Page 50 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“We steal gun parts from the city and assemble them, and bullets are easy enough to manufacture ourselves,” he explained so easily, like it was identical to boiling an egg.

A commotion broke out around a ring in the far corner, cheers and shouts catching everyone’s attention. A large part of onlookers from other rings broke away and hurried to join them.

I rose onto my tiptoes to see better. “What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure,” Ryder said. “But we can check it out.”

We strode across the square, the throng surrounding the action rendering it invisible to the outsiders of the ring.

A voice from inside penetrated the overwhelming noise. “Maybe I should take your bird for a ride and make her bleed for me.” A pained grunt mixed with a roaring laugh. “Now that’s better. Come on, pretty boy, let’s play.”

“So Eli is fighting with Zion again,” Ryder clarified as he cleared the way for us to the front of the crowd. “It’s like a third time these past few days.”

“Why?” Zion definitely didn’t need any extra provocation. He was already unhinged enough, from what I’d seen.

Yet he was also a bit…cute? He didn’t seem freaked out by my outbursts. More like willing to join me in them.

“Because he gets restless if he doesn’t get his dose of blood. And he’s been sulking the entire class, muttering something about being far away from his pet bird.” A round-cheeked woman poked my side with an elbow and shrugged. “Same as always.”

My mouth went dry.

Glistening beads of sweat rolled between the planes of Zion’s muscular and scarred chest, down the tensed and pulsing abdomen, and soaked into the top of his gray sweatpants as he circled Eli in the ring. Steel gleamed in their fists, Zion’s blade encased in a black rubber handle and Eli’s in a silver one.

He was a couple of inches shorter than Eli and not as lean with a straight waist, but who the hell had sculpted those shoulders? My teeth ached with the need to bite them.

I shut my open mouth. Whatever had come over me, I was not succumbing to it.

Maybe just a little bit.

Watching didn’t count.

“Which one usually wins?” I asked.

Zion blocked Eli’s punch and his left inner forearm caught my attention. Swirls and lines of discoloration formed fine wrinkles and stretched his skin.

Burn scars.

“Neither. The first to draw blood wins. Otherwise, it would take forever.” Ryder shuffled to make space for a teenage boy and a girl—siblings? They looked similar—to stand in front of him. They shot him grateful looks.

In a flurry of motion, Eli kicked the back of Zion’s knees. He caught himself on all fours, a cloud of dust clinging to his sweatytorso, but his knife skittered to the side of the ring, behind the chalk-drawn line, and out of his reach.

A shout for him to move tickled the back of my throat as Eli leaped on him, the long horizontal scar across his back rippling in motion. Zion rolled onto his back and caught Eli’s neck, twisting them over so he was on top of Eli, straddling his hips and compressing his throat.

“A familiar situation, is it not?” Eli choked out, wrestling to get Zion off him.

“Wishing you didn’t have to get out of it?” Zion shoved his right knee right into Eli’s stomach.

So stabbing Zion’s thigh with that shard of crystal hadn’t been enough to slow him down. Next time, I had to plunge it in deeper. See how he liked it then.

Steel glimmered in the daylight as Eli slid the blade between Zion’s ribs and the tip caressed?—

Zion whirled aside, springing from his seat half a heartbeat before it would’ve meant the end of their fight.

Everything next happened so fast that a dust cloud swirled in the air, the scent of sweat assaulting my nostrils, and Zion reemerged on his back, his legs locked around Eli’s waist, his knife in the fighting grip of them both.

A crimson line emerged on Eli’s bicep, and he swore, swatting at Zion’s legs to release him.

“That’s it?” Had everyone gathered just to watch these two roll around?