From the other side of the arena, Ace stared at the tunnel through which Tara had been dragged. That expression of sheer panic on her face haunted him.

  But there was certain death between him and those open tunnel doors.

  He had to get to her.

  He had to help her.

  He couldn’t let her die. Not on his watch. These people were his new team, like it or not, and it was his job to keep them safe.

  The wolf blocking his way shook its head, and its eyes snapped back into focus even as blood dripped from the hole he had ripped open in the base of its jaw. The damn thing charged, and in a furious dash, Ace did the same. He raised one fist to break its skull open. To finish this.

  At the last second, the beast darted to the right, and his fist connected with one of its crystal spikes instead of its jaw. Pain exploded up his arm as his bones shattered. The wolf’s momentum carried them both down, and they rolled across blood-slicked sand in a tangled heap.

  Together, they hit the arena wall hard. Ace felt his ribs crack, and the copper tang of blood filled his mouth.

  Ouch.

  The wolf’s crystal jaws snapped inches from his throat, its weight crushing him into the ground. Pure predatory instinct surged through him—the need to kill, to feed, to dominate. He fought it down, desperately holding onto his humanity as his broken hand scrabbled for purchase on the beast’s crystalline throat.

  “Careful, Sergeant,” the little girl’s voice whispered in his ear. “You don’t want to run low on HP now, do you? A little blood ought to fix you right up…”

  Gross.

  No fucking way.

  He wrestled with the wolf, a primal drive to sink his fangs into its flesh tunneling his senses. He resisted, but only barely.

  The thought of giving into his vampiric bloodlust disgusted him. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, however, that might be the only way to survive this nightmare.

  As long as the System was telling him the truth, of course, and he didn’t exactly trust her. For all he knew, she just wanted to trick him into doing something revolting.

  The sergeant’s biceps screamed in protest as the wild beast continued to snap at his throat. The wolf's crystal-studded body pressed down on him as it struggled to stand. Its claws slashed through his bicep, his chest, his thigh. It ripped him open bit by bit, and blood sprayed in wide arcs against the wall behind him. His broken hand screamed in protest as he gripped its throat, trying to keep those deadly jaws from his face. The beast's muscles rippled beneath its crystalline hide, its raw power held back only by his sheer determination not to die.

  Blood from the beast’s earlier wounds caked his hands and filled his head with a cloying sweetness that made his new instincts howl. His fangs ached, desperate to extend. To feed. To heal.

  No.

  He wouldn't give in. Not like this.

  The wolf's head snapped forward again. Ace jerked sideways, feeling its teeth graze his ear as it bit a hole in the stone where his head had been. The impact sent a jolt through the monster’s body, and for a moment, it was too dazed to do anything but stand there in slack-jawed silence.

  That was all he needed.

  Ace drove his knee up into the wolf's soft underbelly, and as it fell to the ground, he used the creature's own weight against it. It yelped and lurched upward. At the last moment, he twisted and rolled to his feet. His broken hand blazed with agony as he pushed off the ground, but he didn’t care.

  Yet again, he had narrowly avoided becoming dinner.

  The wolf recovered quickly, whirling to face him with a snarl that echoed off the arena walls. Blood—his blood—stained its crystal muzzle.

  "Getting tired yet?" the System chirped from somewhere above. "It's okay to take a little sip. Everyone does eventually!"

  Ace spat a mouthful of his blood into the sand. "Pass."

  The wolf's muscles bunched as it prepared to lunge. Ace’s hunger worsened. His body screamed for blood, for healing, for him to surrender to the monster he was becoming.

  Instead, he clenched his jaw and raised his fists.

  There had to be another way to heal.

  Raw instinct screamed at Ace to dodge as the wolf lunged yet again, but he stood his ground.

  This time, he had a plan.

  The beast slammed into him with bone-crushing force, its crystal teeth snapping for his throat, but he didn't try to wrestle or evade. He grabbed its upper and lower jaws with both hands, its sharp teeth and his broken fingers be damned.

  Pain exploded through his palms as jagged teeth pierced his palms. The wolf thrashed, trying to tear free. It didn’t work, and Ace's vampiric strength held firm. His blood ran down his arms in crimson rivers, but his grip never wavered.

  His muscles ached. His body trembled from sheer exertion. The wolf's head twisted violently, threatening to break free and rip apart his good hand. One wrong move, and those crystal teeth would take his head off.

  Fuck it.

  With a roar that was more monster than Marine, Ace pulled its jaws open. The wolf's joints creaked as it fought him, but it was no use. It slashed at his torso with its claws, and he took the blow without faltering. In his rushing adrenaline, he barely felt the pain anymore.

  Its eyes widened with something close to fear as understanding dawned.

