Wexxon the Great Alien Warrior - Juno Wells Page 0,53

to everyone on Xelxar being interested in what you have to say.”

Reddin then positioned himself against the sand, arranging his feet into a warrior’s stance. “But not here, Wexxon. Here is where your words mean nothing, and your final gasps for air will only be remembered by the woman who weeps for you in the stands.”

Rachel.

I knew she was nearby, but I couldn’t look for her in the arena. I didn’t want to see the look on her face, the tears she was crying as she watched my brother threaten my life.

“Are you ready to begin?” I asked Reddin, my grip on my sword growing tighter. “I tire of your dramatic buildup.”

“I’ve never been more ready in my life.” Reddin smirked before he ran at me with full speed, his sword aimed directly at my chest.

Instinctively, I ducked away from him, rolling toward my right. But as I moved, I realized that my motion had been impeded, only able to move a few inches out of his path instead of fully toward the other side.

Trick sand.

Had Reddin somehow mastered it? I couldn’t understand how he was able to freely move against its grains, not without sinking down into the ground.

I wasn’t granted much time to think about my brother’s advantages, not when he was coming at me again with his sword. Unable to move out of his path, I was forced to slam my sword against his own, the clash of blades ringing in my ears. We continued like that, hitting our blades against one another’s, each hit more powerful than the one before.

“Are you going easy on me?” Reddin snarled as he brought his sword down onto mine again.

“Do not pretend as if you’ve given me that option,” I replied before I swung upward with my shoulder, successfully knocking Reddin’s sword away from my own.

It didn’t take him long to swing for me again, the tip of his blade slicing down my shoulder, drawing blood with the wound. I only took a moment to wince at the pain, knowing that I’d be given no time to recover, no time to really think through my next move, not if I wanted to survive the arena.

But even as I pulled away from Reddin, repositioning myself against the sand, I felt him strike me again, this time his sword aimed at the stitches on my hand. And as my sword fell onto the ground below, Reddin’s twisted crowd erupted into a cheer, their chants so loud they threatened to drown out my every thought.

And Reddin basked in the glory, a smirk appearing on his face as his newfound family cheered his name.

“Reddin the Greatest! Reddin the Greatest! Reddin the Greatest!”

“Do you hear that, brother?” Reddin turned his attention back toward me. “That is the last sound you are ever going to hear, people rightfully cheering my name.”

I didn’t respond to Reddin’s taunt, my mind sifting through a million possibilities, a million different ways to force him onto his knees. And I watched as Reddin’s eyes glanced down to my sword, as if he was waiting on me to pick the weapon up from the ground.

But I knew that if I moved for the sword, it was going to be a sure death.

Instead, I lunged toward Reddin, hoping the move was going to take him by surprise. And it seemed like the move did the trick, Reddin’s eyes going wide as I knocked his sword down to the ground, too, his blade clashing against mine on the sand.

And then my hands were around his neck. I was gripping as hard as I could, putting the sound of the crowd as far out of my mind as possible, pushing away thoughts that threatened to trickle across my brain, memories of Reddin at the breakfast table, memories of our first training session together, his eyes bright with excitement.

But a few seconds after my palms were tightly wound around his neck, I felt something burning against my skin. And the longer I tried to hold onto him, the more the burn seemed to seep beneath my fingertips, the heat of it completely unbearable as it spread across my hands.

I moved my palms away from his neck then as I balled my hands into tight fists, soon delivering blow after blow to his eyes, his jaw, his nose. My fingers still burned from whatever he’d laced his neck with, but I was able to fight past the pain, at least enough to crush his features with my