Her Lion Guard - The Complete Series Box Set (BBW Shifter Romance) (28 page)

If Joel and Wiley were.

She stepped up to Rowfer without a word, let the older man pull her away from Jonas and into the light. The arena quieted with her entrance, previously rowdy voices falling silent at the sight of the somber ancient man and the pale-faced woman walking beside him. They knew who Mary-Lou was. May of them had heard her speak, cheered for her on more than one occasion.

Their shame was tangible in the morning air.

Rowfer led her to a ringed stand a bit off the center of the arena. A single, gilded chair sat in the very middle, encircled with a chest-high wall of metal. A cage from which Mary-Lou was supposed to watch her mate die. Anger rose and died in the human woman’s chest, to be replaced by terrible, awful sadness.

How miserable those people must be.

Mary-Lou had no pity, certainly no sympathy for the likes of Joel and Wiley. Still, she considered how different their lives could have been, had they not been blinded by greed and fear.

Rowfer made a brusque show of frisking her – for weapons, the Healer grunted, and made no mention of feeling the thick Kevlar and leather beneath her clothes. Rowfer proclaimed her ready before the still-silent crowd and stepped away, teetering slowly to his own seat off the side of the arena. The aged man sat with his back to the center of the stadium, shoulders tense even in their stooped pose.

Mary-Lou closed her eyes, squeezing sadness and grief from their depths. She wiped at her cheeks and turned back to the show at hand – just in time to catch sight of Jonas and Wiley being led out from opposite sides of the arena. They were stripped to their pants, each patted down in turns for hidden weapons.

A modern-day Gladiator show.

Mary-Lou tightened her hands into fists. Narrowed green gaze sought out the third and most important player of the night – found him, in a dip on the stadium’s walls on the right side of the arena. Prince Joel lounged in his private booth, hands hanging loosely off the side. Mary-Lou wondered beneath which sleeve the horrid, silver blade was hidden – how deeply it was gouging into the Prince’s pale skin.

Wondered if she would  feel its sting, as well, or if she might be much too late.

C
HAPTER FIVE

The crowd was cheering. Their voices were loud, excited – wished for divergence and entertainment, sought to find meaning in something long hollow. The Laws. The Order. It had guided them for so long, been a light in the dark for so many. What did they have left now, with their families dead or dying, with their numbers dwindling with each passing season?

Blood. They had blood, and violence; the vicious joy of others’ suffering.

Panem et circenses
. In the darkness beneath the bleachers, Jonas closed his eyes and tried to ignore the repulsion roiling his stomach. His handlers hovered near, blank faces studying his movements. Four men, likely Bear Shifters judging by their staggering heights and massive builds. They were to restrain him if he tried to escape, incapacitate him if anticipation maddened him into attacking them or the audience before the match proper began. There was no right and wrong to men like these – just a job, a mission. It was a simpler life.

Jonas had long given up on being simple.

“Let’s go.”

Jonas nodded to the booming command, not reacting in any way as the four men moved to surround him. They were to march with him –
herd
him, like dogs a stray sheep.

He did not care. Indeed, as the gates opened and sunlight washed over him in a wave of heat and noise, Jonas failed to feel anything at all.

Jonas was numb.

The absence of feeling was welcomed. Jonas could not allow himself to be distracted – not by anger, not by grief, not by remnants of love for a brother that had turned into a monster. He had to win. He had to protect his family, as he had not been able to so many years ago.

A family that no longer included Wiley.

Bright blue eyes narrowed against the sun, the cheering crowd, the smug smile stretching his opponent’s face. Today, it will end.

One way or another.

Wiley Turbo was agitated.

Wiley shook his head; excited. He was
excited
, and if his stomach was twisting and his hands were sweating – well, who would not be nervous when they knew their entire life was about to change?

Jonas – the
match
, was a test. Yes, the human wench was to be eliminated, but her destruction was hardly Wiley’s goal. It was what came after that drove the Wolf Shifter: The promise of stability, of order, of raising a family in a world uncluttered by human garbage. Persuading the Tribes to fall in line would be easy after Mary-Lou’s death; turning their pain, their fear of the future into hatred for humanity would be even easier.

But that, too, was not Wiley’s problem.

Wiley would be a good soldier, would follow orders and lead his people to victory in whatever war Joel chose to wage. He did not want money, did not desire status or power. The real triumph, his true reward was to be much simpler in nature.

Wiley dreamed  of peace. He wished for a quiet, bright life devoid of fear, filled with the warmth of family and friends. But Wiley was a realist; he understood that the price of safety was soaked in red, knew well that one’s happiness depended on another’s despair. The question was, who got to be happy and who –desperate?

Wiley had not always seen life as what it was: A game of survival, a test of strength and resolve. When his mother had been alive, when his brother toddled in his wake through grain-heavy fields, Wiley believed peace simple. Love unconditional. He had been his mother’s strong boy, Harry’s invincible hero – kind and true and never, ever cruel.

After they died, after it was all gone –

But it had not been then, had it? The Wiley who had pulled tiny Jonas Edwards from a well, cared for him through a winter and very carefully
not
called him Harry, not cried himself to sleep every night – had that boy not believed in goodness, still? In justice and hope?

