M&L03 - SS (27 page)

That got a smile out of her.
It was a little on the weak side, but it was enough. Even with her tear stained
face, she was beautiful in the moonlight, here with the salty wind blowing
through her hair. I suddenly wished we were back home at Myths and Legends. It
felt like an eternity since we were there together. I missed our moonlight
strolls on the beach, the nights we spent curled up in front of my fireplace,
and a thousand other little things that were always better when I shared them
with Renee.

I shook myself before I could
dwell too long on home and the comforts I missed. We still had three more
nights before the tournament would be over. “Anyway, when I think of this
place, I always remember that first night I brought you here. You had a million
questions, but I’ve never seen you happier.” I shrugged my shoulder. “I guess
my subconscious just wanted you to be that happy again.”

“It wasn’t this place that
made me happy Solomon,” she explained, circling my waist with her arms. Her
emerald eyes were bright and clear when they looked into mine. “It was you that
made me happy. Just being with you has always made me happy, from the very
first day we met. I should have remembered that before I let everything get so
twisted out of shape these past few months. Both of us have suffered so much
because I couldn’t see what has always been right in front of my eyes. I know
now that you have always loved me, and if I’d given you half a chance, we would
have been together a long time ago.

I’m not sure if you can ever
forgive me, but I want you to know that I love you Solomon, not just as a
friend or even as a lover or a mate. I love every part of you, and I love the
person I am when I’m with you.”

I cradled her head gently
between my hands. “There’s nothing to forgive Renee. We’ve both made mistakes,
but if we’d made different choices, we wouldn’t be the same people we are
today, and I couldn’t be happier with the woman standing before me.”

Tears slid down her cheeks
again, but this time they were tears of joy.

“I love you Renee, with every
part of my being, I love you.”

I lowered my head to hers,
and when our lips met, I felt as though we’d come full circle. We were here,
where it all began, on the day of our new beginning. The past thirty years had
been the best of my life, but now, with our mating bond complete, my life was absolutely
perfect.

We made it back to the
stadium right before the sword fights got under way and sat with a large group
of our friends. Almost everyone was there since the majority of people had
already been eliminated from the various competitions. Only Dragon, Lucien and
Katerina made it to the semifinals.

There should have been eight
participants in the sword fight semifinals but with my disqualification, there
were only seven. That meant the first round would have three matches while one
of the semifinalists sat out. As last year’s runner-up, Katerina was chosen to
have that honor. Now, she waited alone while swords clashed in the other three
chambers. 

I surveyed her competition,
then sent a quick text to my favorite bookie.

When Renee realized what I
was doing she asked, “Who did you pick to win?”

“Chen doesn’t stand a chance
against Sergio, and Danarius has this match in the bag. Just look at how hard
Kalen is working when Danarius is hardly breaking a sweat. I’m surprised
Scarlett made it this far, but my money’s on her against that vampire.”

Renee scrunched up her nose,
watching the action on the battlefield for a moment, then she shook her head.
“I’m not sure I agree with you on Scarlett. That vampire is pretty damn good.”

“Would you care to place a
wager on that?” I asked, grinning.

She rolled her eyes but said,
“Sure, what did you have in mind?”

Even with the noise of the
cheering crowd, our friends could likely hear every word we spoke. Deciding
Renee would rather they not hear my request; I slipped into her mind and
imagined her doing a very naughty strip tease. She laughed and sent me a vision
of her own that featured me with a certain redhead straddling my face.

I leaned over to kiss her
cheek, then whispered in her ear as quietly as I could, “I plan to enjoy that
dessert every day for the rest of my life, whether you win this bet or not.”

Her cheeks flamed red when
Doyle chuckled beside me.

“Red cheeks will only
encourage Doyle,” Angela warned from the row behind us. “Take it from someone
who knows.”

“I’m not sure why the mention
of dessert would embarrass Renee,” Doyle said with a shrug. “We all know how
much Solomon loves his cream filled desserts...”

I wrapped a portal around
Doyle and he was gone in an instant.

“Where’d he go?” Renee and
Angela asked at the same time, both of them looking around for the big wolf
shifter.

“I dropped him in the lake
near the waterfall,” I told them, smiling at their astonished faces.

When they realized I was
serious, they both burst into laughter. Several of our friends joined them
until the whistle of fireworks drew our attention. The semifinals and finals
were always a lot more showy than the earlier matches were. When Scarlett drew
blood for the third time, a shower of red fireworks was sent into the air.

I grinned at Renee, already
imagining my private strip tease.

She smiled back but said, “I
should have known better than to bet against you.”

“I’ve been wrong before,” I
shrugged. “At least once.”

She rolled her eyes and we
focused on the remaining two matches. I expected Scarlett to move right into
the next chamber and face off with Katerina, but her chamber remained sealed. A
few minutes later, a shower of red fireworks came down over Danarius and black
fire sparkled above Sergio. By the time the smoke cleared, Katerina was
smearing her blood on the red wall in Sergio’s chamber and Scarlett was
squaring her shoulders as the black contestant against Danarius. I sent another
text to my bookie asking him to put my winnings on Katerina and Danarius.

Once the matches began, it
was obvious Danarius knew the importance of putting on a good show. He wasn’t
toying with Scarlett, but neither was he in a hurry to score points. Sergio on
the other hand, was going after Katerina with everything he had. Of course, he
didn’t really have a choice in the face of Katerina’s fury. She had apparently
taken his attempt on Renee’s life very personally, and from the looks of
things, she planned to offer him the same end.

It wasn’t long before
Katerina drew the first blood with a deep gash along Sergio’s side. She’d been
aiming for his stomach, but he deflected the blade and spun out of the way in
time to avoid being gutted. The next point went to Sergio when he managed to
nick Katerina’s arm.

