“Enemies who did everything they could to destroy his career. Destroy him. They faked a Blood Rage diagnosis and had him exiled because he was in the way of their player... Vikrav R’Tev.”
Every pair of eyes in the stadium swung to Vikrav.
The male stood ten yards away on the pitch, still breathing hard from the last play. His face drained of color first, then twisted into something ugly... Rage. Pure rage.
Raaze knew the look. He’d worn it himself plenty of times before they’d called it Blood Rage and shipped him off to Parac’Norr.
Yeah. Not so fun when someone rips your world apart, is it?
“And a faked Blood Rage diagnosis wasn’t the worst.” Cait carried on, relentless. The holo-screens flickered, cycling through images Raaze recognized. Faces he knew. Players he’d competed against, respected, and mourned. “Every player that got in the R’Tev’s way was removed, discredited, or eliminated.”
She started reading names.
Korrv T’Sann. Killed in a transport accident six months before he would have taken Vikrav’s starting position.
Therrik G’Raasos. Doping charge. Exiled to the outer colonies.
Mek S’Raavi. A “training accident” had left him paralyzed from the waist down.
The screens above the pitch filled with faces, dates, medical reports, and timestamps that didn’t match. Evidence. Cold, hard, and impossible to ignore.
The crowd’s energy shifted, and the roar that had greeted his unmasking curdled into something uglier. Booing started in the lower sections. Low at first, it built into a wall of sound that rolled down from the stands like an avalanche.
Vikrav snarled something Raaze couldn’t hear, and R’Tev guards started pouring onto the pitch.
They weren’t stadium security, but private muscle. Armed and armored, there were at least a dozen of them, maybe more, forming up around Vikrav.
The booing turned into outright screaming.
The commentator’s voice rose above the roar, professional neutrality abandoned entirely. “Security! We need security on the pitch now! The R’Tev clan are attempting to?—”
Raaze stopped listening. He was already moving.
If Cait was broadcasting the evidence to the whole stadium, then the R’Tev hadn’t listened to her. Which meant she’d improvised. Which meant?—
She was in danger.
His legs burned. His ribs screamed. The gash across his shoulder had opened up again, and blood ran down his arm. None of it mattered. None of it mattered because Cait was up there, alone, with a family that had killed to protect their secrets and would sure as trall kill again.
The thunder of footsteps sounded behind him and he spun, ready to take on whoever was trying to stop him… Daavyn pulled up short, his hands raised, just in front of Sorrath and Bravnak. Vaath, sporting a spectacular bruise across his jaw and a hard look in his eyes, headed up the rest of the team as they surrounded him.
“The female,” Daavyn said. “The little red-headed one from the transport?”
Raaze nodded once. “The R’Tev have her.”
Daavyn nodded once. “Lead the way.”
Raaze blinked, looking around the group. “Why… why would you help me? I left you all.”
Daavyn snorted and shrugged his shoulders. “You’re Izaean.”
“But I’m not!” Raaze shook his head. “That’s the whole draanthing point. The diagnosis was faked.”
Daavyn grinned and tapped the side of his nose.
“Yeah, we know. We can tell.” He clapped a clawed hand on Raaze’s shoulder. “But we decided you’re one of us. So you are. Now let’s go get your female, okay?”
He signaled to the rest, and as one, the Exiles formed a wedge and started carving a path through the chaos with Raaze on point. Claws out and eyes hard, they moved like a unit that had trained together for years rather than the ragtag exhibition squad the audience had laughed at an hour ago.
