Rise of the Gryphon (Belador #4)(69)
Evalle took the lead. When she reached area one, she stepped inside a pristine room, where beige marble walls and floor dominated the space. Over to one side stood an oyster-shell-white table ten feet long and four feet wide with an overhead light that had her thinking operating room. An alcove had been created with a pale yellow sofa and chair, positioned as if they expected fighters to sit and chat.
Hey, what’s your strategy?
Don’t be the one looking for body parts when it’s over?
Upon further inspection, Evalle found another area with a short wall of yellow lockers. She’d need sunglasses for this place even if she didn’t have sensitive eyes. Two fully stocked vanities held personal grooming products and medical provisions. An oversize shower in one corner would accommodate her beast size.
She picked a locker to hold her jacket. After pulling her hair into a ponytail, she walked out to the central area where Storm waited.
His brown eyes reached across the distance and held hers. “You’ll have to shift if you want to win.”
She started to tell him she would if she had to, just to take that worry from his gaze, but that would be a lie. Even if she could, she wouldn’t lie to him any more tonight. “I can’t.”
“You won’t.”
“Macha—”
“Isn’t here to help.”
She had no arguments left. “I’ll do what I have to do. That’s the best I can say.”
His chest moved with a slow breath, eyes simmering hot as embers threatening to blaze at any moment. Acceptance settled in his tone. “You fight to the death.”
“Unless someone asks for relief.”
“To the death, Evalle,” Storm instructed her with the emotion of an icicle. “If the other opponents, especially the Alterants, see you show mercy, they’ll know you have a weakness they can exploit. And don’t trust any fighter to give you relief.”
A tap at the door preceded a guard pushing it open. “One minute until your fighter moves to Gate Two entrance.”
“She’ll be there,” Storm replied in the same chilly voice, his eyes not moving from her.
The door shut quietly.
She didn’t want to part like this, not when she had no idea what she would face or if she’d see Storm again, but going back empty-handed was out of the question.
There was never enough time to do what she wanted.
Fishing out the potion, she asked, “Would you hold on to Nicole’s potion for me?”
He nodded yes.
She handed it to him, intending to leave without making this any worse, but his hand on her shoulder stopped her.
She didn’t move, unwilling to face more disappointment or anger. His fingers tightened gently. His emotions were so conflicted that even with her limited empathic ability she knew he barely restrained himself, when he wanted to pound a wall and shout at her not to walk out that door.
When he spoke, his tight voice came out on warm breath that teased the hairs falling loose from her ponytail. “It’s you or them. I don’t care about them.”
His lips brushed her neck, then he let her go.
If she turned around, she wouldn’t make it out of the room without her control cracking.
She nodded.
The door opened again and Evalle exited, following the guard to where he stopped at the entrance to a corridor maybe fifty feet long. A gate of silver bars blocked the other end, where light glared from the theater.
At the entrance to the passageway, the guard blocked her way while he issued instructions. “You’re fighting in a warded dome. Involuntary contact will toss you back into the theater. Anyone trying to actually pass through the ward from either side instantly combusts into a fireball.”
Please tell me Storm knows this. He might be pissed off at her, but he’d gone through a plate-glass window once already to pull her from the jaws of a Svart troll.
The guard stepped aside.
She trudged forward until she reached the last barrier to the theater, where she peered between the silver bars to the empty battle zone. She dug around in her mind to pull up what she’d studied on different creatures. Wendigos were Algonquin creatures who . . . crud . . . no details surfaced.
She was pretty sure they were huge, dead monsters.
What else?
Tiny lights sparked across the dome-shaped area that rose to fifty feet above her head, defining the ward boundaries.
She had plenty of room to move. Two basketball teams could play a regulation game in this much space.
Dame Lynn announced, “Ozawa Windago enters from Gate One and Moonlight Warrior the Alterant enters from Gate Two.” Shouting from the stands rocked the dome.
Gate Two vanished. Evalle stepped into the arena, her boots crunching over the hard, packed-dirt floor. The silver bars reappeared behind her. No way out until someone won.
Gate One had disappeared as well.
Her opponent ducked his head even though the gate area had ten feet of clearance. The crowd noise died down to a tense murmur when the gate behind the wendigo—yes, that’s what she had to fight—blocked his exit, too.
Anticipation mounted as Ozawa struck a pose, head raised, back arched, massive chest pushed out.
Emaciated and muscular at the same time. Lavender-gray skin pulled taut over that cadaverous body looked as cold as the air had become in his presence. He had a narrow waist, canine-shaped legs with thick thighs, and paws as long as her forearm, tipped with curled claws. Two huge arms hung down to the ground with long, pointed fingers with joints that reminded her of spider legs.