Page 11 of Fallen Stars

Elara blinked, shaking her head as the fury abated for a moment. She set her drink down, hands on the hilts of her twin blades as she took a step towards the first man.

She heard another roar from the pit and frowned, stopping. That sound…it didn’t sound human.

Usually, she really didn’t give a shit about the humans fighting in the pits. In a place like The Remains, the idiots had every choice whether they wanted to fight or not. Any pain they endured, they brought on themselves. And perhaps once upon a time, Elara would have felt sympathy for them.

But her sympathy was gone with her soulmate.

That growl however…that inhuman growl. She shouldn’t have gone to investigate. Should have killed the first two men she’d chosen and searched for another before anyone noticed what was going on. Instead, stubborn ass that she was, Elara turned to the man next to her, pointing over the crowd with one of her knives.

“What’s going on over there?” she asked.

The man looked distractedly to her before looking back to the pit. He was far taller than her and could see over the bodies.

“Three poor buggers are fighting awolf.”

Elara’s breath stilled. “What did you just say?” she asked quietly.

“I should probably say poor wolf,” the man chuckled. “The men were allowed weapons.”

Elara’s jaw clenched, her teeth near bared as she set off into the throng, pushing through the crowd. There was a yelp this time, an animal yelp, and a vicious lurch rocked through her. This poor creature.

“Move,” she snarled to the man in front of her, calling that dread into her eyes that had made men piss themselves before her and would again. His face paled as he allowed her to pass until her body was pressed against the thick, dirty ropes of the fighting ring.

She assessed the situation below her as quickly as possible. Three men stood shirtless, wicked serrated knives in their hands of varying sizes, prowling the hewn out pit a few yards below the crowd. Two were stout and stocky—brothers by the looks of it. And the third was tall and sinewy, with a nasty scar down his face. But it was his gaze that beheld something even nastier. He was actually grinning as he advanced onto the poor creature that had been howling in pain. She looked at the brothers, matching smiles painted on their lips too.

The wolf was backed into a corner, snarling, teeth bared at the three men. Elara could see blood pouring from multiple wounds in the wolf’s thick black matted fur. It was shaking, barely able to stand on one paw. In fact, as the scarred man crept forward, smirking, the wolf’s leg gave out, and it collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily.

There were roars of laughter and jeers from the crowd, coins tossed into the ring. Elara looked sharply to the source of them, categorizing every greedy face, every leering expression and dark laugh. She took it all in, allowing the anger that had been simmering since Enzo had been taken to take over, that anger that had given way to grief and Enzo had urged her to feel. She closed her eyes as she stoked the fire, as each laugh around her, each cry of pain fed her. On and on the flames began to leap, Enzo’s fire lent to her as her anger became a visceral thing. And finally, she opened her eyes again.

Elara touched the rope, feeling the roughness of it beneath her palms. Shadows began to furl out of her, and she knew exactly which three souls would be hers to take tonight. She braced herself to kill them all from where she stood and put the poor wolf out of its misery, ready to weave an illusion so the crowd wouldn’t see her magick as she did so.

But then the wolf raised its head. Heavily, as though it took every ounce of effort. Its doleful black eyes locked with hers, and Elara’s heart damn well bottomed out as the wolf’s ears pricked up in recognition, as it whined forher.

Bile rose in her throat as she staggered forward, hauling on the ropes.

“Astra?” she breathed.

The wolf whined again, and Elara knew in that moment that this was another sign. That the wolf she believed Sofia had sent to her in Helios was here right now,dyingbecause of the fuckers in front of her.

She snarled, hauling herself up the ropes without a second thought. She’d planned to take the souls swiftly to send her message to Eli, to steal them away inconspicuously. But now? Now they could all watch as she turned these men’s realities to nightmares.

She swung herself over the ropes, landing like a cat as she dropped the few yards below.

She was already palming one of her new cutlasses as she took a deep breath, watching the three men stagger to a halt.

There were boos from the crowd. “Get her out of there!” someone shouted.

“Two bitches unable to fight rather than one,” another roared, and laughs filled the crowd. Elara raised her head, again taking inventory, assessing faces, cataloguing them.

She took another deep breath then turned back slowly to the three men looking at her with curiosity rather than fear. She smiled to herself. She would soon change that.

And with bared teeth, she launched her attack.

She had worried she’d been out of practice, her training with Enzo and Leo forgotten. But muscle memory took over, the months of training with two of the most feared warriors in Celestia worth it. She smiled as she leapt across the ring, light on her feet. One of the brothers had started to run, not that he could go far in the pit. She laughed, her knife already propelling through the air as it was thrown, sinking into his back.

All the times she had cursed Enzo for target practice had paid off as the man went down screaming, clawing at his back to get the knife out.

She grimaced, stalking towards him. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of her blade, and she twisted it with vicious delight. The man begged, screamed.