Chapter 20: Late Never Looked This Dangerous

Nova tore through the locker room like a woman with thirty seconds and zero options.

Her cloak was gone. Because of course it was.

The hook where she’d left it was empty. There was nothing on the floor or bench either. She looked twice because panic makes you dumb. Still gone. Looking a third time would make her insane so she stopped.

Nope. Gone. Someone had taken it or it had walked out on its own and honestly either explanation tracked for the kind of day she was having.

Her breathing shortened. Then it shortened again. Then it left the building entirely and what replaced it was the high-pitched whistle of a chest that had forgotten how lungs worked. She braced both hands on the sink and forced air through her teeth because wheezing in a slave tunnel was a luxury she couldn’t afford and her body was trying to cash a check her schedule wouldn’t cover.

She splashed water on her face like it was going to fix something. Once for the tears. Twice for the panic. Three times because the first two hadn’t done a goddamn thing.

She looked up at herself in the mirror and stopped.

Bruised face. Swollen lip. Red eyes.

Her hair was in loose curls, thick and white, spilling down past her waist. The bruise on her cheek had bloomed into something dark and vivid against her skin, climbing along the bone in a way that made her eyes look greener by contrast. Her lip was swollen on one side, flushed with blood that hadn’t quite decided if it was staying or leaving.

She looked like she’d been through a war. It was working for her in a deeply fucked up way. That’s what she told herself because the alternative was crying again and she had already hit her quota.

The bruise gave her face an edge that the cloak had been hiding all day. The hair was doing things she couldn’t explain and didn’t have time to question. It was the kind of accidental combination that shouldn’t have worked but did.

The runes on the tunnel walls flashed blue and the elder’s voice filled the corridor.

It was starting already.

"Shoot."

Shoot was doing the work of seventeen worse words.

She moved through the slave tunnel, to the mouth that opened on the arena floor. Her stomach sank.

Every slave was already in formation. Two rows stretching across the sand in clean parallel lines, at least five hundred women standing shoulder to shoulder with their heads forward and their hands at their sides.

She was late. Visibly, inexcusably, undeniably late. Fan-fucking-tastic. Walking across open sand to find her spot was her only option and front and center for the entire arena to see. Alpha Starborne would catch it and see no cloak. Every elder on the floor would see it.

Every slave head turned to her at the same time.

Two rows. Over one thousand women’s eyes landed on her in a single synchronized rotation that had no business being that coordinated and was anyway.

No signal passed between them. No whisper traveled down the line. They just turned, together, like a flock changing direction mid-flight because something in the wind told them to.

Most of the audience was still talking amongst themselves. If any of them noticed one thousand heads move at once, they were quiet about it.

The front row stepped forward in unison. No command. No cue. Five-hundred women took a single step into the sand at the same time, opening a gap between the rows wide enough for one person to pass through without drawing a single additional pair of eyes.

That step was the most dangerous thing any of them had done today and they took it like breathing. It was the most aggressive act of kindness Nova had ever witnessed.

Nova gave a single nod. Her throat was too tight for anything else.

She walked between them with her head up because they had earned that from her. Every woman on either side had just risked something she couldn’t repay, and the least she could give them was a girl who was not a coward. One who deserved to walk the corridor they had built.

She could feel every single one as she passed them. Not their eyes. Their decision. The decision to move. The decision to risk. The decision to look at a bruised girl and say: you do not walk alone.

Second row. Back center. Her spot was waiting for her like it had been holding its breath.

As soon as she settled into formation, the front row stepped back in unison.

And just like that, one thousand women stood in perfect rows like nothing had happened. It was the greatest magic trick in Moonfire history that no one witnessed. But every slave on that sand knew exactly what just happened and would carry it in her chest for as long as she lived.

An elder walking the line glanced in her direction and stopped. He seemed visibly surprised.

Nova wasn’t sure if it was because of the bruise, the swollen lip, the red eyes that said she’d been crying because she had, or if it was because her hair had chosen today of all days to be gorgeous.

All of the above. That was what she was going to go with.

He lingered for half a second longer than protocol required. She gave him nothing. He moved on. He would survive.

Across the arena, the tunnel on the opposite side opened and the omegas came out first.

The crowd perked up like someone had rung a dinner bell. Nothing said sacred ceremony like ten thousand wolves salivating over women walking in formation. Very holy.

Cheers rolled through the stands as the women crossed the sand in formation. These were the ones the audience had come to root for and place bets on. Higher-ranked contestants followed. Betas. Gammas. Warriors’ daughters. Each wave carried louder applause than the last.