  "That's right, you bastard." He bared his fangs in a feral grin. "Let's see what breaks first."

  The beast writhed desperately, but Ace's grip held firm. He poured every ounce of his new inhuman strength into his arms. The jaws gave, and he could feel tendons snapping. Its bones ground against each other. The wolf's crystalline jaw started to splinter.

  A high-pitched whine escaped the creature's throat.

  He felt no mercy.

  "Should've picked an easier target," he told it.

  With a final surge of power, Ace ripped the wolf's jaws apart. The sound of shattering crystal filled the arena as its lower jaw tore free in a spray of blood and broken teeth. The beast collapsed, its ruined head hitting the sand with a wet thud. Its body twitched in the lingering pain, but it didn’t try to stand.

  The crowd roared. Some booed, no doubt having lost a considerable sum on their bets, but he couldn’t have cared less.

  The System had wanted him to kill something, and by God, he had given her a show.

  Just like she wanted.

  Ace stood over the wolf’s twitching corpse. His chest heaved. Blood dripped from his hands. The broken beast’s jaw fell from his trembling fingers and landed in the sand with a soft thud. He took a deep breath to quell the surge of adrenaline and relief that followed his first kill in this wild new world.

  In a flash, a System Notification popped to life in front of him.

  ___________

  SYSTEM EVENT: Try Not to Die

  SUCCESS.

  First kill obtained. Go get ‘em, tiger.

  ___________

  "Now that's what I call thinking outside the box!" The System said cheerfully. "Though really, a quick bite would have made that so much easier."

  He wiped blood from his face, trying not to notice how good it smelled. "I'm not here to entertain you."

  She giggled. "But you do anyway! Ready for round two?"

  Ace's eyes narrowed as chorus of howls echoed through the arena. "Bring it on, princess."

  In his periphery, Marcus and Olivia stood back-to-back, frozen in fear and apparently trapped in indecision. The shifter stood beside them, his claws extended as he roared at the three wolves circling them. Victor whooped in victory from somewhere on the opposite side of the ring, his body blocked by the tall black pillars. Tara was nowhere to be seen, and Ace feared the worst.

  A circling wolf charged at Olivia, its crystal claws extended.

  With a herculean effort, he forced himself to run toward her. His breath caught in his throat, and though he tried to get back to his team, he was too far away.

  The wolf jumped.

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  “Die, you bastard!” Marcus shouted.

  The man lunged at it, his boots skidding on the sand and his arms flailing like broken windmills. His attack screamed amateur—weight on his heels, chin up, neck exposed, practically begging to be gutted. The crystal wolf didn’t even bother to dodge, but rather twisted its massive head a fraction to the left. Marcus’s fist whooshed through empty air, and the momentum spun him around like a drunk trying to dance.

  A rookie mistake.

  The kind that got people killed.

  The man’s foot caught on a broken stone sticking out of the sand, and he pitched forward, the ground rushing up to meet him. The wolf’s eyes followed his awkward fall. Its muzzle curled back as it snarled in victory, revealing rows of teeth that caught the torchlight like knives—the kind of grin predators got when dinner made itself easy.

  The wolf did not, however, slow down. As the sergeant charged toward his teammates, the monster quickly closed the gap between it and Olivia.

  A blur sped through the arena. The wolf lunged for Olivia’s throat—but Victor was suddenly there, moving with impossible speed. One heartbeat he was across the clearing, the next he was between them, a dark barrier of preternatural grace.

  More importantly, blood streamed from the merc’s fangs, and it seemed as though the man had made his first kill when Ace wasn’t looking.

  While the sergeant had fought to contain his predatory urges, Victor had apparently embraced them. The mercenary’s laugh carried an edge of pure joy as he drove his fist through the wolf’s crystalline hide, searching for vital organs with methodical precision.

  “Watch and learn, Blackwell!” Victor called out, his words nearly lost under the crack of breaking crystal. “The System gave us these gifts for a reason!”

  “Yeah, and the devil gave us fire for warmth,” Ace snarled back through gritted teeth, still running even as his body tried to recover. His broken bones hadn’t healed—he needed blood, needed to kill something. The hunger was a live wire through his core, demanding that he feed.

  Above them, the System’s girlish laughter rang out across the arena. “Oh, my reluctant hero! Still trying to save everyone? When are you going to wake up? It’s a vamp-eat-vamp world, my darling, and you’re currently in last place.”

  Ace tried to ignore her. He had to focus on the death games before him.

  With a quick glance around the arena, he tracked the remaining threats. He had killed one of the wolves, while Victor had killed six—well, seven, now.

  One had dragged Tara off into the darkness.

