Skin (21 page)

The
dressings had come off and she wore long sleeves of dark coffee fur
from her wrists to her elbows. It was the same colour as
Quiello
’s fur when he knew I was about to betray him
and a spark of guilt pinched at the back of my heart.

It
wasn
’t just the new arm additions that made her look
different—truthfully, they looked a little strange. It was the
whole package. The regal air with which she held herself, the
piercing laser gaze of those eyes, the first part of her I had been
dazzled by but only a small part of the reason I loved her. She
radiated power. Beauty is an inferior word. Whatever that allure
was defied all words. We were going to make a stunning
couple.

“
Do you
like them?” She stretched her arms forward, stroking her fur with a
long slender finger, a vision that gave me an instant hard on.
“It’s working, I feel incredible,” she said.

“
You
look incredible,” I said without wanting to. I still wanted to be
angry at her, I wanted to stay hating her for leaving
me.

She
circled her desk and wrapped her arms around my waist, laying her
head on my chest.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so awful,” she
said softly. “I know I’ve been absent, even when I’ve been right
here. I was so distracted by these implants, by finding the right
creature, by what it meant if they worked and what it would have
meant if they didn’t. But I’m back now darling, ready to make it up
to you.”

Her hands rose
to unzip my training jacket. I stopped her.

“
What’s
the matter? Haven’t you missed me?”

I had
missed her. I missed her more than anything I had ever lost. And I
wanted to take her, right there across the desk like
we
’d done before.

“
I’m
just tired,” I said. I clasped her hands in mine and kissed her
fingers. “Don’t worry. We’ll make up soon enough. I’ve got a
surprise for you.”

She
beamed, bouncing on the balls of her feet like an excited little
girl.
“What is it? I love surprises.”

“
I’ll
show you soon,” I said.

She
pouted and sighed.
“Fine, I can wait. What was it that
Darius was meant to tell me?”

The
sound of his name on her lips, her lips that were mine, disgusted
me and the anger stirred again. I could have told her right then.
'Your ex, the one you
’ve been messing around with,
thinking I don’t know about it, he’s a mech.’ I wanted to say it,
it would be easy.

“
Darius
has his own secrets,” I said. “You should ask him about it next
time he stops by. Because I know he stops by, at home. I know,
Sveta.”

She
stepped away from me and the affection formed into hardness.
“He stopped by when I was sick, yes. I asked him to. I needed
someone familiar and comforting to talk with. I didn’t want to ask
you, even if I knew where you were to ask. I felt guilty for my
recent behaviour and didn’t want to ask you for anything. Are you
insinuating something, Alistair?”

“
Please
stop calling me that,” I said.

I felt
dumb, wrapped in confusion and I didn
’t know whether
to believe her. I wanted for it to be that simple and that
innocent, but I also wanted all of those reasons to hate Darius. It
didn’t matter though. Soon she would see my skin, behold its power
and forget about him for good.

She turned
away from me and sat back down. The small desk was an expanse
between us.

“
Let’s
just forget it. It’s been a difficult time. I forget you are
struggling with your own adjustments after your
injuries.”

“
Let me
on the cross tonight,” I said. “I need all the show time I can get
to get used to fighting as an Animus. I want to be the champion
again.”

Sveta
nodded.
“You’re always my champion, on and off the
cross. But I want to help you however I can. Just go to the pits
before the show and I’ll fix the rest for you.”

I turned to
leave, not certain of what to say and preferring to say
nothing.

“
Oh
Rev,” she called me back. “Do you know anything about Quiello? I
haven’t seen him since I was sick and I couldn’t find him yesterday
or this morning.”

“
He’s
probably just hiding, playing a game” I said. “You know what a
little scamp he is.”

She
smiled and nodded.
“Thank you Rev.”

I closed the
door behind me.

It was my
time.

I was in
the pits. It was still a couple of hours before the fight but I
didn
’t want to be around anyone. I didn’t want to
explain why I was still wearing my training jacket inside. I didn’t
want to listen to them talk about how stunning my girlfriend was. I
didn’t want to be anywhere near Darius and his smirk. There would
obviously be talk around them, whispers behind my back that the
queen and the giant were back together again and here was poor
little Rev, left a cuckold who couldn’t even win a fight even with
these new legs. But it was my time now and I would show them what
strength was.

I wished
it was Darius I was up against that night. It would
’ve
been a poetic justice. But Erik was on the board tonight. He would
do just as well as proof I was indestructible and deserved to be
worshipped. Besides, I owed him an ass kicking.

The arena was
filling, a moderate crowd by the sound of it, muffled from beneath
the stage. I took of my jacket, just to see my skin another time
before I revealed it to the world.

The
silver edged scales were small, each about the size of a grape.
They shimmered, catching the light in a dazzling opaline rainbow.
It covered my entire back, starting at the nape of my neck, much
like Sveta
’s serpent skin implant, and reaching down
over my shoulders to my tail bone. It stretched in over my sides
and wrapped about my middle, leaving bare flesh enough to see my
chiselled abs, moving up to form a peak over my sternum. Ricard
might have been a creepy criminal who should probably be in prison
on more counts than I cared to imagine, but the man was an artist
and I, I was a masterpiece.

All pain had
gone, the redness where the scales fused into my flesh was gone. It
was like this thing had always been a part of me.

“
The
dragon heals almost instantly,” Ricard had told me, a needless
attempt at a sell. He had also commented on how I seemed to have a
naturally accelerated healing power which, I thought was probably
from the Primal pills I was still taking from my leg
reconstruction. Together, they had made me unstoppable.

The Guardians
gave their call and I slipped my jacket back on. The platform
lifted me to my destiny.

