Page 58 of Nansar
The horn sounded again—a sharp, piercing blast that seemed to cleave the very air itself.
The warriors exploded into motion.
My heart lurched violently as I watched Nansar dodge a vicious swing, his body moving with lethal grace as he countered with a strike that sent one male stumbling backward. But my attention was drawn to another figure moving through the chaos.
Kragath.
He was larger than the others, his muscles rippling beneath scarred skin as he dispatched one warrior with a savage blow that left the male face-down in the bloodied sand, unmoving.
The battle was chaos incarnate—beautiful and terrible in equal measure. Bodies collided with bone-jarring force, fists andfeet flying in a blur of violence that made my breath catch. Blood sprayed across the arena floor in crimson arcs. The crowd screamed their approval, a wall of sound that pressed against my eardrums until I thought they might burst.
One by one, they fell.
Nansar put down a warrior with a shaved head who went down hard, unconscious before he hit the ground. Another collapsed clutching his ribs, gasping for air that wouldn't come. Another took a devastating hit from Kragath and didn't get back up, his body crumpling like a puppet with cut strings.
Then there were three.
Then two.
Nansar and Kragath circled each other in the center of the arena, both breathing hard, both covered in blood—some their own, some not. The other warriors lay scattered around them like fallen monuments to violence and glory.
The crowd's roar somehow grew even louder, a living thing that wrapped around my throat.
Kragath's lips pulled back in a feral grin, his eyes flicking briefly to where I stood, finding me in the crowd with unerring accuracy. The message was clear, written in the cruel curve of his smile:When I win, you're mine.
My stomach twisted with dread so sharp it tasted like copper on my tongue.
The two males clashed with the force of a thunderstorm, and I felt the impact in my very bones.
Kragath was all raw power and brutal strength, a mountain given flesh and fury. Each blow he landed against Nansar's shield sounded like a clap of thunder, and I saw Nansar stagger under the impact, saw the way his body absorbed punishment that would have shattered lesser men. But Nansar...
Nansar was something else entirely.
Where Kragath was power, Nansar was precision. Where Kragath bulldozed forward like an avalanche, Nansar flowed like water over stone, redirecting momentum, finding openings that shouldn't exist in the spaces between heartbeats. He was faster, his movements economical and devastatingly efficient, every strike calculated and purposeful, a deadly dance I couldn't look away from.
But Kragath was bigger. Stronger. A massive fist caught Nansar in the ribs with a sickening crack, and I heard myself cry out, my voice lost in the roar of the crowd as he stumbled, pain flashing across his features.
No. No, no, no.
Kragath pressed his advantage, driving forward with a combination of strikes that would have felled a lesser warrior, each blow meant to maim, to break, to destroy. This wasn't just about winning anymore. I could see it in the savage gleam of Kragath's eyes, in the vicious intent behind every blow that made my blood run cold.
He was trying to kill Nansar.
Terror clawed at my throat with razor-sharp talons, but I couldn't look away, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but watch as the male I cared for fought for his life.
Nansar blocked, dodged, gave ground—but he was still on his feet. Still moving. Still fighting with everything he had.
Then something shifted in the air, electric and dangerous.
Nansar's eyes sharpened, his stance changing almost imperceptibly, like a cat tiring of playing with a mouse. He'd been studying Kragath, I realized with a jolt of understanding. Learning his patterns, his tells. Waiting for the right moment to strike.
It came when Kragath overextended on a powerful haymaker, his confidence making him sloppy.
Nansar moved like lightning. He slipped inside Kragath's guard with impossible speed, landing a precise strike to the larger male's solar plexus that drove the air from his lungs in an audible whoosh. Before Kragath could recover, before he could even process what had happened, Nansar swept his legs, using the bigger warrior's own momentum against him.
But Kragath didn't go down—not yet. He caught himself with a snarl of pure rage and came at Nansar again, seething with fury and wounded pride, more dangerous now than ever.
The next few minutes were the longest of my life.
