Hock stalks toward me, muscles rippling with each prowling step, his neck slashed with deep, ruddy indents to match his eyes—the whites now stained red from his choking strain. Making him look wild.
Rabid.
“Gúide,” he growls, which must mean submit because Saiza’s screaming it from the sidelines. “Gúide, Kholu.”
“Fuck you,” I slur, spitting a wad of blood on the ground, my lids threatening to slam shut. “And my name’s Raeve, you corrupt piece of shit.”
He grunts, lunging. Cracks his fist against my jaw so fast I barely realize I’m falling, watching the strings of skulls sift by in rapid motion, until I collide with the ground. All the breath erupts from my lungs, and I cough, hacking for breath. Trying to scramble to my feet again—
He straddles me, his dense weight packed upon my hips.
I thread my hand up his right thigh and work my fingers past the gaping leather, into the long slice Zaran created earlier with his rounded sword.
Hock roars, snatching my wrist, then the other. He pins them to the ground above my head, the beating gong somehow tilling the air with its harrowing throb, dashing sand into my eyes.
The back of Hock’s hand collides with my cheek with such force the entire world rips sideways, my head snapping with the motion, mouth lax and caked with sand.
My body shuts down from the hurt. The pain.
The ability to move.
“Gúide.”
I’d rather die than be bound to him against my will. The Fate Herder must surely know that.
That creature brought me here—to this very moment—knowing I’ll never submit. Meaning this …
This is an assassination.
Of me.
Definitely should’ve bowed.
“Gúide!” he repeats—a slashing command that shreds the air.
“Fuck … you,” I puff through bloody clumps of sand.
Fuck the Fate Herder.
Fuck everything.
A laugh crumbles up my throat as he fists my hair so tight I’m certain he’s about to tear big clumps from my scalp. Using it to lift my head again, he scowls down at me. My vision splits, converges.
Splits again.
That gong continues to beat, harder and harder, until the entire arena is a swirl of pulsing wind and sand.
I continue to laugh in Hock’s face, even as he raises his other hand—
A shadow eclipses the sun.
A roar cleaves the air.
Hock tips his head to the sky, his hand still set to strike me as a Sabersythe soars into view, dragging its monstrous claw through the crisscross of skull-laden ropes and ripping them skyward.
Skulls rain, pelting the sand like mini moonfalls.
Folk scream, but my pulse screams louder.
I’m certain I’m seeing things as Rygun drops upon the crater’s lip with a ground-shuddering thump. As Kaan uses Rygun’s ropes to propel himself down into the dip, shirtless but for his own málmr hanging around his neck, his beautiful face ripped with the wrath of a million maddened men.
I’m certain I’m seeing things as Kaan’s boots thump upon the ground. As he crunches his hands into fists, stalking toward me with footfalls that seem to shake the world while his lips shape words I recognize, the tendons in his neck straining as he wrestles with Bulder’s dialect.
I’m certain I’m seeing things as the crater begins to shake, a slash of relief almost severing me in two despite the massive crack weaving across the ground. Despite the way those ember eyes are locked on me—scarcely dressed, sprawled across the sand beneath another male intent on claiming the right to bind with me …
Probably not a good time to commend him on his hunting skills, but damn—it’s tempting.
Kaan dominates the crater, each long stride hailed by another shake of the ground, his body a tower of rippling brawn dappled with sweat that glistens in the sun, his scars pale against the rusty surrounds.
His hair is pulled back, sooty brows pinched above his savage stare that clings to me. That casts a cord between my ribs, down into the depths of my icy internal lake where it snags something heavy and thrashing that I can’t quite glimpse.
I begin to tremble, my teeth clanking together so hard I’m surprised they don’t shatter. I blame it on the fact that my skull is probably on the verge of cracking. It’s certainly not something deeper. I’m not shaking like an egg threatening to hatch from this overwhelming surge of relief now packing my chest full. Relief that he’s here. With me.
That—
It’s definitely not that.
Every other clan member aside from Hock smacks their fists to their chests four times, the thumping clamor filling the crater with a drone of respect. Kaan does it once—a vision of ruin and rage.