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“As you wish.” I am not fool enough to argue with my father, especially not over something so inconsequential. I will consent to mate with whoever he deems fit. “As long as it’s not Yedina.”
His red eyes narrow. “She is a matron, and she desires you. There is not to be an argument in this matter.”
“She is a matron, but there must be others.” I have never disagreed with my father in my entire life, and I keep my dissent soft. “I have tried her, Father, and I find her intolerable.”
It’s difficult to overstate how intolerable. I don’t like my women so sharp. Demanding is fine, but Yedina edges into ferocity. It is more like mating with a wild animal than a woman, and it is not an experience I wish to repeat. There must be other matrons, I think. Someone less feral, with some sense of rhythm.
Maybe even soft.
The crowd breaks out in excited murmurs, and I look down at the arena, expecting to see that gilak has actually lost. But no, the arena is empty except for the charred flesh of the gilak and the disembodied parts of the pack of Ur'gin. A pity. I thought they might win.
The whispers stop. Everything stops.
It is so silent I can nearly hear my own thoughts.
A strange creature emerges from the pits below. No scales, horns, or fur. A woman. A human woman, with golden skin and short tufts of hair crowning her small skull.
She walks, trembling, and hugs herself. Her breasts, round and firm, bunch up beneath her slight arms.
Soft.
I find her unbearably appealing, even beneath all the filth that streaks her skin, hastily washed away but not well. Her bare feet sink into the sand, and her ankle nearly turns.
I’m fascinated. What do they intend to do with her? Surely she’s no warrior; she looks terrified enough of the sand beneath her feet. She looks up, craning her neck to see all of the demons staring back at her. She turns her head and looks directly at me.
No, at my father.
Recognition plays upon her features, and her intense gray eyes narrow. It’s a small, insignificant token of fearlessness, but there are sorcerers of nearly unlimited power who cower before my father’s glare. She lifts her chin proudly, and then turns to face her fate.
“What do they intend to do with her? She has nothing, no weapons.”
“The arena masters find endless ways to amuse themselves and their audience. Let’s see what they have planned.”
Metal clangs upon metal, and the gate is drawn up.
The crowd begins to chant. “Gi-lak, gi-lak, gi-lak!”
This gilak makes the previous one look like a hill to his mountain. The human barely reaches his waist, and his teeth must be the size of my fingers. They drip with saliva, hungry and wanting. If the bulge beneath his loincloth means anything, I suspect he wants more than just a meal.
The gilak stops just short of the human, and a cloud of red dust swirls between them as he stares. A thick glob of spit falls from his mouth, creating a puddle between them. Most demons in this stadium would lose this fight.
He’s going to tear her apart.
My father is speaking, but his words fall on deaf ears. The woman takes a shaky step back, and then another. The gilak watches, amusement in his dull eyes, until her back hits the end of the arena. Above her, the crowd jeers.
Bloodlust and hunger burn in the gilak’s eyes, and his lips pull apart until his lips have transformed into a fearsome smile. He roars once more, so loud that even the world beneath us must hear it, and attacks.
My blood runs cold.
35
LAURA
This is how I die. Covered in filth and devoured by a nightmare.
No horrors on Protheka compare to this beast, and Protheka is a world made for horrors. Three times my size, at least, he towers above me on thick cloven hooves. His dark purple flesh is scarred and decorated with crude black tattoos, and his face is broad and flat, as though he’s smashed it against the stone walls of the arena too many times.
But the worst thing about him is the fire.
