Page 10 of Dance of the Phoenix
Chapter 5
Aileen
A couple dozen vampires now sat in the front row, awaiting their turn to show what they had. This shouldn’t have surprised me, considering that vampires saw the Hecatomb as a stepping stone to climb up the hierarchy of the vampiric society. And yet I was still dumbfounded when I saw that that many people, who weren’t even related to the Troop, were willing to put their lives on the line.
But the most surprising applicant was Zoey, who was sitting next to me.
“Are you sure?” I asked her for the tenth time since we’d found one another and sat together. “It’s only been a couple of days since you recovered—”
“I’m sure,” she cut me off, her jaw set stubbornly. “I’m feeling great. I can do this.”
Seeing how sickly thin she still was, I had my doubts. “Just ... don’t overexert yourself, okay?” Though I doubted she was in any shape to perform well enough to be voted for, just going onstage and participating in a long mock battle was bound to take its toll on her.
For the improvised show, each mock battle would be five minutes long instead of one. And, as if word had gotten out about what wasgoing on, the Auction Hall seemed even more packed than before, all the League members wanting to see their options, especially since the voting happened tomorrow, and a lot was at stake.
“It’s just five minutes,” Zoey now said. “I’m going to be fine.”
Pursing my lips, I agreed to disagree in silence. Zoey was a big girl. She’d been through a lot ever since she was sold to Renaldi, then rescued from the Jinn manor. She was entitled to have free choice.
I just wished she wouldn’t put herself in danger, especially after everything that had happened.
As the mock battles started taking place on the stage, I remembered a conversation I had with Zoey not long after Ragnor officially added her back to the Rayne League. I’d asked her why she’d been at the Jinn manor in the first place and not at the Renaldi League.
“When all hell broke loose at the gala, I used the chaos and ran away,” she’d told me, sipping blood in her infirmary bed. “But the Jinn found me and captured me. They took me to their mansion, where you later found me. They used me as sustenance.”
She’d talked about it with something akin to indifference. As if her fate at the Jinn mansion was far better than it would have been staying at the Renaldi League. While I knew from Isora and Eleanor, my former Atalon League suitemate, how bad the Renaldi League really was, in terms of how Lord Renaldi used his members for worse things than prostitution, I couldn’t imagine being kidnapped by the Jinn was preferable.
But perhaps that’s because I was used to doing those things Renaldi forced his female members to do—except for the prostitution part, that is.
Looking at Zoey now, eagerly waiting her turn to show what she’d got, stubborn determination etched in her face, I remembered her carefree, queen bee nature from before the Auction and couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She’d become a vampire with the hope of a better life than the one she’d led as a human.
And yet here she was, going through hardships she never could’ve imagined. Her brown eyes, once full of life, were now cold and detached.
“Just be careful,” I said now, wincing as a Common Troop member kicked the non-Troop applicant right in the chest, sending him back with a cry of agony. It hadn’t even been a minute, and the fight was already over.
Zoey didn’t respond. So I stopped talking.
Half an hour later, it was my former suitemate’s turn. When Kaylon called her name, she rose to her feet, adjusted her jeans and tee, and took the stage. Her Troop opponent was the woman who’d been CJ’s partner in their mock battle earlier. Lynnea, her name was.
My heart rate picked up as I watched the two circling one another once Kaylon called “Start.” I could only hope Zoey would be okay.
After a few long moments, in which the women seemed to size up one another, Lynnea made the first move. She jumped and shot a fist to Zoey’s face, but Zoey cocked her head and the punch went flying over her shoulder. Using that momentum, Zoey grabbed Lynnea’s upper arms and with almost no effort at all slammed her down on the stage with a loudthump. Lynnea groaned in pain but still moved her legs, trying to kick at Zoey, but Zoey used her thighs to pin her down, her hands around Lynnea’s wrists.
Lynnea growled and struggled under Zoey’s hold, but Zoey was immobile. It was such an odd sight, seeing Zoey, who was only now starting to gain weight after being skin and bones back when we found her at the Jinn mansion, holding down a taller, much more muscular woman who was also a member of the Troop.
Long seconds trickled by, filled with silence from the audience. No one cheered. No one clapped or called. In fact, I could swear I heard everyone’s heartbeats quickening as the realization of what we were all seeing dawned on us.
Zoey had bested a Troop member in less than ten seconds.
When Lynnea finally surrendered, Kaylon said into the mic, his voice a shocked murmur, “The winner is Zoey Rittman! Remember this name, ladies and gentlemen.”
After her display of absolute dominance in the mock battle, Zoey had just become a prime candidate to participate in the Hecatomb.
“Now, for the last mock battle of this wonderful show—Troop member Sulien versus Aileen Henderson!”
Déjà vu hit me when I climbed the stairs to the stage, only instead of an easel that dictated my entire vampiric existence, a man waited for me. This man, Sulien, had fought against CJ in the mock battle, I recalled. He had a lean, athletic build that was similar to Logan’s.
If I were in shape, I could’ve bested him. But unfortunately, it’d been a few months since I last had any sort of training. In fact, my last true physical training had been during PE class with Logan. Since then, I’d been busier learning my newfound powers.
