Chapter 9
For decades, Nate had been dead, his heart little more than a desiccated knot of muscle sitting uselessly in his chest. But as Gladius’s manager, Budag, rubbed his bald head and told Nate about Vladlena’s foray into the fight club, Nate’s heart began to stir.
No, not just stir. It went mad with fear, worry, and dread. That damned shifter nurse had performed CPR on him, resurrecting his cold, undead self.
“Release her,” Nate ground out. He looked past Budag’s hulking shoulder from where he stood at the tunnel threshold between Gladius and Thirst. The crowd was wound up about something, and bloodlust was in the air.
“No can do, vampire.” Budag’s deep voice rattled Nate’s temper. “Fade already put her in the ring for a bait match.”
Nate lost it. He slammed the demon into the wall and got right up in his face, fangs bared, ready to take a chunk of flesh out of him. “You fucking lie! He wouldn’t have done that. She was going to be a sacrifice—”
“Since she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong, she was no longer desirable as a sacrifice.” Budag’s almond eyes crinkled with amusement. “At least, not a sacrifice for the new fight club. The Neethul twins are enjoying her plenty as a sacrifice.”
Nate didn’t waste another second. Heaving Budag aside, he plowed through the crowd, shoving people out of the way as he hauled ass to the ring. His heart, if it beat, would have stopped at the sight of Lena, her uniform ripped and bloodied, trying to fend off the two elf-like demons who were toying with her. And there was no question that they were toying. He’d seen the brothers fight, and right now, they were like hellhounds with a cornered cat.
Nate didn’t think. He acted. Acted himself right into the arena and caught the demons by surprise. Taking advantage of their temporary confusion, he punched his fist into one of the males’ neck and ripped out his throat. Blood and strings of gore dripped from his hand, and the audience roared.
The remaining Neethul barely cast his dead brother a glance as he came at Nate with a deflesher, a thick chain with a razor stirrup at the end. Wielded properly, the weapon could fillet a six-inch wide strip of flesh off the entire length of an arm and leave it bare to the bone.
The demon was an expert with it.
Shit. All around, the crowd hushed, leaving only Lena’s scream and the whistle of the chain as it cut the air. Nate dove to the blood-soaked sand and rolled, lashing out with his feet. The razor stirrup slammed into the ground next to Nate’s head as his kick caught his opponent in the knees. The Neethul fell but was up again in an instant.
So was Nate. Before the demon could do a rewind with the chain, Nate slammed into him, knocking them both into the cement retaining wall. Sharp teeth sank into Nate’s shoulder, and son of a bitch, that hurt.
Dimly, through the haze of pain, Nate heard the crowd go ballistic, their chants of, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” buzzing in his ears. His past came down on him in a shroud of memory, and just as it had been all those years ago, it would be that way again.
With a snarl, he gripped the demon’s head and twisted. The snap of spine was swallowed by the audience’s noise, which became deafening when Nate dropped the body and left it, twitching, on the ground.
Lena was standing a few feet away, her face bruised and pale, one eye blackened and blood trickling from the corner of her swollen mouth. She’d been battered to hell and back, but defiance burned in her eyes. Hate, too, and he didn’t blame her.
Still, she didn’t resist when he took her hand and led her to the gate used to transport both the dead and the living in and out of the arena. The giant iron rack rattled and clanged as it heaved upward, but Nate didn’t have a chance to be grateful that they were being let out.
Fade stood there, flanked by three burly rhino-fiends who worked in the “zoo” one level below, the dark, dank area where fighters and bait creatures were kept. None of them looked happy, Fade least of all.
“Obviously,” Fade rumbled, “you didn’t learn the first time you took a female from me.”
Nate tightened his grip on Lena. “I don’t want to lose a good medic,” he said, even though he knew his excuse was both tired and lame. If it hadn’t worked before, it wouldn’t work now.
Fade knew it too. And he wasn’t going to let slide the fact that Nate had killed two of his most popular fighters. The Neethul twins had been fairly new to the fighting scene, but their good looks and penchant for cruelly toying with their victims had been big draws for the crowds.
“How stupid do you think I am?” Fade signaled to his goons. “Lock them up.” His smile at Nate was pure evil. “Congratulations, Sabine. Once again, you get to watch your female die.”
For about thirty seconds after Fade shut his creepy mouth, Lena was sure Nate was going to explode into violence. After what she’d seen him do to the Neethuls, she knew he was very capable of it. In fact, the tension rose up in him so strongly that she could feel it in a tangible crackle in the inch of air between them and see it in his massively descended fangs and red-glowing eyes. But even as the demons tensed for battle, Nate calmed, almost as if the air had been let out of him.
He’d walked meekly alongside the demons, though he hadn’t let go of Lena. It wasn’t until they were thrown into a cell together that the depth of his anger became clear. As Fade’s laughter and the guards’ footsteps melted away, Nate rounded on her, fists clenched, the fire burning in his eyes again.
His voice was warped with rage. “I told you to leave.”
“You fired me for not sleeping with you,” she shot back, strangely grateful for his anger, because it kept her from falling apart. “I didn’t think you really had any right to order me around after that. You don’t even have any right to be angry with me, asshole.”
“How did you find Gladius?” he snapped, as if she hadn’t even spoken. “Did you follow me down here?”
“It doesn’t matter how I found it. What matters is that you’re a bastard. A sick, twisted, evil bastard who operates a business where death is entertainment.” She could have sworn she saw hurt flash in his eyes before they became chips of ruby ice again, but that didn’t stop her rant. “Why did you bother to save me? You should have bet on the outcome like everyone else.”
“Shut up.” His voice was as cold as his gaze.
“What’s the matter? Did I strike a nerve? Feeling a little guilty? Or are you upset that you got yourself into trouble with your boss?”
