Last One Standing

My knuckles hit the cold limestone wall as I turned on my heel, pacing the narrow length of the pen for the hundredth time. The rough stone tore at my skin, but the sting barely registered against the fire burning in my chest.

They had taken Seryna up to the surface two days in a row. In all the months I had been locked in this underground hole, that had never happened to any fighter. The rules here were ruthless, but they were predictable. We fought once a week. If we survived, the guards shoved cold rations through the bars and left us to heal until the next scheduled slaughter.

Dragging her to the lift today meant only one thing. The Commander wanted her dead. Seryna had defied every betting line they set for her. The wealthy patrons up in the private suites kept pouring their money into wagers against her, expecting an exotic female captive to break under the weight of heavier brutes, and she kept sending their champions back down in butcher bags. She had become an intolerable drain on the syndicate’s books. When high rollers lost millions, the Commander fixed the outcome.

I gripped the iron bars of my door, pressing my forehead against the rust-bitten metal. Far above, beyond the vaulted stone ceilings and iron service catwalks, the arena floor vibrated under thousands of stomping boots. The opening bouts did not take long. The screams muffled by sand and timber died out within ten minutes each, accompanied by the dull thud of heavy bodies hitting the perimeter wall.

Neither of those fights belonged to Seryna or the tiger. The crowd always demanded a blood spectacle from the heavyweights, and the handlers saved us for the end of the card.

The rumble of the hydraulic lift sounded again, followed twenty minutes later by a ferocious cascade of snarls that echoed down through the ventilation grates. I listened intently, separating the sounds. One of the beasts was Tark Zhar. I knew the rasping, thunderous roar of the massive Siberian tiger shifter by heart. The other voice was unfamiliar. It was deeper, rougher, carrying a dry, guttural resonance that shook the mortar between my cell bricks. It sounded feline, yet broader and more territorial than Tark Zhar’s sharp fury.

The clash lasted half an hour. The iron ceiling shuddered under the impact of heavy bodies slamming into the timber barriers. Up above, the spectators shrieked with manic delight, chanting for blood until a definitive, bone-crushing snap cut through the noise. A final roar shook the dust loose from my ceiling, followed by the deafening roar of the audience.

Ten minutes later, boots scuffled along the lower corridor. Four guards wheeled Tark Zhar past my cell in a reinforced transport cage. Fresh blood dripped from his striped flanks, his breath coming in ragged, steaming gasps. The guards used iron poles to shove a dented aluminum tray of raw meat right against his paws before locking him into his dark pen.

I tracked their movements with narrow eyes. Yesterday, when Seryna returned from her bout with the Kodiak bear, they had dropped her tray near the edge of the corridor, forcing her to reach through the bars with bruised, torn arms just to scrape up a meal. They had wanted her starving. Now, they were treating the tiger like an investment they needed to keep intact.

I turned back to the corridor, waiting for the familiar metallic screech that would announce Seryna’s match. Minutes bled together. The damp, chilled air of the dungeon smelled of stale sweat, dried blood, and stagnant ditch water.

The roar never came. Instead, the brassy crackle of the arena loudspeaker boomed through the stone shafts, carrying the announcer’s nasal voice down to the holding blocks. He declared the afternoon card complete, inviting the patrons to clear the stands and prepare their wallets for an exclusive premier event the following Saturday.

My pulse jumped into my throat. If her match was canceled, where had they taken her?

I paced back to the perimeter bars, flaring my nostrils as I sampled the draft drifting down the long row of cells. Amid the stink of mold and wet rust, a distinct, warm sweetness cut through the filth. It smelled like cedar woodsmoke and toasted marshmallows, rich and intoxicating. My wolf shifted restlessly beneath my skin, clawing at my ribs. She was close.

"What do you mean my fight is canceled?" Seryna’s voice rang out from the end of the passage, sharp and furious.

Her boots struck the flagstones in quick, hard beats. The section chief walked beside her, his hand wrapped around the chain linking her wrist cuffs. He was not dragging her. She was walking under her own power, her posture straight, her tunic torn from yesterday’s fight but showing no fresh crimson stains. She had not stepped onto the sand today.

I caught the iron bars with both hands, my eyes locked on her as they reached the cage across from mine.

"The boss said it is off, so it is off." The chief shoved her into her cell with enough force to make her stumble against the dividing partition.

The chief paused in front of my door, running a greasy tongue over his split lower lip. He turned his yellowed gaze on me, his toothless grin revealing dark, rotting stumps. He smelled like a bloated carcass left to cook on a midsummer highway.

"The Commander has got a real treat lined up for next weekend. I put three months of pay on you, big boy. You better not let me down."

"What kind of treat?" I kept my voice flat, holding his gaze without blinking.

The chief glanced down both ends of the row, verifying that the other wardens were out of earshot. He stepped in closer, stopping just outside arm's reach. Every guard in the facility knew better than to come within grabbing distance of my bars.

"The Commander is staging a four-way blood match next Saturday. The top four killers in the complex, locked in the sand together until only one walks out alive. The tickets start at ten grand a chair in the bleachers, and the VIP boxes went for fifty. I get to watch from the gate for free."

A sickening chill settled into my gut. Four champions. One survivor.

"You can snap that little bitch in half without breaking a sweat. You do that for me, and I will slip you extra beef every day for a whole month." The chief tapped his shock baton against his thigh with a satisfied smirk, convinced he had offered me the deal of a lifetime.

He turned his back and sauntered toward the exit, whistling a discordant tune that faded into the dripping quiet of the hall.

