can eat anything. I don’t believe in starvation tactics. There used to be fighting rings that would beat and starve the poor things. It made them more aggressive in the ring.”
“Where did you get them?” I asked quietly.
“They’re outcasts. You said you lived on the streets, so I’m sure you understand how many Breeds are discarded by their own kind. They have nothing to live for. The longer the fight, the happier the audience. So I feed them well. Most of them eat in animal form, but I don’t want any of them shifting to human form during a fight.”
“You can’t control that.”
She crossed one arm over her middle and looked inside the dark cage next to us. “When you keep a man in human form too long, his animal grows restless and combative. It fights to come out, and when it does, it usually stays out for a while.”
Blue and Viktor had told me the same thing. They said it was like taking hostage of the physical form. I never imagined it could be used against them like this.
“So that man in there, he’s the next to fight?”
She nodded, seemingly pleased I was catching on. “And something else you should know—they’re all men.”
“Why does their gender matter if they’re in animal form?”
“My benefactors have a particular preference in not only triumphing over a Shifter but also a man.”
This was the first case I’d seen where the victims were men instead of women or children. Curious, I asked, “Is that because your customers are all women?”
“Don’t be absurd. It’s a different experience when opposite genders battle. Those upstairs prefer same-sex fights, but down here they want to see a Mage dominate a Shifter. They also want to see a woman dominate a man, because a man shows less mercy than a woman in the ring. He’ll fight like the savage he is.”
I jerked my thumb at the cage behind me. “And what do they get out of it?”
“Survival. The one who beat my strongest warrior is now working for me. They have an opportunity to reinvent their life, and what better way to do that than to fight for it? But only if they kill the Mage. Mercy is a weakness.”
“It looks like he changed his mind.”
“They don’t get to change their mind.”
This woman was cutthroat. I wasn’t sure I’d ever met anyone so apathetic about torture and death. Some got pleasure out of it, others got a thrill. She just looked at it as a business transaction or a job interview. Then I thought about how unplugged Shepherd was at times. Sensors spent their lives feeling intense emotions in a way that others couldn’t comprehend, so they often came across as detached.
Audrey lowered her arms and stepped closer. “Fear is useless to me. Those who watch underground fights have full access to the sensory experience. I don’t sell it to the highest bidder. That’s part of their membership fee. It’s important that the victor doesn’t win out of fear and desperation. I’m looking for something special.” She brushed her hand across my cheek. “Are you that something special?”
“That and so much more.”
“Mmm, I sense truth.” She pulled her hand away.
That was the truth, all right. But Audrey couldn’t read minds. She couldn’t know I was thinking about how I worked for an organization that busted criminals like her or that I was half Vampire and could drain her in less than thirty seconds.
My fangs were throbbing again. They did that whenever I was itching to kill. Woman or not, she brought out the huntress in me, and that old familiar feeling returned. The one that earned me the Shadow nickname. Or Reaper. Or whatever the hell people called me. I was the bump in the night.
I stepped back when something moved in the dark cell. A black panther emerged into the light and stared at me with predatory eyes.
Audrey reached through the bars and stroked his nose without taking her eyes off me.
“Aren’t you afraid of losing your fingers?”
“Animals smell fear. They don’t know good from evil, and I’m neither. Nor are you. He doesn’t understand why he’s in the cell, but he knows which one of us is in the dominant position.” She withdrew her hand and led me back to the gate. “I also put a little pinch of sensory magic in my touch to allay their fears. It becomes a drug to them. When anxiety and rage are all we know, we seek refuge in any