Alpha Betrayed: A Dark Shifter Romance

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I stand at the edge of the arena, just outside the glare of the lights, my fists clenched and my heart racing.

This

is it. My one shot.

If I f**k this up, I might not get another one.

In two years of blood, pain, and torture, this is the only fight venue that's ever been open to the elements. We usually battle underground, in basements and abandoned parking garages with concrete and earth above us to muffle the screams. The screams of the crowd, mostly.

Men fighting to the death don't make as much noise as you might think. Just grunts, groans, the occasional wail of agony, and more cries for their mothers than I imagined possible before I was sold into this dark world.

As my name is called over the loudspeaker and the crowd cheers in anticipation of the final battle of the night, I think of my own mother. As much as it hurt to lose her, I'm glad she's dead. I'm glad she'll never see what I've become or know how many men I had to slaughter to fight my way back to the throne at the edge of the sea.

Mythrone.

It will be mine, no matter what I have to do to wrench it from that bitch's soft, privileged hands. She'll have a small army guarding her, no doubt, but that's the one good thing about being forced to rip other men apart in the ring for years. My body is a weapon, a loaded gun with one target-Princess Juliet Lilliana Zion.

I will destroy her and take back everything she's stolen.

But first, I'll make her suffer. I'll strip away her humanity until she's nothing but an animal in a cage. I'll teach her what it's like to beg for food and shelter and relief from the pain, and then I'll show her how it feels to know no one is coming to save you. The only way out is to save yourself.

But Juliet doesn't have what it takes to survive something like this. She'll die in captivity, and I'll hold a party to celebrate the death of the woman who put me through hell. This is hell. No doubt in my mind.

As I stride out into the arena still in my shackles, adrenaline rocketing through my veins when I spot the massive, silver-haired man they've picked for me to fight tonight, my mind flashes back to all the other battles. I see the other men that were forced into the arena with me, all the innocent people I've killed so that I could survive long enough to reach this moment. This chance.

Tonight, I escape for all of us and bring some small meaning to the death and suffering.

The announcer shouts over the loudspeaker, "Place your final bets, ladies and gentlemen! It's your last chance to choose your champion. Emrick the Gray, the scourge of Norway, or Ford the Bloodthirsty, winner of over one hundred battles and counting." He chuckles and my skin crawls. "I know which one I'd choose."

"Do us proud, boy, and I'll be sure you get the good stuff tonight," Tap, my handler says as he bends to remove the chains around my ankles.

By the "good stuff" he means the serious drugs, the sedatives that will keep me unconscious through the first day or two of healing. When I put on a good show, I'm granted the blessing of sleeping through the worst of the pain. When I don't, they keep me awake through the setting of bones and the superpowered steroids they pump into my veins to make me heal in time for the next fight. The steroids make me feel like my brain is on fire and angry scorpions have been set loose beneath my skin. They make some men go mad.

They might have done the same to me if I didn't have my "why."

Nietzsche once said, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Men at war survive the horrors of the trenches to honor their beloved country. Men in concentration camps survived by imagining how good it would be to kiss their wives and hold their children.

I have survived for justice. And revenge.

As the buzzer wails and the crowd roars with anticipation, I charge forward. But instead of tearing into Emrick the Gray, I leap over his head. As I fly through the air, I shift just the tips of my hands, sending sharp claws bursting through the skin above my knuckles. I hit the scarred, wooden wall with enough force for my claws to gain purchase and charge upward, using every bit of hard-earned muscle to build momentum until I'm surging over the top of the barrier and into the first rows of the balcony.

I feel soft flesh and brittle human bone beneath me, but keep going, surging toward the exit tunnel to my left and the smell of outside air.

The arena fills with gasps and screams of terror as a voice over the loudspeaker calls for the guards to block the exits, but it's too late.

I'm already running down the tunnel and bursting out onto a gritty San Diego city street. I smell fresh corn tortillas and a whiff of the sea but turn away from those scents toward the hum of the freeway buzzing not far away. I'll run as far as I can, then hitch a ride north. I have money stashed in a small bank in Washington state and friends who will be grateful to know I'm alive.

I will escape and I will rise.

And then I will show Princess Juliet what a bad idea it was to cross me.

It's a decision she'll regret for every second of what's left of her short, miserable life.