king until the next fight. You win again, you become worshipped and can get away with so much more than before. To humans knowing they will die here anyway, why not go with perks? To most fae winners? They start believing they’re invincible. They think they can beat the top fighter. Rodriguez has won the last two times. His ego is impregnable. You keep working up to the top position. Fae after fae has died to achieve that spot, but only one has held it continually.”
I glanced at the old man, his bushy eyebrows lifting.
“Him.” He pointed, a knowing indication in his tone. My gaze followed his hand, landing on the man he was motioning to. Air clipped in my lungs. In a cushy chair in the middle of the stands, in a place of power sat Warwick, an emperor on his throne. No one dared to get near him, but many hovered close, drawn to him. His expression warned you to run the opposite way, like you’d be burned up if you dared look in his direction. But at the same time, you couldn’t stop from wanting to move closer, needing to be near him, even if it turned you to ash.
He will kill you without blinking…and he’s so unbearably hot, you go willingly.”
Once again, he sat with his legs parted, one up on the ledge, surveying his kingdom without moving his head. Dangerous and powerful didn’t convey the magnetism of this man.
A cry from the pit drew my attention from him. The crowd repeated a word over and over as Rodriguez jumped down on the human. The man swung and scratched at the bull’s face, scrambling behind a box to hide. I noticed a few items you could use as weapons were placed around the pit—wood poles, blocks, and rocks—but the human didn’t seem to notice them.
The chants grew louder, blending into one drum.
“What are they saying?”
“Blooding,” Kek replied. “It’s when the crowd is ready for blood to spill, blooding the ground.”
Rodriguez snapped a wood pole in half with his foot. Twirling it, he pointed the ragged end at the human. More urine soaked the human’s pants as he tried to hide, his body rolling up in a ball.
“This is disgusting. Barbaric.” My throat watered with acid. “This isn’t a fight.”
“Did you think the House of Death would be fair?” Kek’s blue-tinted eyebrows curved up. “That it was actually unicorns and rainbows in here?”
“No.” I glared at her, motioning out to the pit. “But at least make it a fair fight.”
“Fair.” Tad snorted. “You humans love to throw that word around.”
“Bull. Bull. Bull!” The mob roared as Rodriguez went in to kill the human, the spikey edges of the broken pole getting within an inch of the man before he’d stop. Every time the crowd grew louder and more savage. His ego was drinking it up, loving the attention, playing the human like a toy.
The man sobbed, rolling up tighter.
My stomach squeezed at the sickness of this whole scene, the eager, excited faces in the crowd enjoying this cruelty.
After several more times of Rodriguez taunting them, they started to get restless, booing him. You could see it in his demeanor, the shift, realizing he was losing his fans. He glared at the crowd and roared.
With one last dramatic heave, the stick speared through the man’s chest, twisting and shoving it deeper. Blood gushed as his body violently flopped, and a gutting bellow ripped from the dying man’s throat.
I twisted my head away, grateful the thundering crowd absorbed most of the human’s screams of death. Swallowing over and over, I forced back the bile trying to come from the depths of my stomach.
The crowd’s chants of “Bull! Bull!” drew my attention back to the pit where a guard dragged the dead human out, a blood trail smearing the packed dirt. Rodriguez was up on a box with his arms open, rallying the crowd to chant his name. He would have probably stayed there until the last cheer, but two guards finally hauled him out of the arena.
I thought the excitement before was intense, but the second Rodriguez disappeared, the stomping began again, people screaming and wailing with a chilling verve, the air clotting with brutal energy.
“Now for the main act,” Kek muttered into my ear, flicking her chin at a humongous beast-man ambling out into the pit; his bare feet were at least the length of my arm. He appeared part giant and part something else I couldn’t identify.