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.
And I don’t feel that at all, really. I don’t feel like strutting past their camp and looking down my nose at all of them just because I happened to take Ronan down today.
Oh, I’ll totally lord it over Ronan, especially for beating me out on that ad campaign, but I just don’t feel that same antipathy toward our Brevala enemies the way other members of my clan do.
What I am feeling is tired, though.
It’s been a long few days of competitions—which I won my fair share in the individuals—and even though my body recovered very quickly from the pummeling Ronan gave me, I’m a bit emotionally whipped. It was hard going up against someone like him, especially when he tended to jumble up my insides.
I walk through the tent, accepting more hugs and congratulations and giving my farewells for the evening. Tomorrow, we’ll be packing up and heading back to our respective homes. My family will go back to Brevala, and I’ll head back to Seattle and resume my life there.
As will Ronan.
Let it go, Eliana. Doesn’t matter if he’s in Seattle… there is nothing there to even think about.
And I resolutely believe this, despite my inner voice piping up. I would never have anything with Ronan. Our families are sworn enemies, so much so that death resulted from the last time a Meadowlander and a Bluff Dweller thought to have a canoodle in a lake. It doesn’t matter if either of us feel differently, we’re talking about a betrayal of blood and lineage. All the times we’d avenged my aunt Dahlia’s death would be for nothing if I were to even look kindly at Ronan.