It was the smell that woke me up—the sweet, almost too-ripe scent. It was that brief, overwhelmingly sweet moment just before fruit became rotten. My stomach rumbled. I was starving. How long had I been out? How long had it been since I’d eaten? My lips were dry and cracked, my parched tongue as rough as sandpaper.

I forced my eyes open, squinting under the blinding lights. It took my vision several seconds to adjust. The first thing I saw was sand. Lots and lots of sand. It was bright yellow, the color of a banana. I lay on my side, my cheek pressed against sand as soft as velvet. That’s what I was smelling, what smelled so good: the sand. I wanted to eat it all. Fantasizing about eating sand? I must have finally lost my mind.

It all came rushing back to me. The attack on the Pioneers. Tessa and Gin behind the magic veil. The Deserter, now a dark angel of hell. He had my sisters. And he had me. He’d told me that he’d been waiting for me. He’d known I would come. Was this a trap? And why? What was it about me and my sisters that he wanted?

“You can’t possibly imagine how exhausting it is to listen to your thoughts,” the deserter said in a bored voice.

I pushed off the ground with my hands, rising to my feet. There he stood, his wings out, proud as a peacock.

He didn’t have to show his wings. Angels and dark angels could hide them; they could make them disappear completely. They brought them out when they wanted to make an impression—in this case, to intimidate me. Well, I wasn’t playing along.

I gave the dark angel’s wings a casual, dismissive look and declared, “I’ve seen bigger.”

The dark angel’s hard black eyes glowed like two smoldering lumps of coal. His lips drew back into a vicious smile. “Your smart mouth won’t help you here.”

Wherever here was. I looked around. I saw that the yellow sand did not cover a beach, and the bright lights weren’t from the tropical sun. Instead, I was trapped in a deep pit. It looked like a fighting arena, the kind where desperate supernaturals battled one another to earn enough cash to buy their next meal—or to feed their addictions. They fought, bled, and died all for the entertainment of the voyeuristic, bloodthirsty masses.

Back when I’d been a kid living on the streets of Purgatory, I’d seen a few of these tournaments, but I’d never fought in any of them. My lack of magic had saved me from that fate—that plus my quickness at avoiding the big scary underlings of the district lords who went out child-snatching on the streets. A few of us street kids would risk coming to the fights to steal money and food from the drunk spectators. None of us fought in the pits if we had a choice.

If a district lord found a kid with even a smidgeon of magic, they’d forced him or her into the fighting pit. The district lords would pit their prized child fighters against those of other district lords. There was no shortage of sick people who got a thrill out of watching little children fight—and sometimes kill—one another.

Fights would often break out amongst the speculators. Some people only came to the fights to get their blood pumping, to fight their neighbors, or watch their neighbors fight. The fighting in the stands drew even more people to the arena. It was a vicious cycle, a fantasy world outside reality, where you could succumb to your savage nature and behave in ways you normally could not under the gods’ strict order.

And the spectators could do all of this in perfect safety. The worst that ever happened to them was a broken lip or a bloody nose. They didn’t die like the fighters down in the pit. I’d always found it hard to believe that people would pay good money for a punch to the face, but, as Calli liked to say, intelligence wasn’t for everyone.

I looked at the deserter. “What am I doing here, Davenport?”

“That’s Soulslayer. Colonel Soulslayer.”

Right. Because he was a dark angel now, a soldier in hell’s army. He’d cast off his old name, right along with his soul.

“Soul slayer, huh?” I said. “Cute name. Did you pick it out all by yourself?”

He just glared at me, clearly unimpressed with my commentary.

“So how did you end up as a lapdog of hell?”

“How did you end up as a lapdog of heaven?” he shot back with a cruel smile. “Oh, that’s right. Your brother, a ghost, was abducted.”

He knew too much.

“And you know nothing at all,” he retorted.

He must have read my thoughts again. Damn it. I was too weak right now. My hollow stomach roared in agreement. I needed to eat something to boost my magic back up again.

The dark angel’s smile turned more vicious. A moment later, a beep screeched out from the surround speakers. A side door slid open, ushering a monster into the arena. Huge, black, and covered in scales, it looked like a dinosaur.

No, its dimensions were too elegant, too smooth. It wasn’t a dinosaur, I realized as it spread its translucent, black-purple wings. It was a dragon.

Its long dark tongue flickered out, lightning-fast. Green eyes the color of toxic acid locked onto me, and flames that matched those vicious eyes danced across its teeth. They were sharp and pointed, meant for tearing its prey apart. Violently.

I just stood there and gaped at it.

The dark angel let out a short laugh. “That’s more like it.”

Apparently, my shocked silence was highly amusing. I forced my dropped jaw closed. “I’ve never fought a dragon before,” I said, nonchalant.

