“Do you see Athena?” I asked Gemma out of the corner of my mouth.
Her eyes swept over the crowd and when they stopped, her lips pursed into a hard line. I followed her gaze and saw Athena draped across the lap of the man who’d answered the door the day Matthias and I had gone to visit her. I rolled my eyes and muttered, “As if there won’t be enough bloodshed tonight. She had to go and bring him along.”
Gemma’s frosty glare remained fixed on Athena, but she didn’t add anything to my statement.
If my father cared, he didn’t let on. Coolly, he led the way through the crowd, waving to the members of the Court who called to him, and largely ignored the section where Athena was seated. Several people called to me as well, but I kept my face forward and let the catcalls and cheers roll off my back.
Gemma gave my arm a final squeeze and then went to take her seat beside my Uncle Kevin. My father stopped short of the dais and made a production out of letting me go first. Every muscle clenched as I stiffly climbed the steps and took my seat.
My father climbed the steps, his shoulders thrust back, puffing out his chest to a laughable degree. Peacock really is the perfect nickname for you, isn’t it? I mused, watching him wave at the assembly.
As soon as his shiny-loafer-clad feet hit the top steps, the drums picked up, the intensity building to new heights. A deafening roar soared over the drumming and when it reached the crescendo, the orbs of light that illuminated the fighting ring launched from the ground like miniature rockets and flew high above the crowd, where they exploded into green and white sparkles.
My father met my gaze and flashed a wicked smile before pivoting to address the crowd. He lifted his arms and with a booming voice, declared, “The Tournament of Blood has begun!”
The velvet on the arms of my chair puckered as my nails dug into the fabric. This was it. I’d failed to stop this madness from happening. Now, all I could do was sit and watch. Utterly helpless.
In an unusual move, my father relinquished the spotlight and a vampire in a dark suit took over the crowd as some kind of emcee. Now we’ve gone full-blown WWE? Perfect. Just perfect.
I glared at my father as he took his seat beside me.
He lifted a brow, still grinning like a cat with a vat of cream. “Are you displeased, daughter?”
“Displeased doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“Perhaps the first match will cheer you up,” he purred, turning his attention back to the ring.
I seized up, my spine rigid, as two vampires stepped into view. They’d come from either side of the dais, their backs to my father and me while the crowd went crazy. Was one of them Matthias? It was impossible to tell, as they both wore hooded cloaks. My brain kicked into a different gear and forced me to focus on the man announcing the match up. Had he already said their names?
“—this first fight. The winner will move on to the second round and face the victor of our third fight of the evening.”
No, he was still rambling about how the brackets would match up for the victor of the round. I narrowed my eyes, tracing the lines of their shoulders. Despite my best efforts to keep from noticing such details, I hadn’t been able to fully stop myself from appreciating Matthias’s … posture. Okay, okay, it had gone a bit past admiring the ergonomically correct lines of his body.
“Let’s meet our champions,” the emcee boomed, his arms spread wide.
The two men spun in a choreographed turn, removing their hoods as they faced the dais. My heart launched and then crashed just as quickly when a frantic glance at each exposed face revealed that Matthias was not one of the first to fight.
Instead, I found myself glaring at the savage eyes of Jerrod, my father’s lap dog. My lip curled away from my teeth and a snarl worked itself up the back of my throat. “I don’t even know why you let him enter the tournament,” I growled at my father, not looking at him. “You wouldn’t seriously let him become a lord.”
“Why not?” my father countered, his tone casual.
Turning, I frowned. His question was serious. “He’s not a bornling,” I said, suddenly feeling off-balance.
Had that much changed since my departure?
My father flashed an easy smile and then raised his hands to applaud the contenders. He gave them each a subtle nod. “Jerrod is ambitious and quite ruthless.”
“Two of your favorite qualities,” I quipped, disgust lacing my words.
“Precisely,” he agreed, nonplussed. “However, you’re right, my clever daughter. Jerrod will not emerge the victor from the tournament. If he’s smart, which I believe he is, he will put on a good show and exit in the second round.”
“And if he isn’t smart?”
“Then he’ll find himself fighting in a lesser capacity during the final match. A disadvantage that will prove to be his demise as that final fight will be to the death.”
It shouldn’t have surprised me. The casual violence was nothing new in my father’s world.
The smug man in the suit to our left spoke up when the rampant applause tapered off. He announced both fighters: Jerrod and Rayn Falcon—one of the twins from the Northern Court. The crowd went wild all over again and my stomach dropped another inch as they entered the ring.
Though there were no ropes or bars keeping the men in the circle, they somehow knew exactly where the line was without looking as they began circling one another, both intent on finding a moment to land the first strike. Jerrod found it first and I winced as his fist connected with Rayn’s solar plexus. It was odd, to find myself willing the man to win, never having spoken a single word to him. He could be every bit the monster as his opponent, and yet, I wanted him to win.
The vampire—who could only be described as pretty—rebounded from Jerrod’s punch and went in to deliver one of his own. He missed, but was quick enough to react and caught Jerrod’s chin in a clean upper hook. He growled, flashed his fangs and bobbed left to throw a quick, retaliating punch, and bashed Rayn in the temple when the smaller man tried to dance out of the way of the first punch.
I winced at the sound even as the crowd went bananas.
It was clear that while the fight wasn’t to the death, they weren’t holding anything back. With accelerated healing and high pain thresholds, it took a lot to knock out a vampire or force him into tapping out of the ring. The two vampires went round and round, each getting hits and kicks, to the point where I started wondering when it would ever end.
“You should give them wooden stakes,” I said to my father after Jerrod swiped Rayn’s legs out from underneath him. “If nothing else, it would get this over with sooner.”
It would also likely have cut back on the amount of entrants.
Maybe.
Jerrod, sensing the end of the fight, let out a snarl as he dropped onto Rayn. It was like watching some kind of turbo-psycho switch kick into gear. His fists flew faster than my eyes could even follow and despite Rayn’s efforts, he remained pinned to the ground. Pitiful, soul-ripping sounds filled my ears. It was all I could do to stay in my seat. My eyes were squeezed closed. No one was looking at me anyway.
Just end it, I silently pleaded with the injured vampire.
Somehow, he must have signaled his surrender, because the vampire who’d announced the fight shouted that Jerrod was the winner. My eyes snapped open and I saw three huge guards descend. They tore Jerrod off Rayn and held him back until the blood lust quelled. At least, slightly.
Rayn was helped out of the ring and down the path he’d come from. I watched him hobbling away, holding his no-longer-pretty face in his hands. He’d heal and look the same within a few days’ time, but the sight was disturbing nonetheless.