Three down.
I looked up at the cage. She was watching, hands gripping the bars, gaze fixed on me. For a heartbeat, the roar of the crowd fell away. I saw her fear—raw and honest—but beneath it, something else. A question.Can you win? Can you save me?
I held her gaze and sent her the only answer I had by way of a faint nod.
Yes.
She straightened slightly. Lifted her chin. The fear didn't disappear, but something in her shifted. She'd made a choice to believe me.
Now I had to earn it.
The fourth fighter was a Vorgath—scales like armor, tail that could break bones. He circled me, calculating, reading my weaknesses. The way I favored my left side where the venom burn was worst. I gave him what he wanted to see, dropped my guard just enough.
He took the bait.
His tail whipped toward my ribs with killing force. I caught it. The impact jarred my arms, sent pain shooting through my shoulders, but I held on and twisted hard. He crashed face-first into the dirt. My knee drove into his spine between the scales where the joints were vulnerable. My hands found the pressure points at the base of his skull. He thrashed, his tail catching me across the back hard enough to knock the air from my lungs, but I had the leverage. I pressed down, found the exact spot where spine met skull, and twisted.
The crack echoed even over the crowd's screaming.
Four down.
Around me, the arena had become a slaughterhouse. Bodies littered the dirt—some still twitching, most not. The survivors circled each other, calculating who to take down next.
The fifth fighter didn't wait for me to recover. A Skellig with bone protrusions covering his arms like natural weapons came at me while I was still standing over the Vorgath's body. Each spike was filed to a point, stained dark with old blood.
I glanced up at the cage. Just for a heartbeat. Just to make sure she was still there, still watching, still—
That heartbeat cost me.
The Skellig's fist slammed into my ribs. The bone spikes drove deep, punching through skin and into muscle. Painexploded through my side—sharp and blinding. I tasted blood, felt it filling my mouth, and knew he'd cracked at least one rib. The impact sent me stumbling, blood streaking down my side.
Stupid.
The Skellig grinned, showing teeth filed to points. He thought he had me.
I rolled with the momentum, created distance. My side screamed but I shoved the pain down. Locked it away where it couldn't touch me. Pain was just information. It told me I was still alive. Still fighting.
He charged again, those bone-covered arms swinging in wide arcs. I ducked under the first swing and drove my fist into his exposed flank. The impact jarred my arm but I felt something give beneath the bone plating. I hit him again. Same spot. Harder. This time I felt ribs crack. He gasped, his next swing going wide, and I stepped inside his guard. Got close where those long arms couldn't generate power. Drove my elbow into his solar plexus once, twice, three times in rapid succession.
His legs gave out and I caught him by the throat, my fingers finding the soft tissue between the bone protrusions. I squeezed until I felt cartilage crack, until his eyes rolled back and his body went slack.
Five down.
The venom burn on my shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat. The gash in my side was deeper than I'd thought, blood soaking into my pelt. My ribs screamed with every breath.
But I was still standing.
The crowd was screaming now, a constant roar that made it hard to think. But I kept part of my attention on her, on the human female watching me fight for her.
The horn sounded for the final round.
Two fighters left. The arena floor was a graveyard of bodies and blood. The survivors were the strongest, the most brutal, the ones who'd clawed their way through the carnage.
And then he stepped forward.
A Sardak—covered in scars that told the story of a hundred fights, a hundred victories. His eyes were dead, empty of everything except the desire to hurt. But it wasn't just brutality I saw in the way he moved. It was experience. Calculation. The kind of fighter who'd survived this long because he knew how to read weakness, how to exploit it, how to turn an opponent's desperation against them.
And I was injured. Bleeding. Broken.
