Page 121 of The Beast Who Begged Me

Sammy doesn’t cry out, but he can only get up to his knees, his face white beneath the blood. His useless arm—broken? Dislocated?—hangs against him while he tries to drag himself backward with the other.

I look up at the box, where Tiberius sits beside Daniel King. He’s looked bored every time I’ve glanced his way. Now Marcello is leaning over from behind to speak in his ear.

Volkov starts toward Sammy again. I run at him and bring the wooden sword down across his back. It makes a satisfying noise, but he barely seems to feel it. He turns, catches me by the throat, and drives me backward into the cage.

The wire shakes behind my head. I drop the sword and grab at his wrist, pulling, trying to get enough room to breathe. He laughs and tightens his hand.

Dami’s voice comes to me: Find the weak point and fight that.

I stop hauling at Volkov’s wrist and trap his hand instead, bringing my chin down. Then I turn my whole body, putting everything I have into the movement Dami made me practice over and over.

For one awful second, nothing happens. Then the grip shifts, just enough, and I wrench free. Pain tears down the side of my neck as I stumble away, coughing so hard I can barely see.

Volkov catches a handful of my toga, but the flimsy fabric rips in his fist. I keep moving. He follows me halfway across the ring, swearing, before he notices the crowd laughing. Then he spreads his arms, inviting them to enjoy the joke with him.

I double back for the sword while he takes his applause. My hands are shaking too badly to get a proper grip on it. But I’m breathing. Dami taught me how to get free, and I did it.

I glance up again at Tiberius, some masochistic urge to see my cousin’s reaction—but his seat is empty. Tiberius is gone, and Marcello along with him. Daniel King hasn’t even noticed; he’s laughing and smiling as one of his bodyguards points down at me and says something.

I turn back toward the crowd, toward the hundreds of ravenous, grinning faces, and despair creeps in. I can’t run forever, and I can’t⁠—

Wait. Am I seeing things, or…

Damiano Orsini is standing at the rail.

For one impossible second, I think I’ve imagined him. My mind has been trying to kill me with hope all evening, so perhaps this is its final cruelty: giving me the one person I want to see and making me believe he’s actually here.

But he’s still and silent in the crowd, and his eyes meet mine.

Volkov charges.

I throw myself sideways, and his hand catches my shoulder instead of my head. I hit the sand, lose the sword again, and scramble away while he turns to follow.

When I look up, Dami is already climbing. He’s almost at the top of the cage before the men below him understand what’s happening. They shout and point, but the rest of the crowd is too loud.

I watch as Dami’s hands close over the barbed wire. It tears into them, but he doesn’t let go. His shirt snags as he swings over the top, and for one sickening moment he’s hanging there, furious, the barbs caught in the fabric, blood splattering down from his hands to the sandy floor of the fighting pit.

Then the shirt gives way, and he falls.

Volkov turns toward him, startled for the first time tonight. Dami lands badly, one knee folding beneath him, and the Russian is moving before he can get up. I catch Dami’s arm and pull, and he throws his weight with mine. We fall sideways together as Volkov’s foot comes down where Dami’s head was.

My beast is here. He’s here, and he will stand between me and death, like he always does.

He found me.

“Get Sammy,” Dami snarls, pushing himself up.

I turn and run. Sammy has dragged himself over to Jesse, and when I drop beside them, I see Jesse’s chest move. He’s breathing. I put one hand against his shoulder and look at Sammy, whose good hand is clamped around his ruined arm.

I turn back in time to see Dami reach for his gun.

“I wouldn’t,” King says through the microphone. Two guards at the rail swing their rifles toward us. One points directly at Sammy. “You came to join the entertainment, Mr. Orsini. Put it down.”

Dami goes still. His eyes flick to the rifle, then to Sammy and me. Slowly, he draws the gun and sets it on the sand.

Volkov grins. He looks fresh, enormous, completely relaxed, while Dami is covered in blood and bruises. His shirt hangs in strips, and his hands…

Oh God, his hands.