M&L03 - SS (18 page)

~ Solomon ~

The arena was now divided
into magical chambers that were just large enough for one-on-one sword fights.
To win a sword fight you had to draw your opponent’s blood three times. We
never used referees to determine the winners because they were too easy to bribe.
Instead, each opponent smeared a drop of blood on either the black wall or the
red wall inside the chamber. When blood was drawn, the entire chamber would
light up with the opposite color indicating a point had been awarded. When a
winner was declared, a portal would open up allowing the winner to pass through
into a neighboring chamber to meet his or her next opponent.

After several hours and
hundreds of matches, we knew without a doubt that the New Orleans vampires
spent a lot of time training with swords. Of all the contestants, they were the
most skilled, and of them, Danarius and Sergio were the most dangerous.

“I for one am looking forward
to facing these vampire’s with my sword,” Katerina announced.

I snorted. “Dragon did ask us
not to kill them Kat.”

She shrugged, tossing her
dark mane of hair over her shoulder. “Who said anything about killing them? I
just want to carve them up a bit. They’ll heal... Eventually. Besides, you saw
what he did to Bran. I heard he’s still out cold. I’m sure Dragon won’t mind me
giving a few vampires similar treatment.”

“And even if he does, I’m
sure you’ll get away with it,” Renee added.

“He does love me.” Katerina
gave us her most mischievous smile and we laughed.

After the last match was won,
the chambers down below dissolved as a thick fog rolled through the
battlefield. When the mist cleared, Kasper was standing in the center of the
arena. “It’s time now to draw names for the two magical competitions.”

Whenever people heard his
voice boom through the stadium, they pictured a big burly guy like Doyle. It
was always a shock to see him in person because he was actually slightly
shorter and thinner than I was and he liked to dress in flamboyant suits that
would give Liberace a run for his money.

I sat up, gave Renee a quick
kiss and then pulled a runic stone out of my pocket.

“Let’s all give a warm
welcome to Hannibal!” Kasper roared dragging out the name.

A portal opened beside Kasper
and a flurry of wind and snow came swirling through it, and then coalesced into
the six-eight behemoth we knew as Hannibal. The crowd cheered and Kasper called
the next name. The process repeated for Chen who came through his portal in a
ball of fire, then Merek appeared in a shower of four leaf clovers. Kasper
called for Sergio next and the crowd was unimpressed when he came through his
portal with nothing but the clothes on his back. The only cheers upon his
arrival came from the small section of the stands where his vampire brethren
had taken up residence.

“Well, if this was a popularity
contest that might be a problem,” Kasper chuckled. “Now let’s give a round of
applause for a man who never has to worry about how warm his welcome will be.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you Solomon.”

I wrapped a portal around
myself and appeared at Kasper’s side in the midst of a spectacular fireworks
display.

While the crowd cheered, I
got my first good look at Sergio. I’d seen him before, but always from great
distances during the war. My father never let me get close enough to feel
Sergio’s magic. Now I reached out with my senses and I was surprised by what I
felt. Although he was masking his magic like we all did to hide the extent of
our abilities, his magic did indeed feel similar to mine. What surprised me
though was an underlying spell to hide his identity. I’d always thought his
appearance was unnaturally nondescript, but now I knew for sure that this was
not the face he was born with. Not comforting news when you considered what
could happen if he removed the spell. He could essentially walk around
completely unnoticed because no one here knew what he really looked like.

The crowd had finally settled
down and Kasper interrupted my thoughts with, “If my lovely assistant Mia would
please step forward...”

Mia materialized out of the
shadows holding a red top hat upside down in her hands. She was dressed in a
skimpy costume that left very little to the imagination. As she sashayed closer
to Kasper, she glanced towards me with her bottom lip pushed out in a pout.

“Incidentally ladies, Mia
looked me up early today and she was very satisfied with what I have to offer.
Feel free to ask her about it. I’ll be at the club later if anyone else wants
to give me a try.”

I tried to stifle my laugh as
Mia turned towards Kasper shooting daggers from her eyes. Kasper went on with
the show as if Mia wasn’t sizing him up for a pine box. When she stopped in
front of him, he reached into the hat and drew out a name. “Merek will go first
with the dance club transformations!”

Again, the process was
repeated until we knew who would go first through fifth for the dance club
transformations and the maze creations. I was fourth and fifth. We only had one
shot at the dance club transformations but our mazes would be used multiple
times before the tournament was over.

“Merek will have one hour
inside Supernova to prepare his spells. Then the doors will open and the party
will begin. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite dance club theme at the end
of the week. In the meantime, a feast awaits us outside the stadium thanks to
Olivia and her talented staff.”

While I was waiting outside
the stadium for Renee to come through the exit, Monica and a few other females
from my clan decided to keep me company. The women greeted me with the usual
hugs, some a little friendlier than others, but only Monica wrapped her arms
around my neck and rubbed herself against me suggestively. Then she pulled my
head down and kissed me on my lips. I quickly extricated myself from her
clutches and stepped back folding my arms over my chest.

“You’re crossing the line
Monica,” I warned.

She reached out and trailed
her fingertips down my arm over the mating mark. “This doesn’t have to be a
prison sentence Solomon. Once your bond is complete and the mating frenzy
cools, Renee will realize that one woman will never be enough to satisfy you.
And when she does, she’ll share you with us just like she always has.”

“Monica, we’ve had some good
times and I’ll always remember them fondly, just like I will remember all of
the women I’ve shared myself with over the years, but Renee is not just one
woman, she is my mate. I don’t think I could describe what I feel when I’m with
her so that you could understand, but I assure you, I will never want for
anything as long as she is in my life.”