The dragon stomped forward loudly. Under its feet, the sand popped up and down like popcorn. The beast was charging right at me. It sure didn’t waste time making friends.

I rolled out of its path, narrowly avoiding being trampled by a twenty-ton dragon. Then I jumped up, only to drop my body to the ground to avoid the gush of green flames that poured out of its mouth. I hopped back up and ran away, looking for a safe spot, a place to gather my thoughts and figure out what on Earth I could possibly do against a dragon.

Soulslayer, who was somehow now sitting up in the stands, protected behind a cage of Magitech much like the walls that kept out the monsters on Earth, grabbed me with his magic and pulled me into the dragon’s path. The dragon slashed me before I could get away. My arm bleeding, the leather of my jacket peeling away, I jumped onto the dragon’s back and ran up to its neck. If I stayed behind it, it couldn’t get to me.

Soulslayer’s magic blasted me off the dragon, and I fell to the ground with a thump. Pain exploded across my left side as several bones snapped. My breathing labored and heavy, my side bleeding and broken, I got up and threw an irked look at the dark angel up in the stands.

“Fight or die,” he said coolly.

Like that was even a choice. Somehow, I didn’t think the dragon was eager to open up a peaceful dialogue with me. It seemed too intent on tearing me to shreds.

I avoided the dragon’s swinging tail and jumped up to its back. Putting all my strength into it, powering through the agony in my ribs and the black spots dancing in front of my eyes, I broke a spike off the beast’s back. The dragon roared. I jumped down, spike in hand, and stabbed it through the dragon’s foot. The monster staggered, tripping over its own weight.

I didn’t have long before it came at me again, angrier than ever before. I ran for the side door the dragon had come through, trying to force it open.

But Soulslayer’s magic clamped down on my body. He tossed me at the thrashing dragon. I was nearly crushed under the beast’s feet as it tried to free itself from the spike. I rolled out of the way.

“I said fight, not run away,” the dark angel barked.

I glared up at him. “Well, it’s not really a fair fight, is it? Not with you interfering.”

“Life is not a fair fight.”

The dark angel followed up that pearl of wisdom by opening another door. A second dragon entered the pit, just as the first dragon freed itself. Both beasts turned their burning green eyes on me.

* * *

This all started with a single dragon, but believe it or not, it only went downhill from there. Each battle was harder than the previous one. Each foe tougher and less willing to forego a chance at killing me. The dark angel must have emptied the kennels of hell to unleash these monstrosities on me.

Over the next couple of days, I fought battle after battle against monsters I hadn’t even known existed. At least I thought they were days. They could have been hours or minutes or weeks for all I knew. Starving, bleeding, and sleep-deprived, I’d lost all sense of time. I knew only two things: the fights, the slaying of monsters intent on slaying me; and the time in between when I slept as my body struggled to heal the burns, cuts, and broken bones the monsters had inflicted on me.

With each passing battle, my magic grew weaker. The respites felt shorter, and the fights were definitely longer. I was going into new battles with lingering injuries from the previous ones, wounds my body no longer had the magic to heal.

I was famished. That strange yellow sand was looking better and better. In my dazed hunger, I could hear it calling out to me. I had to remind myself more than once that it wasn’t a good idea to eat sand, especially not strange glowing magic sand that talked to me.

I was growing weaker, my optimism fading. I was in desperate need of a shot of cheer. The only good part about the fights was at least they kept my mind off the eerie sand telling me to eat it. How was that for a silver lining?

I stood at the center of the arena, my arm bleeding from the birds who’d spent the better part of an hour diving at me. Their beaks cut like knives. I swung my bloody sword, felling the last bloody bird in the bloody flock. This fight had cost me a lot. Crimson drops dripped from my body. As it sprinkled across the sand, the yellow grains hissed and steamed in response. Weird.

A whole flock of birds, dozens of them, lay on the arena ground like a black carpet. They were like very large crows, each the size of a cat. And together they’d been absolutely deadly—pecking, diving, evading, swooping, scratching. It was really hard to take out a killer bird swarm when you couldn’t fly.

I glared up at the stands, where I knew the dark angel was lurking. “Why am I here?” I demanded for at least the hundredth time.

Soulslayer didn’t answer, just like so many times before. All he ever said was, ‘fight or die’.

I flicked the last dead bird off my lightning blade. The sword popped and sizzled out, dissipating. Then I collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

The ring of the bell chimed once more. It was a sound I’d come to hate and fear. The next battle was about to start. My rest denied, I pulled my tired body off the ground, preparing myself to face my next foe. It swooped out of the open door—a big black bird, larger than all of the others put together. It was the emperor of all birds. And it was breathing fire.

