Page 12 of Fallen Stars

“What’s your name?” she asked softly.

“James,” the man replied. “Please, please. Look I’ll give the money back, I swear. Please just let me go.”

Elara yanked the blade out, another howl escaping his lips. “James,” she whispered back to him. “See, I can’t. Because a man like you will always hurt, will always prey on others. It’s in your blood. You showed it the minute you smiled at that poor, wounded wolf cowering in the corner.” She spat at his feet. “You preyed on the weak, on this wolf, the same you would any human, I’m sure. Anyone who you could profit off, again and again. See, I’m here to wipe Castor clean of people like you.”

Her shadows subtly began to weave off the stage, twisting through the crowd, too faint to notice in the packed space.

“Please?”

Elara laughed. “Shut the fuck up,” she replied before cutting his throat with the blade.

Blood sprayed onto her face and neck, warm. Perhaps in another life she would have screamed at that, would have at least tremored. But Elara was numb with fury, not even bothering to wipe it as she turned on his brother. He was cowering in the corner, desperately trying to escape the ring, pulling himself up a swinging rope. But the crowd kept pushing him back in when he reached them, cheering and booing.

“Someone stop her,” the man screamed as he dropped back into the pit. Those screams were drowned out by the bloodthirsty spectators.

She cocked her head, observing him the way her Lion would his prey.

“Run,” she whispered.

The brother set off, sprinting across the ring to the other side and trying his luck with the crowd there.

She strolled along, one eye still on the scarred man who was creeping towards Astra, sticking to the shadows as though she wouldn’t notice him.

Focusing her attention back to the brother, she twirled her knife through the air, walking slowly, arrogantly, towards him.

“Please,” he was screaming. “Please, please, please.”

“Oh, darling. Manners rarely work with me,” she called out to him. He turned incredulously, fear in his eyes as her knife continued to swing.

“Please,” he screamed again to the crowd, and they laughed.

Realising he was cornered, he turned slowly, his fear transforming into anger. He grimaced as he raised his sword, and with a strangled cry, he ran at her.

Elara rolled her eyes, taking a grand step to the right as he barrelled on past her. She adjusted the curved knife in her hand as the brother veered around, running back at her. At the last moment, she ducked low, her knife sweeping in an arc as it sliced through both kneecaps. He screamed as sweetly as his brother as he crashed to the ground.

“This is too easy,” she said as he tried to pull himself up. It really was, embarrassingly so. Even Merissa, gods love her, could wield a sword better than those two imbeciles had.

She felt nothing as he begged for mercy, trying to claw his way across the sand away from her. She followed, taking her time until she caught up with him. And barely sparing him a glance, she drove her blade through his back, muscle and bone fighting against the sharp metal as she impaled it all the way through.

A small pool of blood spilt from his mouth. A cough, and the man was dead.

She pulled her blade out as the crowd taunted, though she ignored them all, strolling back across the dusty, blood-soaked sand of the pit. The screams and weeps of the men she had killed behind her fuelled her, the cheers and jeers above mere kindling to her rage.

Her eyes were locked on the larger man, the only one still standing now. He had left the brothers, backing away towards the corner of the pit where Astra was lying, too much blood soaking the floor beneath her.

But the wolf still had the strength within her to bare her teeth and growl as the scarred man approached, and he looked around nervously, back to Elara, weighing up his odds.

A wolf behind him, a monster in front.

Elara stopped dead in the centre of the pit as she assessed her opposition.

He was a big brute of a man, one who would exceed her in physical strength. What would her commander, Leo, do? He would assess the situation, take stock of the threat, his weapons, physicality, magick…

She squinted. Clearly magick was on a ban in this place, as none of the three men had been using it.

Her own leapt in her veins. Enzo would tell her to use it, to kill the man in one fell swoop. But Leo… Leo would be calculated, would remind her that there was a bigger picture at play.

No magick, no magick, no magick,she reminded herself. People may not know her face, but they’d sure as hell question Asterian magick in their midst. Let alone if her silver light finally decided to make an appearance. And though she wanted Eli to know who had killed the three men she was about to, she wasn’t keen on having the whole of Castor discover exactlywhoshe was.