His father was bare to the waist. His powerful muscles bulged along his arms as he held them aloft and acknowledged the love thrown at him. Behind Santos, Merlin stood half-hidden in shadow.
“You can bet your ass he’s juiced up Father with something nasty.” Zane’s harsh voice penetrated the shouts from below as Logan exhaled. The nervous tension in his gut burned and twisted, but Logan had been around long enough to know he was better off feasting on whatever energy he could.
He nodded, though his eyes never left those of his father’s. Santos’s gaze was fiery crimson and it glowed, emphasized by the light cast by the torches that were hung around the entire chamber. The heat in the arena was incredible. The energy palpable. The decadence unprecedented.
“Are you sure you don’t want the cocktail?” Zane asked quietly.
Logan glanced over his shoulder at his brother and shook his head. “No.” Zane cursed him out something fierce but he ignored him. When his brother was done, Logan clasped his shoulders. “It’s enough that you’re here. I can’t chance an adverse reaction to whatever the hell it is you procured from Seth. I don’t trust him and you shouldn’t either.”
He stared at his brother for several moments, hoping Zane would understand. He would defeat Santos, but he’d do it using his own fuel—hatred and vengeance.
Zane’s eyes stared back at him until Logan looked away, hating the emotion that clogged his throat.
A horn sounded, a shrill echo into the darkness.
“All right,” Zane said softly, eyes ahead on the cage several hundred feet away in the middle of the chamber. “Let’s do this.”
Logan started forward but was yanked back, hard, into his brother’s embrace. “Kick his ass, understand?” Zane whispered fiercely.
All he could muster was a nod, and then Logan broke away and stepped out onto the catwalk. Below him he saw the fires that burned near each and every viewing chamber. The arena was filled to bursting, and from the sound of things, everyone was here to see Santos beat his own son back into the pit.
Logan pushed all sound from his mind. He glanced to his left, his gaze sliding over Lilith as she stood in her chamber, her naked body glistening. Seth the Golden sat at her side, and on the other side was Samael. He paid attention to neither; instead, his gaze rested on the young boy in Kraghten’s arms.
The child stared at Logan, his eyes filled with tears and something else. The child knew that Logan was his only hope, and as Logan watched, the boy raised his small hand and waved. It was a tentative motion but one that pulled at his heartstrings.
It was the only magical potion Logan needed. He nodded to the boy and turned to face his father. And then he stepped into the cage.
For one second the roar of the crowd disappeared as did the darkness and pain. Kira’s face drifted in front of him. Her warmth and smile. Her strength and spirit.
“Get ready, babe,” Logan whispered hoarsely. “I’m coming home.”
Santos entered the cage from the opposite side and the world fell away. Logan saw nothing but the man he hated above all others. The man who had soiled and hurt his mother. The man who stood between Logan and freedom. Between Logan and Kira.
“Welcome, one and all.” A small dwarf of a demon shuffled into the middle of the cage, appearing from nowhere it seemed. His voice was amplified, and everyone quieted as the keeper of the chamber gazed below. The small demon was cloaked in gray, his snakelike features almost nonexistent as his shiny black eyes and razorlike teeth glinted in the firelight.
“We have an unprecedented fight today. Overlord Santos has been challenged by his son, Logan Winters.”
He waited for the sudden burst of noise to die down a bit before he continued. “The rules are simple. Each hellhound must retain human form in the cage, and only one leaves.”
No sooner had the demon uttered his last word then he disappeared, leaving only Logan and his father inside the cage.
Santos charged immediately, throwing his hands out as if casting a net, and Logan barely had time to twist out of the way. As it was he took a glancing blow off the side of the head and staggered, blinded, as searing hot liquid burned his eyes, no doubt fueled by whatever it was Santos had flung his way.
A snarl sounded to his left but he had no time to defend himself as his father beat him savagely. He took a flurry of hits to his ribs, and it was only because his father pulled away that the beating stopped.
He couldn’t see shit and swore as he flailed madly, trying to gain his footing and not doing a very good job of it. He stumbled backward, hissing as his shoulders connected with razor-sharp spikes that erupted from the shell of the cage.
Santos was there in an instant, his breath hot against Logan’s cheek as he pushed his son into the spikes even harder. They tore through his flesh, leeching into muscle and reaching bone. The pain was so intense that for a moment Logan felt his sanity bleeding away. It felt as if a thousand tiny knives were on fire inside him, worming into his soul, infiltrating his veins, and searing him from the inside out.
The poison from the spikes was excruciating.
“You think to challenge me?” Santos raged. “In what realm would you ever triumph? You’re as pathetic as your mother.”
Logan grunted with the effort it took to push the pain away
. He reached deep inside himself for the cold, calculating, and lethal bastard he knew was there. Breathing heavily, it took everything inside him to push his father away and he staggered to his right, clutching at the cage until he could center himself.
Santos didn’t attack right away. Like a cat toying with a mouse, he reveled in Logan’s pain. Reveled in the noise of the crowd and the adulation thrown his way. He strode around the cage like he owned it, gesturing madly as the roars and screams from the spectators crept up several more decibels.