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“Well, whoever he’s up against is going to have a tough time of it.”
Constantine frowned. “You could be up against him.”
“Oh, right.” She shrugged. “Well, I’ll be fine.”
Evander smothered a laugh at Constantine’s frustrated expression. “We’ll work on it, General.”
Kerrigan turned her attention back to the arena. The next two matches were much of the same brutality. A man killed a Domaran woman with dual swords, a completely blank look on his face. As if someone had already stripped the humanity from him. The third fight, a Cendrean woman took down a man twice her size, as if it were nothing. The entire match lasted only a few minutes. The crowd booed, but the woman had refused to put on a performance. Kerrigan appreciated the honesty in that act.
“Final match,” Evander said. He stretched his arms overhead. “Should be a good one.”
Kerrigan shrugged. They’d all been disappointing in their own way. They all could have ended with a yield and let the losers continue on with their lives. The death was unnecessary. Just a request from a Doma to slaughter for no real reason. She was more disgusted at it all by the minute.
The crowd went silent as the announcer rose to his feet to pronounce the final pair. The first man was a beast of a man. A Domaran soldier by Evander’s estimate, who’d been dishonorably discharged for crimes against civilians. She couldn’t fathom why they were letting such a disgrace of a man compete. But that was Domara.
“Our final competitor for the tournament. We saved the best for last. You’re going to love this one!” the announcer cheered. “All the way from the Fae lands of Alfheim comes the last full-blooded Fae!”
Kerrigan jumped to her feet as fear shot through her body. This … no, no, this wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.
“A king in his own right …”
The crowd booed, but Kerrigan could barely hear the profanities they were screaming. The horrors they were spewing for the appearance of a Fae in their midst.
“A shadow-touched male of nightmares …”
Kerrigan closed her eyes and felt herself go light-headed. This had been her big plan all along. Get into the tournament, kill anyone who got in her way, and gain that gift from the gods. Then, she could get out of there to help her people back in Alandria. It was a foolproof plan. She could win against any of these people. But not …
“Fordham Ollivier, king of the Fae realms!”
28
The Complication
“Oh gods,” Kerrigan gasped.
Her stomach dropped out of her body and fear replaced resolve from the hours prior of watching competitors kill in cold blood. She would do what she had to do. She had killed Marcellius yesterday. It had even been easy. She wouldn’t see it in her nightmares the way that she had after the Battle of Lethbridge. This was the price she would pay to get home.
But Fordham?
She couldn’t kill Fordham.
Her mate. Her love. Her other half.
No one else was capable of killing him either. With or without his magic, he was single-handedly the best fighter she had ever encountered. He had trained her body and mind to become as good as she was. He had stood at her side for the last year during dragon training, only getting better and better. There was a reason he was the king of the House of Shadows and the de facto leader of their section of dragon riders. He had earned it all along the way. He’d fought on battlefields regularly within the House of Shadows before he was exiled from their depths. And he would walk through this tournament with a mask of indifference on his beautiful face and an unparalleled precision to cut down his enemies.
She wouldn’t win against him even if she tried. And she didn’t want to try.
“I have to drop out,” she said as the love of her life strode across the sand with his chest bare and black pants fitted around his powerful legs.
The boos turned to cheers at the sight of him. The gorgeous male that he was. No one, save for Vulsan, had probably even seen a full-blooded Fae this close—at least not in years. Fordham was everything that Fae were supposed to be—terrifying, beyond-comprehension beautiful, with an aura of domination in every step. There was no denying the energy he radiated. Like a nightmare come to life, but one you would gladly go to your death for.
“What?” Constantine asked as he came to his feet.
“I’m dropping out. Who do I speak to?”
Evander opened and closed his mouth. “You … you can’t drop out.”
“You heard the man when we signed you up. You could have left up to an hour before your first fight. You’re in the tournament now.”
“No,” she said at once. “This was a mistake. A horrible mistake. I should … I should drop out.”