Through the entire match, his
lips were moving and I suspected he was readying a spell. Confirmation came a
few minutes later when Katerina lunged forward and sliced across Sergio’s
forearm. He smashed his bleeding arm into her face and a blinding flash of
light seared my eyes.

I should have been the only
one to see it, but Renee gasped beside me, “What was that?”

“That was Sergio’s spell
bouncing off my deflection charm.” I answered, blinking away the lights dotting
my vision.

Rook sat forward in his seat
behind us. “He tried to use magic against Katerina?”

“Yes, but my spell kept her
safe.”

“That son of a bitch just
doesn’t know when to quit.” Rook’s eyes were swirling silver, a sign we all
knew indicated strong emotions.

“The sorcerer’s backhanded
tactics will gain him nothing but an enraged dragon,” Claire imparted, “and
Katherine is nothing if not deadly when she is enraged.”

Claire’s prediction was
proven accurate a moment later when Katerina drove her sword straight through
Sergio’s throat. Red fireworks lit up the sky as blood poured from Sergio’s
mouth. Katerina tensed and I knew she planned to take his head, but the
shimmering rainbow of a portal suddenly appeared between them. Katerina was
left on one side of the portal holding the hilt of her sword while Sergio was
on the other side with the rest of her sword still lodged in his throat. Before
she could react, Sergio fell into the portal and it closed behind him.

Katerina let loose a
deafening roar, spouting flames into the air as she transformed into an
enormous red dragon. She took to the air and the crowd went absolutely wild.

During all the excitement
between Sergio and Katerina, I’d nearly forgotten about the other match taking
place. Just as Katerina took off into the night sky, a spectacular display of
red fireworks signaled Danarius had drawn Scarlett’s blood for a third time.
The vampire took a bow and then exited the arena using a portal that Grayson
opened after he dissolved the chambers.

There was a short
intermission before Merek’s latest maze erupted from the sand covered
battleground of the arena. It was an interesting mix of snow and ice and
promised to be as slippery as it was cold. The tunnels and chambers were
surrounded by jagged peaks rising from the arena floor to the first level of
seating. Wind and snow swirled through the maze with an eerie whistle that
chilled me to the bone.

Dragon and Danarius were
still tied for first place, with enough points that no one was even close to
catching them, but the other two competitors in this round - Noah and an Irish
wolf shifter named Seamus - would fight to the very end on the off chance that
the leaders would be disqualified.

The prey for this round was a
chameleon demon that was caught spying for Travali during the Great War. Even
with our preternatural eyesight, it was almost impossible to spot him once he
blended in with his surroundings. And even from his position in the sorcerer’s
booth, Merek would have a difficult time ensuring the prey did not escape the
maze. As a result, the contestants would have to work harder than usual,
tracking the prey by scent. If the chameleon escaped the maze, all four
competitors would be disqualified from the round and Merek would be eliminated
from the entire maze competition. Neither possibility would make a difference in
the final outcomes of the tournament, but none of the people involved would
ever live it down if they let the prey escape alive. 

While the four contestants
prowled through the passageways of the maze, sniffing out their prey, I focused
my attention on Noah. For a new shapeshifter, he showed remarkable tracking
abilities. He came within three feet of the prey several times before any of
the veteran hunters even caught the chameleon’s scent. Unfortunately though,
the demon managed to slink away every time just before Noah realized how close
he was.

I sent a text to my bookie,
betting that Noah would win this round. It was a long shot, but my gut told me
it was the right call to make, and I always went with my gut when it came to
placing wagers.

The stadium was full to
capacity and though the spectators were far from silent, they were unusually
calm as they watched and waited for the first trap to be sprung.

About ten minutes into the
match Dragon set off an avalanche and narrowly missed being buried under its
crushing weight. Too bad for him, that was where his luck ran out. With Dragon
effectively trapped in a dead end tunnel, spectators debated how he would
escape. Going with his strengths, he attempted to melt the snow blocking his
path and realized too late that he’d only worsened his situation. The liquefied
snow rose up in a wave and curved over his head like a surfer’s dream come
true. Just as it crashed down on his other side, the freezing water solidified
again, leaving the Dragon King imprisoned in a thick tube of ice. The crowd
members gasped as one and the bookies moved in to take advantage of this new
development.

Merek had obviously
considered Dragon’s fire breathing abilities when he designed the maze. Dragon
would eventually claw his way out of the tunnel, but that probably wouldn’t
happen before someone else got to the prey.

Surprisingly, Danarius was
the next competitor to walk into one of Merek’s traps - literally. He’d taken a
wrong turn and ended up in a roundabout with no other exit. When he was
striding down the corridor back out to the main part of the maze, he suddenly
bounced back as if he’d walked straight into a rubber band. While he slid on
the ice and regained his footing, a walking ice sculpture emerged from the spot
where he’d been thrown back. It was an exact replica of Danarius himself, a
perfect clone, and when it attacked Danarius, it fought with the same strength
and skill of the original.

Eventually, Danarius was able
to dispatch the creature by ripping its head off, at which point it melted back
into the maze. During that fight however, several more clones had materialized
from the invisible barrier. They backed Danarius into the circle and came at
him from both sides. He remained on his feet, taking them out one by one, but
there was no way for him to escape the endless stream of icy assassins.

It was a brilliant bit of
magic that was sure to earn Merek a top spot in the sorcerer rankings. He still
wouldn’t win the tournament; Sergio already had that win locked in, but it
would certainly open a few doors of opportunity for the Irish wolf shifter.