This was so much worse than the other three competitions.
Across the field, the angel competitor pulled two feathers off her wings and sprinted toward the devil competitor. The devil turned and brandished a flame sword, but he was too late.
She slit his throat with the feathers.
He stumbled.
Fell over.
The angel stabbed both daggers through his neck and pinned the devil to the lawn. Then she sat down beside the body.
I blinked with surprise.
She warmed her hands over his sword. Then pulled the dead body up and over her for protection.
I stepped closer to Xerxes. What a savage woman.
I wished I’d thought of it.
The assassin and leviathan competitors whipped their heads back and forth frantically as they realized how dire the situation was.
My fingers throbbed from cold wounds.
“Think, use your brain!” Jinx’s voice screamed in my mind.
“D-D-Do you think-k-k she’ll sh-sh-share the sword-d-d?” I turned to Xerxes.
“No,” he said. “We need to keep our faces pointed downward so we don’t get glass in our eyes.” He wiped blood off his face ferociously. “And we need a plan.”
I nodded like I was thinking as I stared at the ground.
I had zero thoughts.
We were fucked.
Xerxes nudged me, and I realized he was expecting a plan. When did I become the mastermind of this operation?
I pressed bloody fingers against my temple.
Think, Aran.
We had no resources. The angel had just murdered the devil competitor. The three other competitors were going to get desperate, and desperate people were unpredictable.
We needed protection.
Think.
Wait, there was one resource we could use. I pointed to one of the towering posts on the edge of the arena.
Xerxes grunted in agreement as he understood my meaning.
I took a step backward and stopped as glass cut the bottom of my foot. Xerxes did the same and stilled.
We were about fifty feet away from the post.
“O-O-On three,” I said as I stared at the ground. I didn’t look up to see if Xerxes agreed with me.
I took a deep, fortifying breath.
“Three,” Xerxes said.
We sprinted forward with our faces tucked downward. Shards of glass particles whipped across our exposed skin. It was seconds, but it felt like minutes.
Finally, we collapsed in front of the post.
Trails of blood marked our path across the lawn.
The wind picked up, and we hunkered lower, the post offered a small amount of protection.
It was better than nothing.
I wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my face in my knees. “N-Now we w-w-wait,” I said.
The pinpricks of glass lessened, and I squinted.
Xerxes was sitting in front of me protectively.
“Y-You d-don’t have—”
“Keep your head down,” Xerxes ordered.
He wasn’t an alpha, but his tone had no room for argument, and I immediately complied.
With my bloody cheek smashed against my thigh, a warm feeling grew. Expanded. It filled my chest.
I was so grateful for Xerxes.
So glad I wasn’t facing this alone.
I was so used to living with the kings that I’d forgotten there were people in the world who helped others even if they weren’t close with them.
Glass particles fell from the sky; the temperature continued to drop; wind blew in a frenzy all around.
With nothing left to do but endure, I resumed counting.
And time crawled forward.
Painfully.
Four hours later my limbs were locked together with numbness and everything hurt from the constant weather conditions.
BOOOOOOOOOM. SHHHHHHHHKKKK.
My heart stopped beating at the sudden noise splitting the sky.
I jolted as agony streaked down my arm.
Looked up.
I immediately ducked my head because shards of glass the size of my fist were falling from the sky like daggers.
Pieces of glass piled around my bare feet.
The realm transformed into a crescendo of clattering noises.
I curled in on myself.
Xerxes moved until he was completely cocooning me with his body, and I huddled closer to him with appreciation.
He jerked like he’d been electrocuted, then swore as he ripped a glass shard from his shoulder.
I started to lean closer to him but stopped myself.
My stomach rolled.
Mind racing, my breath came out in shallow pants as the reality of our situation hammered through me.
I analyzed the situation and the pieces clicked together.
I realized what I had to.
For one last moment, I closed my eyes. Leaning forward I took advantage of Xerxes protecting me with his body.
“Do the righteous thing,” Jinx whispered in my head. “Don’t be a coward, you know what to do.”
I rocked back and forth.
“Don’t be a coward, Aran,” I whispered to myself. Don’t think. Just act.
I didn’t move.
Sometimes I hated my brain.
Xerxes jolted against me as another shard of glass buried into his skin.
We still had hours until the next morning.
I pressed numb fingers against my eyes and screamed silently. With situations like these, no wonder I was depressed.
I hunkered lower behind Xerxes.
Jinx’s voice was frantic in my mind. “You’re the bitch who ate her mother’s heart. You’re telling me under difficult circumstances, you can turn to cannibalism, yet you can’t do the right thing when it’s obvious? Embarrassing. You know what to do.”
Xerxes whimpered.
I did know.
I didn’t let myself think about it; I acted.
With numb fingers, I shoved the shifter off me.
I shoved away my protection.
Immediately, glass scoured my skin and sliced through my clothes. It burned. I bit down on my lower lip to swallow a shriek as stitches were sliced. Wounds reopened.
My eyes rolled back in my head.
I fell face forward.
“What are you doing? Get under me!” Xerxes yelled.
“Shift,” I whispered. In my experience, shifters could die from enchanted bullets, ice daggers, and blood loss followed by decapitation.
From the size of the glass shards, it was currently a genuine possibility that Xerxes could die.
He grabbed my arms and tried to pull me beneath him.
I resisted and said with more force, “Shift.” My voice was hard and held no room for argument.
“What?” He stilled.
We both knew that since he was an omega, he didn’t shift into a beast like his alpha mates. He shifted into a tiny cat.
His animal form was small enough that I could protect him.
Of course, that would leave me alone. Unsheltered.
Being able to analyze a situation didn’t mean I had to like the conclusions.
I locked my jaw and refused to stutter.
On frozen lips, I spat, “I can’t die out here. You can. Shift into your omega form right now. I’ll protect you.”
We both whimpered and ducked our heads as the glass fell faster from the sky.
Bloody shards lay in a pile around us.
Twitching and breathing roughly through my mouth, I shoved at the glass beside me until there was nothing but a patch of bloody, frost-covered grass.
“I’m not shifting,” Xerxes said roughly, then ruined it by shrieking through his teeth as a piece of glass protruded from the top of his skull. He ripped it out.
I was going to kill him.