Page 122 of Pretty When She Breaks

My hands twitched on my lap.

I was so bored.

Being kidnapped and forced to fight in the Blood Well was a pretty good gig, actually.

I never had to worry about being hungry or thirsty or dirty.

They patched me up after every fight and broke up the monotony a bit with Hugo’s training. I missed Ocean and Finch, but they probably didn’t want to see me again, anyway. They were better off without me.

But damn, at least in prison I’d had the electrical workbench I could use to pass the time.

I looked up as footsteps stopped outside my cell.

Were they here for me?

Was it my turn to fight?

Hope stirred in my veins as I watched them stop and flared higher as they unlocked my cell.

I could feel my aura burning inside of me, itching to be let out.

It’d been so long since I last got to release it, years, surely.

Or months?

Days?

Everything blurred together when I was waiting. The fights blurred together, too, but at least I felt alive during that time.

The sounds of the busy crowd got louder as we approached the Sink, and the bass from the music made the floor rumble under my bare feet. I drank up the energy, adrenaline lighting up in my system as I was shoved into an ante-cage and freed from my cuffs. They’d just finished hosing off the floor from the last fight, which meant only a few more minutes until mine started.

“Demon! It’s Demon!”

I craned my neck up to where I could make out the Ringside crowd—some people had caught sight of me and were chanting my name.

There was a gap in the crowd tonight, noticeable like a missing tooth. Opposite me, instead of the people crowding against the railing, there was a space holding only two people.

Thaddeus and his teenage daughter.

That was odd. They usually watched from the suite.

The smell of sweat and blood hung in the air, and I was tense as I waited. Any minute now.

Any minute now, and they’d trigger me to break my aura for the fight.

I’d come alive.

“They’re putting you on Blood Court.” Hugo’s voice was hoarse and strained, a far cry from his usual flat, gruff tone.

I wrinkled my nose. Blood Court meant I’d be against a beta or weak alpha, which meant the fight would be over far sooner than I’d like. I’d be left with a well of rage and frustration that I’d have to keep simmering until the next fight.

I heard the clang of a metal door directly opposite me andthe sounds of a struggle. Whichever poor soul was being put into the other ante-cage wasn’t going quietly.

I cocked my head to the side as a lean, blond figure was shoved into view, landing on solid feet and turning with a snarl on his lips.

That was the other teenage Fairchild.

Huh.