  As he ran toward his ever-dwindling team, the shifter dug his claws into one of the two remaining wolves’ eyes, and it went down hard. He raised his claws again and slashed its throat.

  Only one left—the alpha.

  Nearby, Marcus pushed himself back up again, blood streaming from a gash above his eye. He yelled in anger and pain, his entire attention focused squarely on the alpha. A wild rage pulled at the man’s features as he fought for control. Instead of circling back to regroup, he charged forward again like an absolute fucking boot.

  The gargantuan wolf saw him coming, obviously. One casual swipe of its tail sent him sprawling, and in an instant, all Marcus had managed to do was put everyone else at risk.

  “Stay down!” Ace shouted. “You’re making it worse!”

  “This won’t be where I die!” Marcus screamed back, his voice cracking.

  But no one was listening anymore. They couldn’t afford to do anything other than fend for themselves.

  Marcus tripped over another stone sticking out of the sand, evidently still off-balance from his failed attack. His shoulder slammed into Olivia’s back, knocking her out of her defensive stance just as the alpha struck.

  Olivia’s hair fluttered behind her from the force of the hit, and the beast snapped at the wayward curls. Her hair slipped through its teeth, and though it had missed, it carried on without looking back.

  It wasn’t after either Marcus nor Olivia.

  This time, it was headed for Rachel, and it had the perfect opening.

  The former CEO sat at the base of a pillar, sobbing, as the alpha lunged at her. It bit into her shoulder before Ace could reach her, those jagged teeth digging deep into her body with a slick squelch.

  Her scream cut through Ace’s skull like a razor.

  The alpha whipped its head side to side, its muscles bunching beneath that crystalline hide. Rachel’s body lifted off the ground as if she weighed nothing, and sprays of her blood arched through the flickering torchlight before she hit the floor with a wet thud.

  She didn’t get up.

  Ace’s vision tunneled, the world washing red as crimson droplets fell from the alpha’s translucent fangs. It snarled at her, the echoing thunder of its voice louder even than the bloodthirsty roar of the crowd. Each drop of her blood hit the sand with a soft plop. His own blood roared through his veins, drowning out everything except the need to tear that wolf apart.

  He was done with this.

  With the System.

  With the bloodlust.

  With this god-forsaken world that vile little gremlin had made.

  Something snapped in Ace’s mind. Training, vampirism, and protective instinct aligned for one perfect moment.

  The alpha’s crystalline hide caught torchlight as it leaned over Rachel’s limp body. She whimpered as she stared up at it, too wounded to stand. Blood—Rachel’s blood—stained its teeth crimson.

  A red haze of rage burned along the edges of Ace’s vision, his humanity replaced by something colder.

  Something deadlier.

  His vampiric senses unfurled, each nerve crackling with lethal awareness as he tracked every micro-movement the beast made. The slight bunch of its right haunches before it shifted its weight. The nearly imperceptible tilt of its head as it milked Rachel’s fear. The way its spikes refracted light in patterns that would have dazzled human eyes.

  But Ace wasn't human anymore.

  The wolf snarled and snapped at Rachel’s head. She screamed. In the same moment, Ace grabbed a loose rock off the ground and hurled it at the beast’s jaw. The rock slammed into its body with a sickening crack, and the alpha stumbled backward.

  Ace quickly closed the distance between them and, as it recovered, the monster turned its full attention on him.

  “That’s right, you jackass,” Ace muttered as a sinister smile spread across his face. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  The wolf stalked toward him, each deliberate step sinking into the sand as it circled him. He matched the wolf’s movements, each of his steps every bit as careful. The dance of predators. His boots made no sound on the sand, and he had finally found that supernatural grace that had eluded him since turning. Every breath brought him data—the metallic tang of Rachel’s blood, the cold sweat staining Marcus’s collar, the subtle changes in air as the alpha’s bulk displaced it.

  The wolf’s crystalline hide might’ve been virtually impenetrable, but Ace noticed subtle gaps between the glittering plates whenever it moved. Structural weaknesses. Points of leverage. His training merged with his new instincts, and for the first time since awakening in this nightmare world, the internal conflict within him quieted.

  The alpha’s muscles coiled—another tell. Its back leg scraped against a loose stone protruding from the sand as it prepared to launch at him.

  Ace’s lips curled into a predator’s smile. He was ready.

  Let it come.

  The alpha lunged, exactly as Ace had predicted. Time stretched on as his vampiric senses tracked every crystalline plate, every ripple of otherworldly muscle. The beast was beautiful in its deadly grace, a prismatic meteor of fang and fury.

  But Ace had already won. The alpha just didn't know it yet.

