
Defend your king.
The words echoed obsessively in my head, the voice of rage spiralling into one of madness—into something desperate.
But I didn’t feel the familiar icy tendrils of control trying to take over my mind. They were weak, a tickle of something familiar, but there was no power behind them. Just a light fog that was easy to push away when I tried.
He had no power over me anymore.
His weakness permeated the air, bitter and pungent. The smell made my snout twitch. He had blood running from his nose, blood he wouldn’t wipe away despite the voices of the soldiers behind him warning him to.
Even his blood waswrong. There was something in the colour of it that didn’t look right. It appeared almost black, not red, and the smell of it was like acid every time I breathed it in.
The beast across from me rose on two legs. It was tall, built to stand like the soldiers, but it could move like a wolf if it needed to.
Fight him,the voice came again, whispering in my ears, even more desperate than before.Kill him. Defend your king.
Not my king, I thought, eyeing the male who once brought me terrible fear—and even more pain.Not my fight.
In the stands, the king screamed. He threw himself away from the barrier, his voice muffled by the sudden shouts of soldiers.
Watcher moved from his position, racing towards the angered king. Other familiarly cruel guards appeared to join the sudden frenzy of the king’s reaction to my defiance.
The magic that surrounded the arena flickered, as if they were trying to kill the wards and enter. But for some reason, the barrier would not go down. In the back of the Pit, where I knew the keepers of the magic usually stood, more shouting sounded. Then, blood thickened the air, potent yet almost as acidic as the King’s blood that dripped from his nose.