Erik and I
stepped into the centre of the cross and I looked up to see if
Sveta had returned to her stand. I grimaced when I saw Darius was
seated beside her. He sat with his arm propped on the back of the
chair, too close to my woman. I took a deep, cleansing breath. It
was a good thing they were so close together, I thought. When I
made the reveal, I would see the expressions on them both at the
same time. Rapture, adoration, jealousy and a final defeat.

“
Bit
overdressed aren’t you, Priest?” Erik said. Shorts were the only
clothing permitted on the cross.

“
Just a
part of the show, a bit of theatre,” I told him and winked. “Don’t
worry, I’ll get rid of it when we’re ready to start.”

The tube
lowered and a pair of werewolves were released. It was perfect. The
first time I had been in the arena and seen what happened on the
cross, it was werewolves. I was disgusted. It was a wolf that had
turned my life around and lead me to become Animus. And now, on the
night where I was going to own the cross and be crowned its king,
it was wolves again. There was nothing like symmetry.

The gates
clanged open and the wolves prowled out. I took off my jacket and
hurled it against the wire perimeter.

There was an
audible gasp from the crowd. I turned slowly, letting them take in
every scale. I was a galaxy of rainbows, even the werewolves looked
taken aback. I turned to face Sveta and Darius wishing my mother
could see me, see the ultimate champion I had become.

Darius
was wide eyed and frozen. It was perfect. Sveta
’s
reaction was not one I expected.

She
wasn
’t smiling. She wasn’t staring agog like Darius or
most others I could make out from the stage. She just stared, her
mouth pressed into a firm frown, her brows creased. No one clapped
or cheered. It was too much, too impressive for them. They couldn’t
understand what they were looking at as no such majesty had ever
moved before them on this stage.

I would show
them what they were truly witnessing.

I
didn
’t use my new legs, wanting to let the glory of
the dragon skin work for its own reward. The wolf flew at me and I
deflected it with an easy swipe, sending it flying like a paper
doll. There was no cheer from the crowd, just a stunned silence.
Erik was not fighting, he was just watching me tear down these two
monsters barely needing to move. It was better this way. Two wolves
against one man, it would be the stuff of legends to
come.

The
second wolf attacked me from behind, I felt the swipe of its inch
long claws across my back. Where flesh would have torn underneath a
hit like that, my skin did nothing. There was no pain, just a fuzzy
sensation. I did not tear. I could not bleed. I turned on the wolf,
snatching it by the neck and snapping it
’s head down
at a weird angle. I heard its vertebrae crunch and felt the beast
go limp instantly dying in my single handed grip. The other dog was
unconscious, this one was dead. I was a god and I waited for the
crowd to recognise that.

Whispered
murmurs. No applause. Pointing. Sveta, still frowning, stood
slowly. She raised her arms, crossing them at the wrists. It was
the same symbol of forfeit Darius had used to escape fighting
me.

“
Shut it
down,” she called. The Guardians moved to act.

“
What?”
I yelled. “You can’t do that. I haven’t finished!”

“
You’re
finished, Rev,” she called.

Sveta
paced her office in front of her desk. We
’d been in
there for twenty minutes and she still hadn’t said
anything.

After she had
shut down the fight, she stormed out of the auditorium leaving a
bewildered crowd.

She stopped,
folded her arms and looked me up and down for the hundredth time,
shook her head and started pacing again. This was not the way it
was meant to go.

“
Can you
just stop and talk to me please,” I said. I was angry at her for
shutting down the fight just when I was getting going. I was on
fire and she had taken that from me. “I’m the one that should be
mad here. You should be pleased.”

I still had my
shirt off, wearing nothing but shorts. Without the glint of the
arena lights my scales shone with pearly luminescence, still
majestic.

“
Pleased?” she spat the word. “Pleased that you have mutated
yourself? Pleased that you have made a mockery of my
arena?”

“
Mutated? How can you of all people call me a mutant? Look at
you.”

“
This is
Berislav work, isn’t it? You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

“
I’ve
never felt more alive in my life,” I said.

“
And how
did you pay for it?”

This was
the part I knew would come, the only part of this whole story that
I knew I had made a wrong move.
“I didn’t,” I said.
“It was a gift. Ricard comes here to watch, he invested in the
champion.”

Sveta
scoffed.
“Ricard Berislav has never in his life done
anything without getting paid for it. Did you steal the money, Rev?
From me?”

“
I
didn’t.” At least that was a half-truth.

Sveta sighed
and started to pace again, wringing her hands in front of her so
tightly her knuckles whitened. If only she would stop and look,
really look and understand what this meant for us. She had her
champion back and we, together, could stand as Queen and King of
our Sanctuary. Instead she just looked at me with revulsion.

“
You
have defiled everything it means to be Animus,” she
said.

“
Why?
Because I made myself strong? Because I am unstoppable?”

“
That’s
exactly it, Rev,” she said. Her expression of revulsion dissolved
into sadness. “You are unstoppable. Your skin is impenetrable. Your
strength is unmatched. Your healing powers, assuming you’ve
acquired what I know of most dragon species, are instant. You’re
too strong to fight on the cross fairly. Rev, you’re practically
immortal.”

“
And why
is this a bad thing? I’m a warrior. Shouldn’t a warrior strive to
be immortal.”

Sveta
laughed, a scoffing chuckle that made me seethe.
“You’re not a warrior. You’re a prize fighter, a showpiece.
You’re a puppet on a stage I put you on in a show I designed.
Without me, you’d be still wiping sweat of gym benches except now
you’d be doing it wearing a Prime Life uniform. I saved you, Rev. I
gave you a life and I gave you my life. My love. I made you a home.
I gave you my body. And this is how you repay me? Had I known this
life would destroy you, I would have left you alone.”