He took a step forward. “I said, shut up.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me? Newsflash, buddy. It’s going to happen anyway. But you can bet that if I disappear, my colleagues are going to tear this place down and feed it to you before they slaughter your ass.”
Actually, she hoped they’d pull a cavalry and rescue her. She just had to pray Eidolon and his brothers got her message before she was fed to the lions. Or whatever creatures were screeching in the nearby cages.
One second Nate was standing near the door, and the next he was chest to chest with her, pinning her against the wall. It didn’t escape her notice that they spent a lot of time in this position.
“Your colleagues,” he ground out. “At Underworld General? It’s time to stop with the games, little shifter, and tell me who the fuck you are and why you’re really here.”
“Bite me.”
That was so the wrong thing to say to a vampire who was teetering on the edge. He struck like a viper, sinking his fangs deep in her throat, and despite the dire situation, despite her anger and hurt and confusion at how he’d treated her and his involvement in the fight club, she gasped with pleasure. The initial sting turned into a lovely burn that spread through her body in the form of liquid heat. Vampires could make feeding horrifically painful or orgasmically wonderful, and clearly, Nate had gone with the latter.
But she couldn’t allow this. She hated him. Really. Weakly, she flattened her palms against his chest and shoved, but she didn’t need to. His head snapped up and he stepped back all by himself, surprise glittering in his eyes.
“You’re no tiger,” he snarled. “Damn you, has everything about you been a lie?”
She slapped her hand over the punctures in her throat. “Me? You’re the one who has a hidden door in his office. You’re the one who’s been hiding a club where people fight to the death.”
His nostrils flared, and his gaze zeroed in on her neck. Before she could protest, he peeled away her palm and licked the fang punctures, sealing the wound.
“Gods,” he murmured against her skin. “You taste like dark chocolate, and honey, and . . . canine.” He tore away from her, leaving her swaying unsteadily and relying on the wall behind her to hold her up. He faced away from her, his hands running through his hair over and over, as if doing so was as important to his existence as blood. “Why? Why are you here?”
“Because you murdered my brother.”
He wheeled around. “Who was your brother?”
“Given the number of people who probably pass through your arena, I doubt you’ll remember him,” she said bitterly.
“Who?”
“His name was Vaughn.” She raised her chin, meeting his gaze so he could see her pain. “He was a hyena shifter who died last week.”
“Hyena . . .” Nate’s brow furrowed. “Blond. Mismatched green and blue eyes.”
“So you do know who he was.”
Nate’s tongue flicked over one of the fangs he’d sunk into her flesh. “You’re not a hyena any more than you’re a tiger.”
“I am,” she ground out. “And you killed my brother.”
He snorted. “Your brother killed himself.”
With a pained cry, she launched herself at Nate. He caught her easily, well before she landed a single blow. “You son of a bitch,” she screamed. “You evil, heartless son of a bitch!”
From the nearby cages, she heard catcalls and cheers, as well as a few curses. Nate tugged her against him, his arms wrapping tightly around her, caging her so she couldn’t strike out.
“Shh.” His soft voice didn’t penetrate her anger. “Hey. Listen to me. Your brother came to us. He made a deal for a fight.”
“No. No! He wouldn’t—”
“He said he was dying.”
Dying? She stilled completely, freezing solid against Nate’s big body. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand. Why did he say that?”
“I don’t know.” He relaxed his hold, but still cradled her against his chest. “All I know is that he wanted to fight one of our champions, a hyena named Vic. And Vaughn made a provision that if he died in battle, Vic would leave Vaughn’s sister alone. I guess that’s you.”
“Oh, gods,” she whispered. “Vic. He’s here?”
“Yeah. Nasty bastard. Why would Vaughn want Vic to leave you alone?”
“Because,” she said, on a shaky inhale, “ever since my father died, Vic and my other brother, Van, have tried to kill me every few months.”
Curses fell from Nate’s mouth. “So Vaughn was here to guarantee your safety.”
His hand cupped the back of her head with surprising tenderness, and his voice softened, which was something she couldn’t afford to do. If Nate was telling the truth, he hadn’t killed Vaughn, exactly, but he was still a scumbag who ran a vile operation.
And yet, she didn’t pull away. She told herself she needed the support because her legs had gone all noodle. She told herself she was cold, and while he wasn’t overly warm, he wasn’t as icy as the air that smelled like raw sewage. She told herself all kinds of lies, because right now, she couldn’t handle the truth, the mind-boggling realization that hate was not the only thing she felt for Nate Sabine.
“Poor Vaughn,” she murmured. “He should have come to me. He didn’t need to sacrifice himself for me.”
“He loved you.” Nate paused. “Is there a reason he wouldn’t shift?”
“What do you mean?”
He made long, soothing passes over her braid. “He didn’t shift when he was fighting Vic. It put him at a huge disadvantage. I thought it was strange, because even if his intention was to lose, he clearly hated Vic and wanted to hurt him. Vaughn could have done a lot more hurting in animal form.”
A knot twisted her insides. He said he was dying. Those were Nate’s words. Her brother was dying. He didn’t shift. Oh . . . oh, gods. He didn’t shift because he couldn’t. He’d been dying for the same reason she was.
“Lena?” His hand stopped stroking her hair. “Lena, what’s wrong?”
“I know why he didn’t shift.” She swallowed. “He couldn’t. A shifter who has never turned into his animal dies shortly after they turn twenty-four. It’s why I didn’t leave when you fired me. There was no point.”
“What do you mean, there was no point?” He pulled back to look her in the eye. “Wait . . . in the arena, you didn’t shift. You can’t, can you?”
“No,” she said quietly. “And because of that, I’m dying too.”