Piper Cross, an undercover spy, must relive her past as a child gladiator in order to bring the underground arena to justice.
*****
Growing up gladiator is brutal. The cells are cramped...
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It was dark when I woke strapped to a table, still suffocating under the impossible pressure of Colden's will. My claws sprang free and I thrashed like a beached fish, gasping for breath as I fought my way free of the bindings, shredding through them like they were flimsy... sheets.
They were sheets, I realised as I stood amidst a pile of tattered fabric on the bed, the frayed edges tickling my ankles. The mattress was atrociously soft, sucking at my bare feet as I reached for the bedside lamp, only to pull back at the last second. I was clearly back in Colden's cottage, and I didn't want him to know that I was up. Unless I'd already made too much noise...
I needed to know where he was, and there was only one way to find out.
Planting my ear against the door, I held my breath and strained my senses for a mark of where he was in the house — or even better, if I was alone. The crackling fire in the lounge made it difficult to discern a heartbeat, but I could have sworn I heard the distant turn of a page, paper rasping against paper.
My blood ran cold. I backed away from the door, heading straight for the window. I couldn't risk another confrontation with Colden; he'd made it perfectly clear that he could crush my mind like a grape, possessing a conviction so impossibly stout that his dominance squashed my resistance in a matter of seconds. I wasn't sure why he was so convinced of our storybook love, but the obsessive fantasy had granted him power beyond my wildest imagination.
It explained so much in retrospect: how he'd risen to power at such a young age; how he'd managed to keep it without having to lift a finger. I had no doubt I was the better fighter, but Colden was cunning; he'd already proven that he wouldn't even give me a chance to settle things by tooth and nail.
The window was a mosaic, the coloured panes set in iron brackets, arranged in the shape of a wolf howling at a single sphere of colourless glass that perfectly encapsulated the full moon outside. Night again already, I thought bitterly. My mouth turned down at how much time had gotten away from me, pulled out from under my feet like a rug. What had Ethan suffered in our time apart?
I'll find him, I thought, slotting my fingernails under the edge of the bracket, trying to pry the artwork out as a single piece. If I could slip through the window unnoticed... if I could get to the trunk of my car and call Bjorn for reinforcements...
The smell of burning keratin preceded a slow prickle of pain as the iron frame ate through my callouses. I frowned and stood back, eying first the black smudge on my fingertips, then the gleaming shine on the frame where they'd been.
"Silver," I mouthed, eyes widening as I realised the extent of Colden's betrayal. How much of it was hidden in plain sight? I crept into the ensuite and crouched by the wall furthest from the bedroom door, poking a hole into the plaster with one of my claws. It sank into spongey insulation at first, but sure enough, the point started to crumple when it came into contact with a layer of fine silver mesh.
