Authors: Tracey O'Hara
Arena of Death
B
ianca wasn't prepared for the size of the arena below the surface or the noise level as she stepped through the veiled opening. A sound dampener spell kept the roar of the crowd from reaching the streets above. The cavern was as large as a football stadium and a natural amphitheatre. She couldn't see the center, only the teeming crowd surrounding a large pit, most yelling and cheering as they shook fists stuffed full of dollars.
All kinds made up the crowd, from ladies and gents to street gangsters and junkies.
“Head down,” McManus hissed out of the side of his mouth as he casually placed his hand on the back of her neck to keep her close.
That's right.
She was supposed to be his property.
He guided her through the crowd and nearer to the edge of the pit. Bianca assumed it would be a typical shadow combat match with illegal betting.
“KILL HER!” screamed a well-dressed woman dripping in diamonds. “RIP HER FUCKING THROAT OUT!”
The man with her, obviously her lover by the indulgent grin he wore and his possessive stance, reached around and tweaked her breast through the dress. Bianca's skin crawled. The ugliness of this place was even more vile than she imagined it would be.
Someone shoved against her. At first she thought it was an accident, but when it happened a second time, she felt something hard against her hip. She turned to find a man pressing himself against her. He leered and reached for her breast. She smacked his hand away and the leer turned nasty. His lips peeled back from yellowing teeth as he reached for her. She pulled her arm back and punched him hard in the mouth.
“Bitch,” he sneered, and raised his hand to her.
McManus stopped the downward descent mere inches from her face.
“Get your own whore,” he growled at the man.
The man grunted a derisive laugh and yanked his arm away. “She's too fucking skinny anyway.”
As he turned to leave, McManus spun him around and slammed him against the nearby wall, his knuckles white with the grip on the man's throat. Patrons turned from the game to watch the new entertainment unfolding outside the ring.
“What the fuck are you doing? She's only a whore,” the man gasped, his eyes bulging with fear and his face turning purple as he tried to pry open the iron grip.
“But she's
my
whore,” McManus said with murder in his eyes.
“Mine.”
“Stop it,” she said, tugging on his arm. “Let him go.”
But her pleas went unheard. If she didn't do something quickly, the man was going to choke to death. Bianca placed her hand against McManus's cheek and turned his face toward her. “Please, let him go.”
With his lips peeled back from his teeth in a feral sneer, his face was a stony murderous mask.
“Lance,” she said softly.
That seemed to reach him. His shoulders relaxed and he opened his fingers. The hapless man dropped to the floor gasping for air, then rose quickly and disappeared into the throng. McManus's fingertips bit into her flesh as he wrapped his hand around her upper arm and challenged the onlookers with a scowl. “Anyone else want a piece of this?”
With the sideshow obviously over, they all turned their attention back to the arena.
Bianca looked at him, stunned. She'd never seen him like this. Possessive and dark. It scared her more than a little. Not willing to take him on, the crowd opened a path and they edged closer to the arena. Pit was a good word for it because it was little else. Nothing like the complex layout of the official shadow-combat matches held in the purpose-built arenas. While the detective stopped to talk to someone, she placed her hands on the rim wall and watched the game below.
Four people were in the arena. One pair grappled on the far side near a large boulder, while the other pair was just below where she stood. A pretty female in tight black shorts and a blood-soaked white tank top torn across the bottom cringed against the wall of the arena. Blood also streaked her face. A half-naked male stalked toward her, knees bent and arms open to keep her cornered. He'd taken a few hits himself, by the look of the cuts and gore caking his upper torso.
The girl quickly glanced left, then right, fear etching her face as she sought an opening. It looked like she was about to lose the match.
Bianca suddenly realized the drooling male appeared to be a dreniac. The player was good. He had the twitchy mannerisms and the junkielike desperation down pat, and whoever had done his makeup was a genius.
He lunged at the woman, but she managed to duck under his arms into a tuck and roll, snatching up what looked to be a discarded kukri knife.
