The crowd goes crazy, and I can’t help but grin.
I swing it off my spear so it lands several feet away, but before Eliana can make a play for it or conjure another weapon, I once again lunge at her defenseless body.
Should have worn a chest plate, I think as I aim to spear her right below her breastbone.
To my shock, Eliana turns her body to the side, so the spear brushes against the suede of her vest right at breast level, causing a collective gasp from the fans. But then Eliana locks her hands around the end just below the tip. She brings it down hard as she raises a knee, breaking the wooden shaft in the middle. Releasing the wooden piece, she keeps the more dangerous spike.
Now I have nothing but a three-foot-long stick of wood while she has the deadly end.
I’m impressed at how she doesn’t get rattled and instead turns a shit circumstance into gold for herself. I’m also impressed she wastes no time coming at me with the spike. I deflect her lunge, let her momentum carry her in closer, then lock my arm around her neck. Before she can angle the spear into my side, I punch down hard on her arm, and the makeshift weapon falls to the ground as she cries out in pain.
Fuck that tiny part of me that hated hurting her.
Also fuck that moment’s hesitation in going for the spear because when I finally make a play for it, she’s launching a sidekick that connects painfully to my ribs and knocks me back a few feet.
From the corner of my eye, I can see the spear is no more than five feet away from us. Either can make the dive that way.
Either can conjure another weapon.
We circle each other. When it’s clear neither are ready to end this, we lunge at each other for some hand-to-hand combat. Eliana is a brawler, and her punches and kicks are so fast I can barely see them to deflect.
But being stronger, I connect to the side of her head with a roundhouse punch. To a mortal woman, it would have knocked her unconscious.
Eliana merely shakes it off, snarling, “That the best you got?”
“You know the best I got,” I reply suggestively, and I about whoop with delight as her face turns beet red.
But only for a moment as she recovers her wits, shaking her head slightly. Knowing that no one can hear what we say to each other given the arena’s size and the crowd’s cheers, she smirks. “Yeah… not sure it was really the best. It was just passable, I’d say.”
I bark out a laugh because my ego is too big to even let that cut into me. “The amount of orgasms I gave you and the way you begged for more… well, I know that’s just not true.”
I expect a pithy reply, but it seems my response infuriates her—probably because she can’t handle the truth—and she flies at me.
We exchange more punches, kicks, and elbows, both getting in good licks.
None of which will hurt us.
“End it, end it, end it,” the crowd chants, and I have no clue who they want to win. They just want to see blood spilled, especially since it’s a Meadowlander and a Bluff Dweller fighting.
We pause in our volleys, deciding at the same time to give the crowd what they want. We simultaneously conjure long swords, and we raise them to clash against one another.
Eliana hammers at me, causing me to move back. Blow after blow, I’m in defense mode until it suddenly hits me that I’m not going on the offensive. Am I holding back for some strange reason because I have feelings for her?
Ridiculous.
I draw on those centuries upon centuries of hate between our clans, remembering this victory is important to them if only for bragging rights for the next one hundred years.
The next time her sword comes down on mine, I circle mine hard in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, hers caught up in the momentum of mine until mine comes out on top and hers is held down, the point stuck in the dirt. With her sword temporarily rendered useless, I launch a vicious backhand at her, catching her square in the chest. It actually lifts her off her feet, and she goes flying backward a good ten feet, her sword falling from her hands.
I’m stalking after her before she even hits the ground, intent on driving my weapon through her stomach, which will end the battle.
She lifts her head, and I can see I’ve knocked the wind out of her just a bit. My smile is victorious as I stand above her and raise the sword’s hilt with the pointed end aimed at her stomach.
My gaze moves to hers, and I expect to see defeat.
Instead, I see triumph, but I only get a flash of it before her legs whip around, kick into the backs of my knees, and force me to go sprawling on the ground.
Eliana rolls, I see her grab something—the damn spear end—and then she’s thrusting it out sideways, the fucking point sliding into the side of my abdomen like a knife through butter.
Fuck, that hurts, and I stare in shock at the black blood pouring out as she pulls it out.
A loud bell clangs, signaling the end of the battle, and it’s her judge sister Rishka who runs up to proclaim her the winner. Eliana stands and gazes down at me for a moment before Rishka nabs her wrist and raises her arm high into the air in victory. As the crowd roars and then starts to chant, “Eliana, Eliana, Eliana,” I push up from the ground and stand with a slight grunt of pain.
Holding my hand over my wound, which will easily be healed once I leave the field, I catch Eliana’s eyes as she and Rishka move together in a circle to acknowledge all sides of the arena.
I give her a nod, deep and thoughtful. A congratulations.
She gives me back the tiniest smile before I’m forgotten as she and her sister hug in delight.
I turn and walk off the battlefield, and, oddly, I’m not too bothered that I lost. I’ve beaten her before, and I’m sure I’ll beat her again.
She outperformed me tonight, using her cunning well.
Fuck if I don’t admire the hell out of it.
And she’s now won our bet.
I wonder when she’ll collect on it.
CHAPTER 8
Eliana
“To Eliana,” Rishka exclaims for what seems like the tenth time in the last hour. She hoists up her cup, filled with potent Faere liquor, and the rest of our clan does the same, echoing her cheer. “The fiercest, baddest Meadowlander warrior around. Besides me, of course.”
Everyone laughs, including me.
We’ve been celebrating for hours in our tent, the mood too jubilant not to rejoice in my victory over Ronan and the Bluff Dwellers. Bragging rights for the next hundred years, although it doesn’t erase the sting of him getting the ad account for Carrick Byrne.
I play the battle over in my head. It was well fought, and when he managed to dispatch my battle-ax so easily, there was a moment when I thought he might win.
It wasn’t anything that brought me shame or concern for losing to such a skilled warrior. No, my mind immediately went to our bet and the fact that if he won, his prize was to fuck me. I can’t be sure of it, but it seems my brain—deep in its darkest recesses—admitted that would not be such a bad thing.
But now, back around my people and my sister shouting my praises, lauding her pride in me, I know it would be a horrible idea to go back there again.
It would be… disloyal.
Didn’t mind being disloyal before though, did you? Over and over and over again.
Gods, I hate my conscience sometimes.
I move off from Rishka before she can toast my greatness again. It was nice the first few times, but now it’s just off-putting because she has never been all that proud of me before. It seems a bit disingenuous now because she’s floating on the high of beating the Bluff Dwellers as a whole.