“Yes—”

“Who does this woman belong to?” Lexi strutted out into the center of the open space, stopping beside the woman dragging herself along. Her face showed all the disappointment and annoyance she usually reserved for Daisy and Mordecai when they were caught doing something wrong.

Zander, walking down the side of the room with Juri on his arm, flinched at the outburst. Magnus turned in his seat, just barely, and glanced back at Kieran. That look was clear—Kieran was doing a piss-poor job of teaching Lexi to color inside the lines.

Right then, Kieran was feeling the press of that dagger’s edge beneath his feet.

9

Alexis

“Leave her be,” Zorn said in a low tone, standing off to the side with everyone else. The wounded woman was the only one on the battlefield, left there by her teammates.

I breathed slowly through my nose, trying to calm down.

So far, everything had seemed very organized inside the Summit building. A staff person had greeted us at the door and asked us to sign in so we could battle other teams in the few spacious courtyards. Upon learning who we were, he had looked us over, counted us up, and shepherded us off. The situation had seemed so mundane, so practiced, that I’d forgotten what sort of world I now lived in.

Three teams of people waited off to the side of the courtyard—our crew and our soon-to-be opponents, fresh and ready to do battle, plus this poor woman’s team. The others were bleeding and broken, too, but none of them had suffered as much damage.

Not a soul seemed to give a damn about her. It was the scene in the garden all over again, only this time no one had run away in fear—this time, they were watching the show.

What was with these magical people? There they waited, strong enough to carry their teammate but hanging out off to the side so she could drag herself off the battlefield.

Fire rose through my middle. Why would they want to demoralize a teammate? What possible good could come of it? I couldn’t imagine leaving Bria to drag herself away like this. Or Boman or Thane, or any of them. It was bullshit.

I rounded on her teammates. “Why don’t you help her?”

A man with a face like the bottom of a shoe after it stepped in dog poop sneered at me. “What business is it of yours?”

“Don’t you give a shit about her?” I demanded.

“She’s learning what it’s like to lose,” the man said, lacking an ounce of sympathy.

“No, what she’s learning is that she’s on her own. Do you know what that means?” I paused for a moment, this close to gripping his soul and forcing him to his knees. When he stared at me silently, arrogantly, humoring me, I continued. “It means your team won’t be a team at all—it’ll be a collection of individuals. When it comes to survival, each individual will only look out for number one. If that means another teammate goes down, well, at least it wasn’t them, huh? At least they weren’t the ones dragging their bleeding asses across the gravel.” I pointed down at her. “This makes you weak. All of you. This is a stupid and despicable thing for a team leader to allow. Are you that team leader?”

He continued to stare, looking at me like I was nothing.

Anger turned my vision red. The cats came to sit by my side. Laughter bubbled up, the situation so absurd I was momentarily at a loss for words.

“You’re a fool,” I spat out. “She’s not the only one who lost the practice fight. All of you did, you dumb shit. If we take care of our team today, they will take care of us tomorrow.” I shook my head. “I’d offer to find you in the halls to teach you a lesson—make you drag your stupid ass around— but none of you are up to it, clearly. If you ever want someone to ring your bell, though”—I spread my hands wide—“I volunteer.”

I sighed and looked down at the woman, her face incredibly pale. She’d lost a lot of blood.

“Jerry, help me,” I said. “She’s enormous.”

The woman lifted her bleary eyes to me, but she didn’t say anything. In her weakened state, it looked like it took everything she had not to pass out.

Jerry strutted out, all shoulder and brawn. When he met me beside the woman, his hard mask dissolved into one of sympathy. He helped me gently hoist her up, taking care not to touch her ripped-up limbs, and carried her to the side.

Absolute silence rang through the large area as I returned to the middle of the space, ready for battle. I was fired up now. I was ready to bust some heads. This place was ridiculous, the setup shameful, and now I wanted to let off some steam.

It took me a long moment to realize we had an audience. They’d been there the whole time, and I’d been so focused on all that blood, and all that pain, that I hadn’t noticed.

It took me another moment to realize Kieran was in that crowd, looking down on me with pride swelling through the link. Magnus was there, too, his mouth a thin line of disapproval.

I stared at Magnus for a moment, not backing down. If he considered doing the right thing weak or out of character for a magical person, then we’d just have to agree to disagree. Or, hell, maybe we could get in a loud, drunken argument at a holiday dinner. That would make us family if nothing else could.

“Now that you’re done making a show of yourself, can we get started?” Zorn asked as he stalked into what I now thought of as an arena.