Page 19 of Survivor
The platform began to rise.
My muscles twitched with the need for action. Why was the damn platform moving so slowly?
The platform finally reached the top. I leaped off it and ran around my pit and onto the walkway that led to Tide’s fighting ground. Tide was far below, and his opponent stood, head bowed, staring at him.
The crowd was buzzing as I stepped onto Tide’s platform. “Take me down!”
The pale-skinned creature manning this pit stared at me.
What the fuck was he waiting for. “Now!”
The platform began to move. Too slow. Too fucking slow. We were only a quarter of the way down when Tide’s opponent raised his head to look at me as if I was a freak.
“Fight means injury,” he said slowly.
“Fuck you. What did you do?” I leaped the final stretch between me and the ground. The pincer guy backed up as I approached, probably sensing the berserker within me rising to the surface. Yeah, I’d hurt him if Tide … No, don’t think like that.
I dropped to my knees by Tide’s body, gently grasped his shoulder, and rolled him onto his back. Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. His left eye was swollen, and his cheekbone was all puffy around a razor-sharp cut.
He’d caught a pincer to the face. My chest heaved with the need to do harm, and my vision momentarily blurred crimson. No. Not now. The berserker needed to chill. I needed to focus on Tide. I exhaled and inhaled deeply and squeezed my eyes shut. Back off. Back the fuck off.
“You okay?” Pincer guy asked.
A low, rumbling growl vibrated in my chest. My head whipped up to glare at Pincer guy as a feral roar tore out of my mouth. He blazed brightly in my vision, reds and blues and greens.
“Fuck.” He stumbled back, and exhilaration coursed through me.
Be afraid. Be fucking afraid, because I’m about to tear you limb from limb.
And then I caught sight of myself above him in the huge holoscreen. My face was contorted in a monstrous snarl, eyes blazing yellow in my tanned face.
This wasn’t me. That was the beast. The monster created by the Trads. I closed my eyes, listening to the pulse pounding in my head, and willed it to calm down.
Tide. I needed to be in control for Tide.
I opened my eyes to his face, serene and beautiful even with the injuries, and pressed my fingertips to his throat. There was a steady pulse, and his chest was moving, rising and falling evenly. He was alive. Thank God he was alive. The rush of relief was enough to put the beast inside back to sleep.
“Tide, please wake up.” My fingers hovered above his cheek. “Tide …”
His good eye fluttered open, and one silver iris looked up at me, dazed. “Did I win?”
A strangled laugh spilled from my lips. “No, but you survived. And that’s enough of a win.” I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips, and the crowd roared.
* * *
“Are you okay?” I held up three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Tide smiled wryly. “Three. I’m fine. Ego bruised, but fine.”
He was sitting on a stool with an ice bag pressed to the side of his face. The bar was on the same level as the pit and filled with fighters looking worse for wear. The swill they were serving smelled lethal but seemed to be going down well with the patrons. I supposed that was one way to dull the pain.
A shadow fell over us.
“You need to come with us,” a squat, leather-faced creature said.
Tide lowered the ice bag. “To see Braker Rock?”
“Now,” the leather dude said.