I tried to create another sword out of lightning, but my magic didn’t come. The bird landed with a thump and stomped toward me, shooting a miasma of fireballs and other elemental magic out of its mouth.

I shook out my hands. Sometimes when one branch of magic was dry, there was still some juice left in the others. I drew on my telekinetic magic. I could still feel some of the Nectar in me from the gods’ last gift. I swept my psychic spell over the dead birds. They lifted off the ground, hovering for a moment in the air. Then I shot them all at the big bird, blinding it behind a mass of black feathers.

Big Bird fireballed, froze, zapped, and blew them out of the air. I came around, snatching up four dead birds still glowing with Big Bird’s spells. One was burning, one was solid ice, one sizzled with lightning, and one was trapped inside a whirling mini tornado. I smashed the four birds together, combining the lingering spells on them to set off a clashing elemental explosion under Big Bird’s ass.

The bird shot up and collided with the Magitech barrier. As the bird swayed, dazed from the impact, I searched the arena for something—anything—to help me in this fight against the jumbo bird. I didn’t see anything but the dead crows. The elemental spells had faded from their bodies, so they were of no use to me anymore.

I looked down at the sand. It had begun to glow. As I continued to stare at it, I realized why it felt so familiar. The sand was laced with Venom, the demons’ equivalent to Nectar. Just as Nectar, the food of the gods, bestowed Legion soldiers with light magic abilities, Venom bestowed the dark magic ability counterparts to the demons’ Dark Force.

I’d had Venom before. Someone had laced my Nectar with it when I’d gained the power of Siren’s Song. When I’d drained the Venom out of Basanti, more Venom had gotten into my body, merging with my magic. The Venom in the sand was singing to me now because I was weak—because my body was in desperate need of healing and food.

I glanced up at the stands. The dark angel was watching me closely. From the look on his face, he’d realized that I’d figured it out. I swooped up a handful of sand. He leaned forward, looking almost eager.

He wanted me to consume the Venom. But why? Did he want to turn me into a soldier of the Dark Force?

No, it was something more. This was all too staged, too planned. He must have known I possessed light and dark magic, that unlike others, I could consume both Nectar and Venom.

I sniffed the sand in my hands. It smelled good, like chocolate cake with cherries and ice cream on top, like the end of all my suffering. But Soulslayer wanted me to take it, the person who was holding my sisters hostage. The person who had trapped me here and was having me battle in this arena like a lab rat. His intentions were not benevolent.

Concentrated dark magic—poison—that’s what Venom was. But there was also light magic nearby. I could feel it. Where was it? I searched the arena, honing in on the Magitech barrier. This place had not been built solely for me. It was a lot older than that.

It was for training, I realized. Training for the Dark Force. The barrier was sizzling with concentrated light magic. With Nectar. Just as Venom was poisonous to Legion soldiers, Nectar was poisonous to soldiers of the Dark Force. It was meant to hurt when they banged against the Nectar-infused barrier, a punishment for failing in training. And maybe it had another purpose: to build up their resistance to light magic. That would be the angel way, to kill two birds with one stone. And the dark angels were no different.

Allowing the yellow sand to pour out between my fingers, I walked up to the barrier and thrust my hands through the Magitech field to grab the bars. I gripped them tightly, even as the magic pulsed through me, trying to overload my body, to knock me out. And it hurt like hell. But then again, every fiber of my body already hurt so what was a little more pain? I began to bend the bars, the tubes the magic field was running through.

Soulslayer jumped to his feet. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

I just held on, gritting my teeth, bearing the pain. I broke a magic tube off from the net. I tossed that charged tube to the ground, igniting it against the sand beneath the bird monster’s feet. Light and dark magic clashed, and opposites ignited to create a mega explosion. The bird blew up.

I peeled my burnt and blistered hands off the bars and stumbled to the center of the fighting arena, stepping over a burning pile of bird goo. Then, planting a big smile on my face despite the pain, I swept my stiff body into a deep, smooth bow.

“You cheated.” Soulslayer sounded offended. “I want to see your magic at work, not your cheap tricks.”

“Let her do it her way,” a female voice echoed through the arena, seeming to come from every direction at once. “I want to see this.”

Before I could speculate about that voice, the bell chimed once again, and the next monster entered the arena.

* * *

I was jerked rudely awake by a dark angel. He hadn’t been gentle about it either. My body screamed beneath his magic’s hard grip. My vision blurred, my head spun, and I almost passed out again.

“Wake up,” Soulslayer snapped, then released me. “It’s time for dinner.”

I shot him a skeptical look. He hadn’t fed me since bringing me here. Maybe he wanted to poison me for some new fun. I wouldn’t put it past the sadistic dark angel. After all, once he’d broken some of my bones right before a fight. Sometimes, he used potions to block parts of my magic like Ronan had. Except Ronan had done it to help me, and Soulslayer was doing it to torture me.