I shifted to the side of my cell, leaning against the cold iron dividers that separated my space from Seryna’s. She stood near her own wall, rubbing the red friction burns where the cuffs had pinched her skin.

"Are you hurt?" I asked softly.

Seryna met my eyes, her expression taut and composed. "I am fine. So, it will be you, me, the tiger, and the lion."

"A lion?"

"A pride of African lions," she answered, leaning her shoulder against the iron grate. "Two brothers. Tark Zhar fought one of them today. He killed the first male, but the second one was supposed to be waiting for me when they pushed me up the ramp."

The puzzle pieces fell into place with brutal clarity. "They scheduled you for extermination. Two apex predators in twenty-four hours was meant to finish you off."

"I know." Seryna offered a faint, dry shrug. "I suppose going out in an arena brawl is as dignified an end as I was ever going to get in this hole."

I dropped into a crouch, bringing my face level with hers between the narrow upright bars. "You are not dying in that pit. We will find another way out of this."

"There is an easy way out, Kaelen, but it requires me to kill you. And I will not do that."

"I will never raise a weapon against you." The vow left my lips before I could temper the heat in my voice.

Seryna studied my face, the tension around her mouth softening into a sad, quiet smile. "You are not the one the high rollers want dead, Kaelen. If we walk out there and refuse to tear each other apart, the snipers on the catwalks will put three rounds through my skull before you can blink. You survive; I lose. Either way, the Commander gets his payout." She glanced past my shoulder toward the dark holding stall where Tark Zhar lay resting. "Besides, I do not want to butcher the tiger either. I have grown used to our grumpy neighbor."

"That is reassuring to hear." Tark Zhar’s voice rose from the shadows of his cage.

The heavy shifter sat up against his back wall, his massive shoulders rolling as he shook the arena dust from his dark hair. Dried blood crusted across his broad chest, but his amber eyes gleamed with razor-sharp awareness.

"There might be an alternative," the tiger continued, resting his forearms across his thick knees. "Provided we can bring the surviving lion into our confidence."

"What kind of alternative?" I asked.

"I have the bones of an idea," Tark Zhar said, tilting his head toward the distant entrance. "Keep your voices down. We can speak when the night crew takes over."

Heavy, hurried bootsteps echoed along the corridor before he could say another word. The section chief rounded the corner carrying a rusted metal tray stacked with three tin bowls. He stopped before my gate, using his boot to shove the first bowl beneath the lower bar.

"Eat up, boy," he grunted.

He took three paces to the right, sliding the second bowl across the threshold of Seryna’s door with an exaggerated clatter. "For the lady."

He moved to the third cell and kicked the final bowl toward Tark Zhar. "And one for the striped bastard."

Down the hall, an emaciated coyote shifter rattled his cage door with trembling hands. "What about the rest of us? We haven't had water since yesterday morning!"

"You aren't on the championship card, runt. You get scrapings when you fight. If you don't fight, you can chew on the stone floor until you drop." The chief spat onto the flagstones and turned toward the guard station, his heavy keys jingling at his belt.

I looked down at the food he had given me. It was raw, sinewy beef, cold and graying around the edges, but untainted by any sharp chemical odor.

Across the bars, Seryna knelt before her bowl. She leaned down, drawing the scent into her lungs, and her entire frame went rigid. Before the chief reached the heavy iron gate at the end of the row, she drew her foot back and kicked the tin tray through the bars with explosive force. The bowl slammed into the corridor wall, splattering chunks of gray flesh and milky liquid across the floor.

"You poisoned this," Seryna said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register.

The chief stopped, turning slowly on his heels. He folded his thick arms over his belly, grinning with open amusement. "Direct orders from the front office, girlie. The Commander wants you weak on your feet by Saturday. Can't have you hopping around the sand like a flea when the real fighters go to work."

"If your boss wants me dead, why not withhold the food entirely?" Seryna demanded.

"Because you're too damned stubborn. Starving you doesn't slow you down enough, and the odds are too tight. Like I told your friend here, my savings are riding on him." The chief pointed a blunt, grimy finger in my direction before chuckling under his breath.

A dry snort came from Tark Zhar’s cell. The tiger shifter leaned his head back against the wall, his broad chest rising and falling in silent, mocking laughter. He had seen me fight, and he was nearly double my mass. The chief’s faith in my victory was rooted in ignorance, not fact.

In the cage directly adjacent to Seryna’s, a starving, hollow-cheeked hyena shifter thrust his skinny arms through the bars, frantically scraping the spilled meat from the floor. He stuffed the gray chunks into his mouth, choking on the gristle in his desperation to swallow.

Seryna watched him with a grim, pitying expression, slowly shaking her head. The chief offered one last sneer before pushing through the heavy iron security door, locking it behind him with a sharp clank.

I picked up my tin bowl, stood, and walked over to the shared bars separating our enclosures. I sank to the floor, resting my back against the rusted iron rods right beside her.

"Take half of mine," I said, setting the bowl directly between our cells.

Seryna did not look down. "You need every calorie, Kaelen. You cannot carry dead weight into that ring next week."

"We are going into that sand together, and you are not facing them on an empty stomach." I pushed the bowl an inch closer to her knee, keeping my hand flat beside it. "Eat."

She stared at the raw meat for a long, quiet moment. The fire in her dark eyes flickered, softened by something deeper than defiance, before she reached through the bars and picked up a thick cut of the beef.

Only after she began to chew did I take my own share. We sat in the cold shadows of the block, our shoulders nearly touching through the iron grates, eating in unbroken silence while the stone walls held the gathering storm at bay.