A month had passed.
I knew because the routine had carved itself into me: wake, drag myself to the trough, drink rust-tasting water, fight, bleed, crawl back, try not to die in the dark.
That last part was getting harder.
The Fossa was an underground coliseum with no glory and no audience except our captors, who wore authority like a mantle and cruelty like a badge. The “arena” was a wide circle of stone with packed sand at the center, ringed by iron grates and raised platforms where guards lounged with crossbows and whips.
Above, a narrow slit of sky blazed white or blue or gray, indifferent to what happened in here.
The prisoners were shadows of males and females who had once been living, thriving creatures, reduced to skin and bones and seething resentment. Vampires, all of us, sent here to atone for our sins, or die because we stood up to authority, or—like me—simply because our existence was an inconvenient truth for someone more powerful.
I’d survived this place once, even though the Overseer and his witch turned me into a monster.
Then I’d escaped and found redemption in the arms of a female I didn’t deserve.
For the first two weeks, Emberline had been my only light against the darkness, my star in the night sky, those precious, fragile memories sustaining me against the enduring horrors of this place. Against the pain.
Against the demon, growing ever more powerful inside me.
Now, I kept every thought of my wife buried deep, in a place no one would ever think to look. Safely hidden inside my heart, a beautiful secret I hoarded for myself like a prize.
Where the Overseer’s corruption could never stain her. Where the demon’s hate could never touch her. Where ugliness and pain would not poison our love or ruin a single precious memory.
I’d made my peace, knowing I would never see my fierce, beautiful girl again.
Every scar had been reopened, every tattoo ripped, along with tattered skin. The seals that contained the demon were broken. There was nothing holding him back now except my fraying will.
The Overseer had starved me since that first day, andhunger gnawed at my stomach, my mind, my soul, and soon, I’d lose control, and my world would become nothing but fire.
That was what the Overseer was waiting for.
What I was fighting to avoid.
Before I lost myself, I had to find some way to die.Permanently.My death wouldn’t kill the fire demon trapped inside my mortal shell, but I refused to become a weapon for the Overseer’s amusement, for the crowd’s entertainment, but the longer I starved, the more that seemed inevitable.
A cough sounded across the corridor of cages—a wet, broken thing—then went quiet, even the dying knowing not to call attention to themselves. Attention meant pain, and pain meant you were dragged out of your cell by your ankles, then you disappeared.
But not without suffering first.
I dozed on and off, dreaming of the revenge I’d been cheated out of. Dreaming of Emberline. Of citrus and lavender and how her hair looked against her bare shoulders. Of a few weeks when my life had been perfect.
Then the fight bell rang.
My stomach clenched from what was coming, my broken ribs nowhere close to healed. One of these times, they would puncture a lung, and then… then I didn’t know.
I pushed myself upright, slowly, the world tilting precariously. My wrist was swollen where the shackles rubbed me raw. My knuckles were split, scabbed over, still bleeding from yesterday. My dry, cracked mouth tasted of iron and dust.
And, like always, I promised myself I would remain a vampire.
A guard stomped down the corridor, keys rattling. Hisface was hidden behind a half-mask of black metal, but I could tell he was grinning.
“Dominico,” he drawled. “You’re up first.”
I rose without speaking, pushing the pain to the side.
The lock clicked, my cage door swung open, and the guard shoved me into the wall. I didn’t retaliate. That was the first lesson here—save your strength for the arena.
He and another guard marched me out into the main pit. The sand was already hot, sticking to my bare feet. They’d raked the ring to hide the blood stains, but there would be plenty of them by the time the sun fell behind the mountains—some of them mine.
