He’s fighting right now.
Possibly for his life for all I know.
And that’s going to be me soon.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared as I am right now.
There’s no moon tonight, but my eyesight is better than I’m used to it being at night. I stare out into the darkness, willing Lynx to melt out of the trees and save me.
Nothing happens.
Nobody comes.
I’m forced to sit there and listen to the cheers of a crowd baying for blood and the roars of rage and pain as those fighting give it to them.
It seems both hours and only minutes until a mixture of cheers and boos fill the air and then fade away to nothing. I realise with a jolt that the fight’s over.
I wait for Luke to come back.
I wait.
And wait.
But when I hear the voices of the guards returning, I strain to hear Luke, to smell the scent I know I’ll recognise anywhere now, but enough of his scent lingers around me and I’m not skilled enough to tell old from new.
When they eventually come into view, the three guards are on their own.
“Where is he?” I growl, lurching towards the bars without thinking.
“Get the fuck back, unless you want me to end you now.” There’s suddenly a gun thrust in my face and I rear back instinctively.
“Where is he?” I repeat, managing to get the words out without snarling, but it’s taking every bit of control I can muster not to roar in their faces.
The one with the gun smirks. “Dead.”
No.
He can’t be.
The others laugh, and I barely register the door being opened and someone fastening a collar around my neck.
Dead.
Killed for some arseholes’ entertainment.
Rage bubbles up inside me, hot and fierce, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. There’s a tug behind my ribs, a warmth in the pit of my stomach, and I know it’s the urge to shift.
I want to.
I want it so badly, my body trembles with the need to give in, but Ican’t. It’s like an invisible barrier stopping me, holding me back, and ithurts.
The cuffs, a voice whispers in the back of my mind, and I whimper because it sounds an awful lot like Luke.
“We’ll take the cuffs off when you get in the ring,” guard one says, like he can tell what I’m thinking. “If you try and shift before we tell you to, you’ll get this.” He presses something in his hand and fire races through my veins for one, two, three agonising seconds as my body goes rigid.
It stops so suddenly, I fall forwards.
They fucking laugh as they haul me upright.
