overwhelmed, my eyes unable to take in all the commotion around me.
“Fight! Fight!” Shouts were joined by the thud of stamping boots against the metal floor. I peered down into the pit as two people were shoved into the middle: a man in gray, the human, and the other man was the one who bullied me in line this morning, the bull-shifter, Rodriguez, who was three times bigger than his human counterpart.
Rodriguez smacked his barrel chest, his nose flaring as the crowd cheered for him, his ego soaking up the attention, lapping at it like cream.
The crowd hollered even louder. Even from my position way up, I could see the human shaking, urine staining his pants as he searched the arena for some kind of weapon. Rodriguez rolled his head around, a flicker of the bull underneath rippling to the surface.
“My gods.” My hand went to my mouth, the manic energy shivering my body. “I thought there was no magic in here.”
“There isn’t,” Tad yelled in my ear. “But that doesn’t stop their essence from showing. Underneath they are more beast than they are men.”
“The human is already at a disadvantage. He has no chance against him.”
“Exactly.” A woman slid next to me, bumping my shoulder, her navy eyes flicking to me with an evil smile. “Eliminate prisoners, especially humans, while you entertain the crowds. Perfect way to keep down the population in here, all while we keep cheering for more. Welcome to the gladiator games of Halalhaz. Where two go in and only one comes out.”
The pit was set up resembling pictures I’d seen of the old Colosseum in Rome. Layered stands circled a dirt arena, where men and animals fought to the death.
“Do the fae always fight humans?” Is this why there were so few left?
“Not all the time. It’s survival of the fittest. Which usually means humans lose. The first fight is usually new fae versus human or human against human. But whoever wins moves up and fights the winner of the fight last week to the death. You keep winning, and you keep living, fae or human.” The demon shrugged. “As I said, humans usually die first. Since I’ve been here, no human has moved up.”
Because fae were stronger, faster, and harder to kill. Humans stood no chance.
“What brings you slumming with a Druid and human, Kek?” Tad asked, his attention on the match below.
Kek, in the old Hungarian language, meant “blue.” Her hair and eyes were certainly that.
“It’s my day of charity.” She shrugged, her attention halting on a group of demons located near the middle of the stands, their red uniforms resembling a sea of blood. Why wasn’t she with them? What was she after? Didn’t take a genius to understand you didn’t trust anyone here. Everyone was out for their own. “Plus, this girl is fucking hot. Nice to have some different eye candy around here.”
Almost all fae were uninhibited sexually, not having limitations when it came to gender, but still could have a preference. Not something I had dealt with much in my walled world. Humans in my sphere had reverted to being very staunch about sex and sexuality.
“Or could it be no one likes you. Not even your own kind,” Tad replied evenly.
“They like me the same as they like you, old man.” She snorted. “People call me Kek, by the way.” She flipped her braid to the other shoulder.
“Laura.”
She burst out laughing. “Sure. Laura.”
“What does that mean?”
“Lovely name. It’s just not yours.”
“And Kek is yours?”
It was Tad’s turn to chuckle. “Touché.”
“All right, human.” Her eyes ran down me with appreciation. “You can play. I like it.”
A bell chimed, directing my attention back to the floor. The human was darting around, panic controlling his actions. It was something they quickly drilled out of us in school, tossing us the first day into a mock situation. If you let fear control you, you “died” and failed the first level of training.
This human was not a fighter.
Bile burned at the back of my throat as Rodriguez moved in with self-assurance.
“How do they pick who goes in?”
“The first ones nominated are those who cause trouble. You get in the hole more than twice? Your name is up on the list. If you get on the wrong side of a guard, they can put up your name. If they run out of those, it’s by a lottery system,” Tad explained. “Some have even volunteered.”