Monica glanced to my left and
her lips curved with a sly smile. “We’ll see what happens when the mating
frenzy no longer rules your bodies, won’t we Renee?”

Renee came around and stepped
in front of me. It bothered me that I hadn’t felt her coming. If the bond had
been working properly that never would have happened.

Renee put her hands on her
hips and quipped, “
Don’t you have an elsewhere to be
, Monica?”

Shit. When Renee started
channeling Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer things were about to get ugly
real fast. I reached out and pulled her back against my body, wrapping my arms
around her in the process.

“Enjoy it while it lasts
Renee.” Monica smirked, and then she strode off with the other women following
behind her.

Renee turned in my arms and
looked up at me. “Apparently some of your more devout followers won’t be
deterred by something as trivial as a mating bond.”

“I’m sorry Renee; I never
imagined anything like this could happen. Mating bonds are sacred among our
people and Monica was born a shifter. She should have backed off as soon as she
knew we were mated.”

“You were very good to them
Solomon.” Her lips twisted with a wry smile. “And no matter how high Kasper’s
hopes are, no one’s ever going to fulfill their needs the way you did.”

“That still doesn’t give any of
them the right...”

Renee went up on her toes and
pressed her lips to mine. Long moments later she went back down on her heels
and I said, “Now who’s using her feminine wiles to win arguments.”

She smiled briefly then her
jaw set with a hard edge. “I’ll take care of Monica, and anyone else who thinks
you’re still available to be their boy toy.”

The fierce glint in her
golden eyes left no doubt as to how she planned to take care of the problem. It
was hard for me to imagine Renee fighting anyone who challenged her place by my
side, but it was the way of our people. I knew I couldn’t continue to hold her
back as I had just moments ago, because if I did, she would be seen as weak and
even more challenges would come her way. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders
and pulled her close as we walked towards the fire pits and the feast.

“I have no doubt you will.
You might be smaller than most of the females around here, but you’ve always
taken your combat training very seriously and you’re faster than anyone I
know.”

Renee snorted. “Now you’re
just blowing smoke.”

I looked down and met her
eyes. “No, no I’m not. I’ve seen what you’re capable of and if Monica had too,
she wouldn’t even consider challenging you. Until now, she never saw you as a
threat so she never paid much attention to you. Now she might not live long
enough realize her mistake.”

“You honestly don’t have a
problem with that? That I might have to kill someone?”

“The idea of you fighting anyone
to the death scares the hell out of me, and I wish I could fight this battle
for you, but I can’t. It’s the way of our world; I accept that. So the idea of
you killing someone only bothers me because I know it’s not something you want
to do.”

“Maybe it won’t come to that,
but if it does hopefully one death will be enough. I think that’s what Claire
meant earlier today when she said the rapid spread of information could be used
to my advantage. If that one death is brutal enough, then the gossip mongers
will do the rest of the work for me.”

“You’re probably right. Let’s
go get something to eat before all the good stuff is gone.”

We made our way through the
crowd to where several long tables were set up near the fire pits. Each table
was overflowing with a variety of dishes ranging from ordinary human food to
the most exotic demon dishes. Olivia and her crew had really outdone
themselves. We filled our plates, and then stopped at the fire pits to load
them up even more with various meats and roasted vegetables. Once we were
finished there we spotted Rook and Angela sitting with Lucien and Liliana and
we parked on a nearby tree root.

Shortly after we sat down
Angela asked, “Hey Solomon, we got a little side tracked earlier when things
turned ugly down in the maze. Could you finish explaining how the rest of the
hand-to-hand competition will work?”

“Sure. From here on out
contestants will earn points through a series of match ups and the two with the
most points at the end of the third day will participate in the finale,” I
explained. “Each match up will take place in a different maze which we
sorcerers will take turns creating. Every fifth maze will be mine. Four
contestants will participate in each round. The contestants will start on the
outside of the maze and their prey will be at its center. When the match
begins, the prey will try to make its way out of the maze while the contestants
try to find it. The contestant who takes the prey’s head first wins the round.
If the prey makes it out of the maze, all of the contestants participating in
the hunt are disqualified from that round.”

Angela looked at me and her
eyes begged me to deny what I was sure she’d already figured out. “What is the
prey?”

I shrugged, unable to offer
what she was asking for. “A prisoner trying to win his or her freedom.”

Now Liliana turned to me in
horror. “They are going to hunt other people? Supernaturals maybe, but people?”
She looked from me to Lucien who was sitting beside her. He tried to soothe her
by rubbing calming circles on her back. If this was how she was reacting now,
she really wasn’t going to like how the marksmanship finale worked. 

Renee responded before I
could. “Have you ever seen the dungeons?”

When Angela and Liliana both
shook their heads no, Renee continued, “Let’s just say I’d rather be dead than
be kept in the dungeons. It’s not like being in a human prison and a life
sentence takes on a whole new meaning when you can live forever. The prisoners
they use for prey are fed well and allowed to train for the six months prior to
the tournament. If they make it out of the maze, they will be set free. If they
don’t, they’ll be dead. Either way they’ll be better off because they won’t be
suffering in the dungeons any longer.”

“The upcoming rounds will
also be more difficult than the one today because the mazes will have magical
booby traps,” I added trying to move the conversation towards something less
distressful for Liliana. “That’s one of the ways that we sorcerers compete. If
the contestants are taken out by our traps, they’re disqualified from that
round and we get points. If the prey is killed by one of our traps, all of the
contestants are disqualified and the maze creator is awarded a lot of points.
If the prey escapes the maze however, the contestants are disqualified from the
round and the maze creator is eliminated from the entire competition. The
sorcerer with the most points gets to create the maze for the finale.”