Page 75 of Her Manticore Master
“Ready?” I grunt, feeling her slight weight against me.
“Yes,” she whispers into my ear, her voice a fierce, steady flame.
I let out a roar, a sound that is not human, but pure manticore. A declaration of war against this entire city, against the man who thought he could break us. And then I run.
I sprint toward the arena wall, my boots pounding the sand, ignoring the confused shouts of the guards, the sudden gasp of the crowd. They think I am charging the archers, a final, suicidal act of defiance. They are wrong.
I hit the base of the thirty-foot wall without slowing. My manticore strength, the raw, primal power that has been suppressed for so long, surges through me. My hands, no longer just human, find purchase. My fingers, tipped with the ghost of claws, dig into the tiny cracks and crevices in the stone. My legs, coiled with power, drive me upwards.
We are climbing.
The crowd’s gasp turns into a roar of shock and outrage. This is not part of the show. This is not in the script. The beast is breaking the cage.
“Hold on!” I bellow, the muscles in my back and shoulders screaming as I find another handhold, then another. The climb is a brutal, vertical battle. Loose stones skitter from beneath my feet, falling into the sudden, screaming chaos below. I can hear the sharp thwang of crossbows, the whistle of bolts slicing through the air around us. They are trying to shoot us down.
“Don’t look down,” I tell Corrina, though my own gaze is fixed on the opulent railing of Valdris’s box, now only ten feet above us.
“I’m not,” she says, her face buried against my neck, her grip unwavering. She is not a liability. She is my anchor. She is my strength.
With a final, desperate surge of strength, I heave myself upwards, my fingers catching the edge of the ornate railing. For a moment, I hang there, my body a pendulum of muscle and will against the sheer stone face. Then, with a roar, I vault over the railing and into the pit master’s box.
We land in a crouch amidst a scene of pure, silken luxury. Cushions, wine goblets, and the shocked, terrified faces of Valdris and his personal guards. For a heartbeat, there is only a stunned silence. The game has just come to them.
Valdris is the first to recover, his shock turning to a cold, reptilian fury. “You dare?” he hisses, his hand glowing with the sickly green light of chaos magic. “Kill him! Kill him now!”
His two guards, both skilled sorcerers, react. They begin to chant, their hands weaving intricate patterns in the air as they summon their power. But they are too slow. Magic requires thought, incantation. My rage does not.
I am a blur of motion, a force of pure, untempered violence. I am on Valdris before the first syllable of his spell is complete. My hand closes around his throat, lifting him from his feet, cutting off his magic and his arrogant words. His pale eyes are wide with a terror he has never known, the terror of a predator who has just become prey.
“This game is over,” I snarl, my face inches from his.
He struggles, his soft, well-manicured hands clawing uselessly at my iron grip. He is nothing without his power, without his guards. He is just a man. A cruel, pathetic man. As I hold him aloft, my free hand snatches a short, wicked-looking blade from the decorative weapons rack on the wall beside his throne. My twin. My vengeance.
“This is my freedom,” I growl.
And with a single, brutal twist, I snap his neck. There is a sharp, sickening crack that echoes in the sudden silence of the box. His body goes limp in my grasp. I drop him to the plush carpet like a sack of spoiled meat. The master of the games is dead.
The two guards stare in horror at their master’s corpse, their spells forgotten. Then their shock turns to a focused, magical fury. They turn their full power on me. A bolt of green energy slams into my chest, throwing me back a step, the magic a searing, corrosive pain. Another guard summons spectral blades that slice at my arms and legs. I am momentarily overwhelmed,the force of their combined assault staggering. I am strong, but I am not invincible.
“Ronan!” Corrina screams from my back.
And chaos erupts.
From the cushioned couches at the back of the box, the harem women act. It’s not a coordinated attack, but a desperate, furious explosion of rebellion. Zara, the woman who had taken Corrina’s place, hurls a heavy crystal decanter of wine at one guard’s head, shattering it against his skull and breaking his concentration. Another woman, one I don’t even know the name of, pulls a long, jeweled pin from her hair and stabs the other guard in the neck.
It’s not a battle they can win, but it’s a diversion. A precious few seconds of chaos bought with their own desperate courage. They are no longer pets. They are a rebellion.
“Go!” Zara screams at us, her face a mask of terror and triumph. “Run! Get out of here!”
Their cries are the only command I need. With Corrina still clinging to my back, my own blade in one hand and my newly acquired sword in the other, I fight my way through the flailing guards. I cut down one, shove the other into the path of a panicked noble, and then I am out of the box, leaping onto the crowded causeway of the upper stands.
The crowd screams and scatters before us, a wave of panic and confusion. I don’t stop. I don’t look back. With Corrina’s arms tight around my neck, a silent, trusting weight, I flee into the pandemonium of the city, not stopping for anything, the cries of a revolution I did not intend to start echoing behind us.
40
CORRINA
The memory of our escape is a frantic blur, ending with Ronan half-carrying me into this dusty sanctuary. He had insisted on removing the stiff, blood-soaked leather armor the moment we were safe, his fingers working gently but efficiently at the straps and buckles, peeling the gruesome second skin from my body. Now, clad only in the torn and stained remnants of my silk undertunic, I feel strangely exposed, the warrior stripped away to reveal the woman beneath.