I’d come to realize that the dark angel was trying to get a reading on my magic, both light and dark. He dropped me in situations that tested my powers. That’s why I was in the arena. Maybe poison was the new test, the latest experiment to see how I’d handle it—how my magic would handle it.

“I don’t need food to poison you,” Soulslayer said.

I’d given up on hiding my thoughts long ago. I didn’t have the energy left to do it. Most of the time, I was just thinking about enacting my revenge on the sadistic dark angel who was torturing me. He was free to read those thoughts all he wanted.

I decided I would eat. I needed my strength a lot more than I needed to piss him off. Besides, the biggest poisons were Nectar and Venom, and I’d already survived both.

“The food isn’t poisoned. In fact, it’s just what you need to survive the next fight,” said Soulslayer.

The fateful bell rang again, and the gates opened. Someone was pushed into the arena. A human. A bleeding human. That was the meal Soulslayer was offering me. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

The door slammed shut, trapping the man in the arena. He was meant to tempt me. Like a shark smelling blood, my senses were heightened, my body alert. My body was screaming at me to drink from this poor person, to drain his blood to heal my wounds and feed my starving body.

But I was immortal. It took a lot more than an empty stomach to kill me. As painful as they were, I wouldn’t die from my injuries either. They just made me weak. I couldn’t feast on this innocent person just to alleviate my discomfort.

The man met my eyes, his own widening. He spun around, banging desperately on the door. He was completely terrified. It must have been all the blood splashed over me. I’m sure my hungry eyes weren’t helping either; I could feel them burning silver.

I put my hands up in the air. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The man continued to claw at the door. He was scratching so hard that his fingernails were bleeding. The sharp tang of fresh blood only made it harder to resist the hunger.

You’re stronger than this, I told myself, swallowing hard. The burn in my eyes faded.

When it became clear I wasn’t going to tear the man’s throat open with my fangs and feast on his blood, Soulslayer frowned in agitation. He waved his hand, and the door slid open once more. The human bolted for the opening, but he didn’t make it far. A gigantic white furry bear-man beast charged out, meeting him halfway. Before I could blink, the monster grabbed the man and swallowed him whole. I stared at it in shocked outrage.

“You should have drunk from him when you had the chance,” Soulslayer chided me. “Now, it’s too late. Your stubbornness didn’t save him from death. All you did was deny yourself relief from the hunger.”

Smacking its lips, the monster lumbered toward me, obviously still hungry. Anger sparked in me as I looked at its furry face, stained crimson with blood. I grabbed one of the legs from the dead big bird. It was as hard as metal. I swung it at the bear-man, slashing across its tummy. I struck again. My rage propelled me, making me forget the pain—anger at the dark angel for doing this, for bringing innocents into this sick game of his. Colonel Fireswift was harmless compared to the darkly vicious Soulslayer.

I drove the metal leg through the beast’s heart like a long stake. The monster spluttered, then dropped dead to the ground. Yellow sand swirled, puffing up from the impact of the heavy body.

I glared up at the dark angel. My body pulsing with pain, I swore, “I will kill you.”

“Finally, we’re getting somewhere,” Soulslayer said with satisfaction.

Disgusted, I sat down on the sand. I was so done. I was not playing along anymore. I was tired of these games.

That ominous, hateful beep sounded again. The gates opened, releasing another monster. I kept my butt planted firmly on the ground.

“Get up,” Soulslayer commanded.

I didn’t move an inch, even as the monster slinked toward me. As sleek and black as a panther—at twice the size—the catlike beast moved slowly, taking its time to assess its prey.

“Get up,” Soulslayer said again.

Magic pulsed behind his voice, his siren’s song compelling me to obey. I let his magic bounce right off of me. Resisting him didn’t hurt half as much as I already did.

Surprise flashed in his eyes, but his smugness quickly returned. “You’re bluffing. You won’t let yourself die. If you’re dead, who will find your brother?”

“No, you’re bluffing,” I shot back. “You have no problems pushing me to the brink of death, but you won’t actually let me die. You’re too invested in gauging my magic to kill me.”

His smile faded, his bluff called. “You are every bit as repugnant as they say.”

“You bet I am.” Grinning made my cheekbones feel like they would crack apart, but I did it anyway.

A calculated smile curled Soulslayer’s lips. “If you don’t play along, I’ll just put your sweet little sisters into the arena. I wonder how much I have to hurt them before they scream.”

I jumped up, angry tears burning my eyes as I glared at the dark angel. “Before this is over, I will kill you,” I promised him again. Then I faced the monster.