For a moment, a second only, Wiley thought to wonder when it had all changed.

Wiley- no,
the Wolf
closed his eyes, ground his teeth until he tasted blood. It did not matter. Nothing mattered, except for what he had to do, what he would accomplish. There was no turning back, not anymore.

As the gates opened, as Jonas walked out onto the ground that was to swallow his blood, Wiley almost wished…

The Wolf squared his shoulders and faced his opponent, letting blood lust and purpose guide his actions. There was no time for sentimentality.

After Jonas, the last remnant of the man Wiley had once been, was… gone, there will be no need for sentimentality at all.

Joel was afraid.

The Prince frowned, unhappy now that he had found a name for the blackness churning in his stomach. What did he have to fear? Everything was going well – better than he had expected, really, considering that the Golden One stood against him. Joel sneered, thinking of the Prophecy and the weak-minded creatures who believed it. A human, to lead
his
people? Joel snorted, repulsed by the very thought. Preposterous.

And if she was – if the puny, sharp-eyed woman was truly to be a savior,
their
savior – why was she so easily hurt? So effortlessly defeated? There were no cries of outrage from the crowd as she was led through the dusty arena to the metal pit that was to be her prison, no words of mistrust from Mary-Lou or her brute of a boyfriend. No one seemed to suspect anything, to care about the proceedings at all.

So why could Joel not stop trembling?

Perhaps it was the silver; the Prince suppressed a grimace, fighting against fiddling with the dagger’s sheath and bindings. The leather was hot against his skin, abrasive in a way that had little to do with the texture of the grain and everything to do with the poison of the silver dagger it contained. Joel supposed he could have wrapped it better, but his left forearm was suspiciously bulky as it was. There was only so many leniencies his position afforded him, and the sentence for concealment of deadly weapons during a Challenge was…

A particularly violent shiver shook Joel’s frame. Well. No need to think about things that will not come to pass.

The time was drawing near. Joel’s pale eyes swept the crowd behind his sunglasses, narrowed gaze focusing on Mary-Lou’s pinched face. A small smirk curled the corners of the Prince’s thin lips; there was no one to help the pathetic being, no one near enough to stop what fate and Joel had set in her path.

A loud cheer shook the stadium. Jonas and Wiley had entered the arena, the two Alphas bare-chested and grim. Joel studied Jonas’ face, finding himself strangely unnerved by the man’s vacant expression. The Prince’s eyes skittered off the Lion’s features, seeking the Wolf’s rough features. Joel had not had the need to question Wiley’s loyalty, but recently the Alpha had been less than reliable. Was it the human, or the Lion’s presence, Joel could not tell. All he knew was that the Wolf was running out of both time and the Prince’s patience. If Wiley did not win him this match…

Joel clenched his left hand, feeling the blade bite into its leather confines.

There would be no more chances left.

Joel pasted a smile on his face that felt wrong – tasted of plastic and blood and showed too many teeth. He rose on his feet and raised his right hand in a greeting, addressing his people with smooth, well-practiced words. The crowd listened eagerly, hollered with delight when Joel announced the match officially on. Joel watched Wiley and Jonas circle each other, lowered himself in his seat when the Wolf launched the first vicious attack. His part was yet to come, and he could not afford to let his attention stray – even if the lovely ladies smiling at him from two rows down smelled downright
delicious
.

His parents had it simple, Joel thought with a sigh and a last, sad wave to the two buxom brunettes. They had others do what was necessary, while they did what was their right: Enjoy life and its luxuries.

Soon
. Joel promised himself, eyes following the Alpha’s halting dance.
Not soon enough.

Mary-Lou was calm. She had to be, fought hard to remain cool and focused even as Jonas bled, as Jonas suffered right before her eyes.

The crowd had gone wild the moment Jonas and Wiley stepped onto the arena – had not gone quiet since,  as the two Alphas circled and struck and broke apart, over and over again. Mary-Lou felt as if she had not breathed since the gates had opened, as if she had not blinked since the first blow fell.

It had been Wiley who broke the tense dance of will, Wiley who jumped at Jonas: Claws extended, eyes rusted pools of blood above long, gleaming teeth. Jonas did not bother evading, choosing to instead meet Wiley head on. The two Alphas bit and snarled, gouged flesh so they could paint each other red with hungry anger. Jonas no doubt wished to end the conflict early, to inflict as little pain as possible even as he sought to deliver a fatal blow. Mary-Lou watched him and worried, tried not to worry as her mate regarded his opponent with hollow, tired eyes.

Jonas would die today, one way or another. Joel deserved her hate for this crime above all else.

Mary-Lou tore her gaze from Jonas’ bloodied body, from Wiley’s fevered face, and sought the true threat to her mate and pack.

Prince Joel lounged in his seat, appearing bored with the match and everyone in sight. Joel’s hair shone white beneath the midday sun, his pale hands left to dangle loosely over the side of the arena and into the open air. Dark glasses  still covered the man’s eyes, preventing Mary-Lou from discerning the object of the Prince’s attention and adding to his blaze look. Had Mary-Lou not known what she did, had she been less certain of her own power and Joel’s slick nature, she would have bought into the carefully-constructed façade.

But she did and she was; Prince Joel was left pathetically transparent as a result.