Page 25 of On Broken Bonds

By the time we’re seated with the other teams, I’m drunk with hunger and happiness, the sweetness of the fine wine on my tongue, the luxury of a thick slice of roast beef on my fork. How long has it been since we had anything other than chicken? A meat not dry and scant like it’s been back home?

Occasionally, I glance up and find Thorian watching me eat. Perhaps he’s thinking about how unladylike I’m being now, but if I follow traditional conventions for table manners, I’m afraid I won’t finish in time.

And there is no chance I’ll leave a single bite behind.

By the time I glance up from my plate, I’ve already devoured far more than I would’ve thought possible, but one look around the room tells me to keep going.

The other competitors are eating too, most of them towering men built of hard muscle and broad shoulders, clearing plate after plate with quiet focus. None of them linger over conversation. None seem distracted by the spectacle around us. They eat like people preparing for war.

The sight should dampen my appetite, should remind me how badly outmatched I am among fighters who’ve spent their lives training for this. Instead, it steels me. If men that size believe they need this much sustenance to face what comes next, then I’d be a fool not to force down every bite I can manage.

So I keep eating, determined to take whatever advantage I can.

As I lift my gaze to survey the room once more, it catches on a man seated several tables away. For a breath, I can only stare. He is devastatingly handsome in a way that feels almost unfair, all bright golden hair, broad shoulders, and the sort of lean muscle that speaks of speed rather than brute force. Candlelight glances across the strong planes of his face, catching in impossibly bright blue eyes that gleam like polished ice.

And then I see the dark crimson drink resting before him.

Vampire.

A chill slips down my spine, unbidden memories of the horsemen who tore Lyra from me flashing through my mind. My fingers tighten around my fork.

As though sensing my stare, he looks up. Those glinting blue eyes lock onto mine from across the room, and instead of looking away, his mouth curves into a slow, knowing smile that sends a strange rush of heat skittering through me.

Predatory. Amused. Entirely too confident.

I shiver.

To my horror, he smirks and raises his glass to me. Before Thorian can see this little exchange, I bury myself in my food, not looking up again until I’m sure the moment has passed.

Eventually, I allow myself to look around again, carefully avoiding the table of vampires. Instead, my gaze catches on a pair seated closer to ours. They must be partners, like Thorian and me.

My attention settles on one of them, and for reasons I can’t begin to explain, I find myself unable to look away. He’s tall, tall enough that I can tell that, even when he’s sitting, though not quite as imposing as Thorian, and dressed in the simple clothes of a commoner. At first glance, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about him. No polished armor. No display of wealth or status. Only a worn, fully unbuttoned tunic stretched across broad shoulders and a modest bow slung across the back of his chair.

And yet there is something about him.

His curls are a deep copper red, falling untidily around his face and brushing the tops of his ears. Beneath them, striking green eyes study the room with quiet caution, thoughtful and alert. They’re not the hard eyes of a seasoned killer, nor the cold calculation I've glimpsed in so many of the other competitors.

They’re warm. Earnest. Eyes that seem entirely out of place in a competition built on bloodshed.

My gaze drifts lower, catching on the solid breadth of his chest, the strength in his forearms, the easy promise of power in the body beneath those plain clothes. It doesn’t make sense. A man built like that should feel intimidating. Instead, he stirs a strange, impossible curiosity.

He doesn’t seem human.

But he doesn’t feel like anything I know how to name, either.

“A berserker,” Thorian says, leaning over and whispering in my ear, so his heady oakmoss scent envelopes me. I also catch the slightest whiff of wine on his breath, and that makes me wonder if his mouth also tastes of the wine. The stray thought makes it take a second too long to process his words.

“What?” I ask, turning to him, my eyes going wide. “How do you know?”

Thorian shrugs, keeping his eyes on the teams, speaking to me almost from the side of his mouth as he continues to cut at the meat on his plate. “Many things. Notice the clothes. They’re cheap and very loose. Those are the rags of a man who’s used to ripping his own to shreds. There’s also something about their bodies that I’ve come to recognize. They’re always far larger than the average human, but they don’t look like people who work for their strength, perhaps because they don’t need to do a thing to be powerful in their monster form.”

Monster feels a bit extreme to me, but I don’t voice that opinion.

Among all the men and supernaturals around us, there’s only one other woman. I’m guessing they allowed her in after I entered. The sight of her does little to comfort me. She’s clearly a shifter, built as thick and broad as many of the men surrounding her. Her blonde hair is cropped short above her ears in a severe cut, and she tears into a turkey leg with wild abandon, swinging it as she talks and making no effort to wipe the grease from her chin.

That is a woman raised for this.

I glance down at my lap, at the napkin folded neatly there out of habit, and swallow against the heavy certainty that I do not belong here.