A confident grin had now replaced the apparent terror. She seemed very comfortable with the large curved blade and held it loose, ready to strike. The mock dreniac advanced on her again, a little more cautiously this time. Bianca found herself holding her breath in anticipation.
A heavy roar erupted up from the other side of the arena where the larger of the two males threw back his head and bellowed again as the humanoid creature he battled bit down hard on his forearm, the blood spraying them both.
The cry distracted the female for a split second, giving the dreniac the opening he needed to strike. He rushed her before she had time to recover and raise the kukri, his fangs extended as he knocked her down, pinning her knife hand to the ground by her wrist before bending in to rip out a huge chunk of flesh from her throat. The woman screamed as blood sprayed the sand beneath them and the male dipped his head and appeared to be drinking.
“Noooo,” the large man screamed from the other side of the pit.
He yanked back the creature's head, removing a chunk of flesh from his arm in the process. Then he transformed, his features twisting into those of a bear. A massive paw came down, long powerful claws slashed his opponent, and he bit into the creature's neck, completely severing the head, which rolled away.
Bianca straightened, her breath sucked back into her lungs.
The half-transformed ursian man discarded the body of his opponent and charged the female's attacker, reaching him in seconds. As he hauled the feeding dreniac off her body, he bought up another powerful paw and ripped the head off the creature's shoulders, throwing the pieces far and wide.
Then he dropped to his knees beside the woman's prone body and lifted her into his lap. Her hand twitched in a death spasm, as did her feet. Blood ran down her outstretched arm and dripped from the tip of her index finger onto the sand. He cried out and rocked back and forth, cradling her against him.
Oh no!
This was
not
theatrics. There was no makeup or special effects. The blood was real. The gore was real. This was
all
real.
Bianca let out a cry, her hands shaking as the reality set in. She grabbed McManus's hand. “She's dead.”
A man standing beside her smiled. “Great match.” Then frowned at her obvious horror.
“It's her first time,” McManus said to the man, and leaned in as if to kiss her neck. “Keep it together, Sin. Be strong.”
The man grinned and turned back to the action. Bianca's shaking increased. She couldn't stop it. He squeezed her hand gently and turned her back to the pit.
McManus ran his hand over her shoulders and leaned in once more, toward her neck. “Pull yourself together, Sin,” he whispered while his hands rolled down her body intimately. “This isn't the sanitized version of the game you know. It's the illegal version, fought by men and women forced into the shadow death match because they're slaves or owe money to some very nasty people. Only the victor walks away from this alive.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” she whispered back, finding his touch comforting and oddly arousing. “How can you let this happen?”
“Believe me, I've tried to shut it down a thousand times, but they're always one step ahead of the police. I'm sorry, you've been around law enforcement long enough, I thought you knew. Right now you have to suck it up and pretend it doesn't affect you. Can you do that?”
She pulled away and nodded, keeping her back to the pit. A roar erupted.
“What's happening?” she asked softly, not daring to look for herself.
“The cleaners are coming in to carry out the dead, but the bear won't let them near the girl.”
Bianca could hear the angry grief from the male in the pit and had to see. He'd returned to full human form, the dead girl's body still cradled in his arms, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“He loved her.” The first of the bodies were carried out of the arena as two other cleaners approached the grieving male. One reached for the girl, and received a large fist smashed into his face for his trouble. The next approached more cautiously, talking in calm tones, though she couldn't hear the exact words.
Another man came out of a door in the rock face, carrying a gun. The distraught male went back to hugging the dead woman against his chest, her arm sticking out and shaking with his movement.
“Come on. You don't want to see this, Bianca,” McManus whispered in her ear.
She blinked and turned to him. “What?” Something he said bugged her. It took her a few more seconds to realize it was the first time he'd ever used her first name.
His ice blue eyes held a compassion she'd rarely seen in him, the compassion he usually reserved for small children and the helpless. It was the second time she'd seen it in as many days.
