Page 26 of Feral
I grabbed him and pulled him close, rubbing a reassuring hand on his back. “No one would hurt the children, Darius. I’m sure they’re somewhere safe. The only blood here is Bonnie’s.”
I tried to reassure myself that the words were true. The Manix were many things, but we didn’t kill children. They’d kicked them around a bit in the old days, but we were past that. I was sure we were past that.
When Corvin reappeared, he shook his head. “No one was there either, but there was the blood of the Alpha General’s Omega out the back. Pryce.”
This wasn’t right. I didn’t care how many times the other Alphas fought for power, there were too few Omega—too few Manix, even—to endanger them this way. What the hell was going on?
“Call Radic. Or Murphy. Call someone and find out what the hell is going on,” Darius said, his voice wavering. Corvin nodded, pulling his phone from his pocket and stepping back outside.
I pulled Darius back into my arms. “It will be okay, Omega. It will all be okay.” He was staring at the pool of blood on the floor. Judging by the coolness of the blood, it was an hour or more old.
“Thanks, man. I owe you one,” Corvin muttered into the phone as he walked back into the room. His face was grim, and I knew I wasn’t going to like this. “The Alpha fight is happening now at the Arena. We need to get down there. Someone is saying that they’ve hobbled the Alpha General to stack the odds.”
Fear washed through me. Fear of the unknown, fear for my friends and family. Fear that we would be shunted back to the old days, where the Sanctum kids were seen as less, and your worth was based on your bloodlines and designation.
Everything I thought I knew about the Manix was turning out to be wrong. And that scared me most of all.
I’d attendedthe last Alpha battle, when Courtland De Léon had taken down Alpha General Huxley. The old Alpha had reigned for all of my life, and I’d disliked the man and everything he stood for. Racial purity. Money. Power.
However, the vibe was far different at this Alpha fight. The crowd was dead silent as Legion soldiers dropped the mangled body of the Alpha General in the center of the ring. Even from here, I could see that his knees were well and truly fucked.
We kept Darius between Corvin and I, to protect him if things went crazy. As I looked around at the faces of the people of Maxton, all I saw was worry. Worry and fear. Eldridge, a Legion General and close friend of the former Alpha General, stood in the center of the ring, giving a speech about his greatness.
“We can’t let this happen,” Corvin said softly, but I hushed him. Maxton had been divided. I couldn’t tell who of these people—people I’d known for my whole life—were loyal to Eldridge, and who had put their faith in the new Alpha General.
I shook my head. “We can’t stop it,” I whispered back, though it hurt me to say it. We could dive in there to protect the Alpha General, but the result would still be the same. He’d still lose his position. And there was a chance we’d lose our lives on top of it. Call me selfish, but I wasn’t nearly as strong as the Alpha General, or even just a Legion General.
And then they were fighting. The true strength of Courtland De Léon was on display, because he kept Eldridge on the back foot even without the use of his legs. He had to be in incredible pain.
“This is wrong!” someone yelled, and I looked over to see Doc arguing with one of Wilkie’s Betas. Fuck.
“Stay with Darius,” I told Corvin, moving toward them. Doc wasn’t going to just lie down and bare his belly to the Legion soldiers; he’d never had that much respect for the institution. However, now was not the time to invoke that fight. Not while everyone’s blood was up. Not while violence and bloodlust hung in the air like a bad perfume.
I pushed through the crowd, shoving shocked bystanders out of the way as I heard Doc continuing to shout. “Get the hell out of my way, or so help me Goddess, I’ll make you piss blood for a month.”
The Beta just laughed. “I have to warn you, stepping foot into that ring would be a bad idea.” It wasn’t a warning. He was goading him.
And Doc was going to dive headlong into the trap.
Doc spun on his heel, stepping into the ring, pulling a gun from who knows where and firing.
“Doc, no!” I yelled, but I was too late. The Legion soldier swung a sword, slicing off Doc’s head with shocking ease.
I gasped as it rolled across the ground, shocked. The shock turned to confusion as I watched a vampire appear from nowhere, and stick his fist into the Beta’s chest, removing his heart.
Gatlin appeared beside me, panting, his eyes wide. “Fuck. No,” he breathed, and I looked at the horror show in front of me. The vampire moved quickly so he was beside Courtland’s prone body. Dominic, the Alpha General’s wolf Beta, was there next to him.
It was carnage. Eldridge’s head was in pieces, Doc’s beside him. Vampires appeared from nowhere, and the entire arena was locked down tight, making every person inside of it anxious. You didn’t fuck with the vampires. It was a life lesson taught right around the same age as ‘don’t eat the yellow snow.’
The vampire with the scary face—still coated in the blood of the Beta—disappeared out of the arena with our wounded Alpha General in his arms.
This was a nightmare. I pushed back toward Corvin and Darius, barging past people who were gaping at the blood-soaked sand in shock. I could see Corvin standing, Darius pressed between his back and the wall of the arena. Corvin’s eyes were wild, and he looked seconds from shifting. But he didn’t, not with so many vampires around. They were our friends, or at least that's what they’d told us. But still, friendships ended, sometimes in the bloodiest ways possible.
“We need to get out of here,” I said, stepping behind him and grabbing Darius by the arm.
We didn’t get far, as Raine—Convocation Member, vampire, and if rumor had it correct, bakery owner—appeared in the center of the arena.
“Well, we’ve rightly fucked this up, haven’t we? Honestly, I expected better from you.” She managed to give us the look a disappointed mother would give an unruly child, which was a true feat if you considered the fact that she looked like a preppy eighteen year old. “Go home. I’ll catch up with those who made a poor choice today.” She gave us all a smile that sent shivers down my spine, and I hadn’t even done anything wrong. “Trust me when I say, we’ll know. We always know.”
