The blade of the machete stabs close enough to split the skin of my shoulder. Blood streams down my arm while a puff of smoke gusts up.
Recognizing his advantage, my attacker charges again, snatching at my braid with one hand while he slashes with the other. I manage to duck both his grasping fingers and the swing of the knife and kick him in the gut hard enough to slam him backward on his ass.
With a startled grunt, he skids halfway across the ring.
More dizziness clouds my mind, and I hook my clawed fingers around the bars of the cage for balance. My gaze veers beyond the enclosure and catches on the most prominent of my keepers: the corpulent, balding boss with the heap of gold chains around his neck, sitting in his raised section of the stands at the far end of the arena.
He must be able to tell I’m faltering. He should look horrified—panicked at the thought of all the money he’s going to lose if I fall.
Instead, a hint of a smirk curves his lips. He takes a casual puff of his cigar, lounging deeper into his seat.
As I whirl back toward my opponent, a sense of certainty clutches me.
He knows something’s wrong, and hewantsme to fall.
Abruptly, I remember the last-minute water bottle after the stretch of deprivation. He needed to be sure I’d drink it.
What was in the bottle besides water?
My jaw clenches with a flare of anger. After four years, he’s decided I’ve outlived my usefulness. Because of the incident with the guard last week, or was it always going to end now?
I’ll bet he’s wagered all his money against me for this fight. Probably with extra for seeing me pummeled all the way into oblivion.
The hulk comes at me again, a little more cautiously than before but still menacing. He heaves himself to the side and snatches at my wrist to yank me toward him.
I duck again and roll across the floor. My breath starts to burn in my lungs.
What will happen to me even if I manage to win? Will the boss order the guards to kill me like a dog that needs to be put down?
He’ll be pissed off that I didn’t bend to his whims—and he won’t trust me to stay in line now that I’ve realized he’s willing to sabotage me like this. The ungrateful fuckhead.
My attacker hurtles into me and bashes me against the bars for a second before I squirm free. As I spring away under his arm, I rake my claws across his side. My legs sway under me, but his are steady as ever as he barrels toward me again.
I may as well already be dead. I’m never getting back to my guys like this—there’s no fucking way.
Gritting my teeth against the rising anguish, I throw myself into the man’s charge, low to the ground. His knees buckle under him, but he slashes the machete across my hip as I tumble away. Pain spikes down my thigh.
I’ve failed them again. That bloated asshole in his prime seat screwed me over. And all the pricks in the audience are watching my downfall and cheering it on.
Their voices ring in my ears. Feet stomp on the concrete floor.
My opponent rams his fist into the side of my skull.
More fury sears up inside me, sharper and hotter than my misery. The boss is up there grinning like he isn’t killing five people instead of only one right now. My guys are waiting for me, and he’s fuckingsmirking.
I swore I’d get them out of our prison, and all these bastards just roar in encouragement as my attacker catches my arm.
His hand tightens to yank me right into the poised machete, and all my pent-up emotion explodes from my chest.
Rage sears up my throat and bursts from my mouth in an ear-splitting shriek. It rattles my bones and reverberates through every particle of my being.
The scream goes on and on, drowning out the cheers and the stomping, ringing through my brain. A twisting, ripping agony wraps around me, lacing my mouth with the metallic flavor of blood, and—
Two
Riva
Iblink, my eyelashes sticking together briefly before pulling apart, and find myself staring down at the floor of the fighting ring. I’m hunched over, my hands braced beneath me, fresh score marks streaking from my claws through the scuffed beige surface.