Page 7 of Filthy Beginnings

The consortium drew out the tournament over five long rotations to build interest and anticipation, but it was driving her to near madness.

Each waking hour of the first four rotations was filled with one-to-one fighting matches, with opponents assigned at random and the loser of each fight eliminated from the tournament. Those who tapped out during this stage of the tournament lost their pride and the chance for any prize winnings, but kept their lives.

By the end of the four rotations, only a hundred fighters would remain to take part in the premier cage fighting event.

The fifth rotation of the tournament, called the Elite 100, was different.

Unlike the earlier rounds, the main event took place in a separate arena, one even grander. Nicknamed the Cage, it held a pit in the center of the main stadium, with laser bars at the sides and ceiling, and enough seating for the hundreds of thousands of ticket buyers, as well those willing to pay top universal chits to have the action beamed into their homes across the galaxy.

The Elite 100 was a free-for-all brawl with no rules and no boundaries, where all combatants fought at once, whittling down their numbers however they could, until there was only one Alpha left standing.

Those who made it to the final sixteen fighters would win an impressive monetary haul. The final eight even more. But only the fighter brave and skilled enough to be the last combatant conscious in the ring would win her, fame, and enough money to make him rich as a planetary king.

Crash.

The sound of a body hitting the mats jerked Scarlett from her thoughts.

Damien’s opponent lay trapped on the ground in a figure-four leg choke. One of his four palms slapped the mat in submission. Damien won.

Relief thudded through her.

The fury she could feel inside him pulsed as hot as ever, but it hadn’t weakened him. His focus was as keen as ever.

All the other fighters were still grappling to win their match, including Stormhart and Verish.

Her gaze darted toward her brother, who stood tense, watching the favored Kadon Stormhart fight. Her brother’s hands fisted at his side, his arms twitching ever so slightly, as if he wanted to be out there himself.

But the consortium never allowed her brother to participate in the bigger tournaments.

Egan said it was because they needed his help with training, but they all knew the truth: the consortium had no intention of letting such a valuable commodity win enough prize money to bribe or buy his way to freedom.

Despite his tremendous strength, skills as a trainer, and new promotion, her brother Luc was still a pawn and a puppet like all consortium-owned commodities. Just like her.

“Next.” Egan’s command had another opponent hustling onto the mat as Damien resumed his fighting stance in one fluid motion—and took down that male in the blink of an eye.

He really was going to win it all.

Pride rushed through her. Hope too—until her gaze darted to Egan Avitus and she saw him looking up at her, a calculating smile spreading across his face.

Her stomach clenched.

She’d seen that same look on his face the rotation she met Damien.

3

Five lunar rotations ago… One rotation before the start of the tournament

“Take your look and then move on.” The head of her security team, Nars, shouted into the voice amplifier as he strutted down the line of bodies that had formed on the street in front of the training stadium entrance, the golden lights from the dome and the arena’s shining tinsel façade turning his green skin and matching tusks an even more putrid color. “You want more time with the prize? Win the tournament.”

Scarlett kept her head down, her arms overhead, her hips undulating back and forth as colors flickered across her body and onto the crystal barricade of her display case, each hulking form that trudged past to stare at her little more than an over-sized blur.

The start of the tournament was nerve-wracking—and she suspected it would only get more intense with each passing rotation.

Visitors always crowded the streets beneath the Golden Dome, known the galaxy-over as the city that never went dark, taking advantage of the casinos, fighting arenas, and pleasure houses open all rotation long. But the consortium-sponsored United Galactic Fighting Federation tournament was the greatest draw of all, bringing in hundreds of thousands of extra tourists and more fighters than usual.

It felt as if they’d all come to gawk at her at once.

Of course, that was the point—and why the consortium had placed her display case on a small dais directly in front of the arena entrance and ordered her to dance.