“You’re lucky to be alive,” he admonished, as if it weremyfault I’d nearly been slain. “Are you still bleeding?”
“Flame healed me,” I muttered as I felt a growl build in my tygress’s body.
With a toss of her head, she surged forward, nearly throwing me from her broad back. I clung on as we thundered across the Arena, away from Axefire and Kingsolver, as if she, too, were pissed off with them. The other Bonded tygers and their riders fell in around me.
Malissa rode at the front, high on her massive bronze tyger. She sat ramrod straight, fists clenched on the reins, as if it were taking everything in her not to scream.
“She’s a yin, and an Azure—” she said, her voice loud with projection across the Arena as she addressed the warriors. “How is it she even ended up in here?”
“You are yourself a yin tyger rider, Princess,” another voice said. He was a warrior just behind her, balanced on a large black tyger with faint white stripes. The man’s golden hair fell in his warm brown eyes. There was something steady in his gaze as his eyes found mine—curious and intense. He gave the smallest nod with a slight quirk of a smile.
Malissa barely spared him a look, her eyes locked over my shoulder on the Ambush Master.
Kingsolver padded forward, Blake moving with grace toward my side again despite the slight warning growl from Flame.
If you don’t like them, I don’t like them either.
I almost smiled.
“The Azure was arrested last night for harming a tyger,” Blake offered, his voice careful. “I placed her in the Arena as her sacred punishment. As is my right.” His words left no room for argument.
Blake and Malissa stared at one another before her eyes ran over him with a faint softness I didn’t expect. It was gone a moment later as she turned to look at me once more.
A shard of sadness pierced through me at the fury in her gaze. I was the only other yin rider, and it was clear she did not want me here.
We approached the throne, and the roar of the crowd grew to a deafening pitch.
I focused on the steadiness of my tygress beneath me, her muscles moving and rippling with each powerful stride, already a familiar and comforting sensation.
The king rose from his dark throne, his gold-and-silver robes shimmering in the sunlight. He was a large, bearded man with a cruel curl to his lips. His hair shone silver in the sunlight. His eyes glittered, and I realized they contained more than cold calculation.
His Majesty was seething.
For the first time since Bonding with Flame, the weight of reality crashed down on me.
It didn’t matter that I was Bonded to Flame now. The royal family still had the power to pass judgment, not just on me but on everyone I loved.
I was an Azure, a convict, and a yin. I wasn’t supposed to Bond. I was supposed to be dead.
And now I was riding their only living tygress queen. Flame and I had just made ourselves a threat.
The king lifted a hand, and a hush fell over the Arena, the silence broken only by the growls of the tygers and the clank of the warriors’ armor.
Beside me, I could sense Blake tensing, his arctic eyes fixed on the king. Even the tygers seemed to hold their breath, their tails twitching in anticipation.
“Step forward,” the king commanded, his voice echoing through the stillness.
Beneath me, Flame began to growl, a low vibration that rumbled through my legs. I urged her onward with a little nudge of my knees. Obediently, the great tygress padded silently across the sand.
I raised my eyes to meet the king’s furious gaze, fighting to keep my expression neutral even as my stomach churned with nerves.
What would he decide to do with us?
Black and white spots danced in my vision. I blinked hard,trying to clear them, but they only multiplied, growing larger, threatening to swallow me whole. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.
Blake’s unmistakable voice shouted something as the sky tilted.
The world spun violently around me, and I surrendered to the oblivion of unconsciousness.