The crowd erupted. Half cheered, while the other half jeered. Bianca looked back into the arena to see the ursian face down over the body of his dead lover, the cleaner standing over him with a gun.
McManus pulled her through the crowd away from the edge of the pit. She was too numb with shock to do anything but allow him to lead her away. He stopped so suddenly she almost ran into his back.
“If it isn't Detective McManus.” A cool smooth voice flowed over her and snapped her out of her state of shock.
McManus's grip loosened on her hand and he smiled back, if somewhat tense. “O'Shea. I didn't expect to see you down here.”
“You're looking sharp, Detective.” The expensively dressed man with dark hypnotic eyes smiled at her. “And if I'm not mistaken, this must be the eminent Bianca Sin.”
She'd never seen this man before. He took her hand and bent to kiss the back of her knuckles. He was all grace and charm, yet there was something fundamentally dangerous about him. But she felt he was nowhere near as dangerous as the slim man next to him. His dark waist-length hair fell forward as he kept McManus firmly in his sight with the coldest deep gray eyes she'd ever seen. They were the eyes of a predator, and he was very hungry.
“Bianca, this is Corey O'Shea, the CEO of O'Shea Freight and Logistics, and Sin Town's biggest drug lord, and his brother Seamus,” McManus explained, though he needn't have bothered. The O'Sheas' reputation for their stranglehold on most of the drugs, prostitution, and gun-running was notorious.
“You shouldn't listen to those nasty rumors, McManus,” the elegant man said.
“Oh they're far from rumors, O'Shea, and one day I'll prove it.”
Corey O'Shea's smile deepened, yet somehow he seemed even more menacing. She was wrongâthe slim man might be deadly, but the older brother was definitely more dangerous.
“Are you here looking for your cousin too, O'Shea?”
The man's gaze wandered up and down her body before he turned his attention back to McManus. “Fast Jimmy? Now why would I be doing that?” There was a strange lilt to the man's accent.
“Oh, I don't know.” McManus shoved his hands into his pockets and frowned. “I hear you two had a falling out, which, given that he's one of your biggest dealers in Sin Town, could be a bit of a problem for you?”
“I think you have me confused with someone else, Detective.” Corey's smile twisted. “Besides, Jimmy is family.”
“Enough games, O'Shea.” McManus stepped in, close and menacing. “Do you know where he is?”
Seamus O'Shea reached into the front of his black ankle-length leather jacket and took a step closer, but Corey placed his hand on his brother's chest and smiled. “The detective's only doing his job, Seamus.”
The slim man's black scowl still didn't leave McManus, his cold eyes showing no emotion as he obeyed his brother's command and stepped back, though he kept his hand inside his coat.
Corey turned to back to McManus. “I haven't seen my cousin in weeks. But if you find him, tell him that his family misses him and welcomes his return.”
“You mean he knows too much for you to let him go.”
“You wound me, McManus.”
“So you don't have any idea where we might find him?”
“Like I said, sorry.” O'Shea adjusted the front of his suit. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have another appointment to attend.” He took Bianca's hand, brushing the back of her fingers again with his lips and slipping his card into her palm at the same time. “If there is
anything
I can ever do for you . . . just call.”
Bianca didn't need her mother's succubus skills to recognize the wicked gleam of lust in the drug lord's eyes.
“Before you go,” McManus said harshly. “If you're not looking for Jimmy, then what are you doing down here?”
“Enjoying the show, Detective.” Corey's grin deepened. “Just enjoying the show.”
Bianca watched the O'Shea brothers walk away, followed by three more men in suits. As she started to turn away, she caught a girl watching them with interest. When she found Bianca looking at her, fear flared in her eyes, she dropped her gaze quickly and turned away, pushing through the crowd.
“McManus,” Bianca said, nodding in the retreating girl's direction.
The detective raced into action, catching her by the upper arm before she could get much farther. “Well now, Billy. Where's your supplier?”