  He pivoted, not away from the attack but into it. His good hand shot out, his fingers finding that precise gap between shoulder plates he'd identified earlier. Crystal spikes bit into his palm, but in the rush of adrenaline, he barely felt it. His fingers curled around the edge of the spiky plate, his grip firm, and he used the wolf's own momentum to throw it off course. He torqued his body in a move that would've shattered a human's shoulders, but he barely felt the strain.

  With a yelp of surprise, the alpha's trajectory changed as he turned its savage grace against it. It stumbled sideways, and before it could recover, Ace's other hand found its jaw. His boots settled into the sand as he channeled the beast's forward momentum up and around, his muscles burning with inhuman strength.

  The sound it made when he slammed it into the nearest obsidian pillar wasn't quite natural. Spiderweb cracks raced through its spiky hide, catching torchlight like frozen lightning. The wolf thrashed, but Ace's grip never faltered. He could feel its pulse hammering against his palms. He could smell its alien fear.

  "Just die," Ace snarled.

  He drove his knee up into the already-compromised plates at a forty-five-degree angle, targeting the intersection where three crystal segments met at the beast's sternum. The impact sent fractures racing through its thick armor. The alpha's howl cut off as the plates separated, creating a gap wide enough for Ace's fingers to dig their way in.

  His good hand plunged through the beast’s skin, his newfound strength letting him push past the crystalline edges that would have severed human tendons. His fingers found something beneath the armor that felt like braided steel cable—muscle or tendon, he couldn't tell. All he cared about was whether or not it was vital, and if he had guessed correctly, this was the damn thing’s heart.

  His grip locked around it. One sharp twist to the right, and it ripped. He yelled with fury and pain, and he pulled on it as hard as he could. There was a wet snap, and the wolf’s head arched backward in pain.

  In his hand, he held its heart—just like the System had held David’s barely an hour before.

  The beast collapsed. Its back legs spasmed, an autonomic response as its nervous system misfired. Two kicks, then stillness.

  Silence fell across the crowd.

  Exhausted and broken, Ace stumbled, and his shoulder slammed against the nearest blood-slicked pillar. His lungs burned as if he'd just run a marathon in full combat gear. The dead alpha's heart slowly dissolved in his grip, its bloodsoaked edges catching the dim light before it melted into crimson mist that snaked its way into his skin.

  He didn’t care.

  He had to get to Tara.

  Before he could push off the pillar, however, a brutal jolt of pain shot through him.

  It hit without warning. His skull felt like it was being carved open from the inside. His body screamed in protest, but he had no idea what was happening. He dropped to one knee, his teeth grinding together as something fundamental shifted in his very core. His vision blurred and then sharpened with crystalline clarity, until even the shadows at the far end of the chamber were suddenly as clear as daylight.

  The changes rippled outward. His fingernails hardened and extended with a swish, like unsheathing blades, and they transformed into obsidian claws that caught the torchlight. His fangs lengthened, and the pressure in his jaw built until his fangs clicked into their new configuration with an audible snap.

  "What... what the hell?" Ace managed, flexing his transformed hands.

  The System materialized beside him, her child-like form perched on the alpha's corpse as casually as if it were a park bench. She swung her legs, humming a tune that sounded disturbingly like "Pop Goes the Weasel."

  “What did you do to me?!” he demanded.

  “Nothing, silly,” she said with a little chuckled. “Each kill changes you, remember? That's what makes this so fun!”

  He stared down at his palms, and as the pain still blistered through his brain, he winced in agony.

  “You wanted better weapons,” the little terror continued. “Well, now you've got them. Alpha wolves are known for their armor-piercing capabilities. Try it out!"

  Though he hated to indulge her—he had to find Tara, after all—figuring out his new powers could mean the difference between life and death.

  Ace eyed the pillar behind him, and after a moment of deliberation, he swung. His new claws sliced through the stone like it was foam, carving out a chunk that would have taken demolition charges to rip loose in his previous life.

  "Not bad," he admitted.

  The sliced edges were glass-smooth, and he hadn't felt even a hint of resistance or pain. A cold smile tugged at his lips as he imagined what these could do to the next monster that crossed his path.

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to the murdering,” the System said with a happy giggle. “Ta ta for now.”

  And with that, she disappeared into thin air.

  Ace stood over the alpha’s corpse, and his shadow stretched across the glittering crystal shards that still covered its back. Blood—some of it his, some of it the alpha's—dripped from his fingertips in a slow cadence that plopped rhythmically into the sand beneath his feet. Steam rose from the wolf’s cooling corpse, carrying with it the sharp tang of copper and rust.

  Blood.

  So much blood.

  The crowd's silence held a different quality now. Not fear, exactly. Something deeper. More primal.

  Recognition.

  They weren't watching a newly-turned vampire anymore. They were waiting to see what he would become.

  And he was just getting started.

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