Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 168

Chapter 168

Allison

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Evander barely has time to turn away from the pit before Rafe is already moving, sweeping down from his perch with the swagger of a man who believes he owns not just the room, but the breath inside every lung within it. He claps Evander on the back-hard enough that Evander’s body jolts forward and a pained sound escapes him-and Rafe doesn’t bother hiding his delight.

“That’s one,” he announces, voice carrying effortlessly over the roar of the cheering crowd, though his eyes slide straight past Evander and land unerringly on me, lingering with a glint that makes my stomach twist. “Now let’s see if you can win two.”

The way he says you makes it feel as though every success or failure belongs to me, as though my body is being pushed into this ring with every demand he places on them, as though my veins are tied to theirs by an invisible thread. Rafe’s focus drifts to Kael next. Kael’s answering expression is one long, slow, dangerous lift of his brow before he pushes off the railing and hops the barrier with the same unthinking grace one might use stepping over a puddle. His landing is silent, predatory, as though his boots drink the sound from the floor. Evander climbs out of the pit at the same time, but his legs are trembling. his breath uneven, his shoulder bleeding steadily through the torn fabric. I duck under his arm and haul it across my shoulders before he collapses under the weight of his own body, letting him lean on me as we stagger to the side of the arena wall.

“You’re an idiot,” I mutter under my breath.

“You’re welcome,” he mutters back, and the absurdity of the response nearly makes my eyes burn.

He’s heavy against me, heavier than he should be, not from size but from exhaustion. I lower him onto a crate, bracing him there with a hand on his back, refusing to let him fall.

But the crowd is already shifting, screaming, anticipating the next spectacle. When I look up, Kael is standing dead-centre in the pit, his shoulders loose, his stance relaxed, his eyes half-lidded in that deceptively bored way he gets right before he tears something apart. Rafe saunters toward the railing above him. lifting his arms high once more.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he croons, “your second contender of the evening-HELLHOUND.”

The word cuts the air cleanly, and a hush ripples through the Underhold. Hellhounds are whispered about, not witnessed. They are stories parents tell children to keep them from wandering into the woods at night. They are shadows with teeth. They are nightmares given form. And Kael looks up at that silence, lifts one corner of his mouth, and drinks it in like it was made for him. The gate across the pit slams open, and his opponent emerges with a low, vibrating growl that rolls across the arena floor. A panther shifter, one I have seen fight many times before. He is lithe where Kael is coiled, silent where Kael is simmering, eyes glowing a deadly, molten yellow as he assesses the hellhound standing before him. A perfect match of speed and brutality. My pulse trips but Kael doesn’t even blink.

Rafe, delighted, slams his hand against a metal post. “Try not to die.”

Then the bell rings again. And the world tilts.

The panther launches first-a blur so fast my eyes barely catch the arc of his movement before Kael is already airborne, flipping backward to avoid the first slash, landing light as smoke on the sand with a twisting skid that leaves claw marky missing him by inches. They collide a heartbeat later. Strike and counterstrike, claws against knuckles, teeth against grit, movement so fast and vicious it borders on art. The panther rakes across Kael’s ribs-blood sprays in a sharp red arc-and Kael responds not with retreat but with an explosive burst of forward momentum, driving his fist into the shifter’s jaw with a sickening crack. The panther spins with the force, recovers instantly, sweeps a leg toward Kael’s, but Kael jumps it, kicks downward, and forces the panther to stagger back. His grin is feral.

“Holy hell,” I whisper. “He’s not even warmed up.”

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17:14 Thu, Jan 1 d Mou

Chapter 168

Evander chuckles and winces as the movement, “Yeah, your man out there? He’s ruthless.”

He isn’t wrong. Kael moves like he isn’t fighting for his life, but like he’s dancing on a razor’s edge he forged himself, like every strike is a memory from a place none of us have ever seen. There is something in his movements that does not belong to Thornhill, or to the surface world, or to anything civilised. Like hell itself shaped him for this.

The panther lunges low-Kael leaps sideways, twists, grabs the shifter by the back of the neck, and slams his face into the sand hard enough that dust explodes upward in a choking cloud. The crowd screams. The panther’s claws drag across Kael’s thigh, slicing through muscle, but Kael barely reacts, his breath steady, his eyes gleaming with something wild and electric. He drives his knee into the panther’s ribs-once, twice, again-until the shifter snarls and slashes upward, forcing Kael back a step. Both are bleeding now. Both are panting. Both are terrifying. The panther shifts partially-jaw extending, muscles thickening, pupils turning to slits-and darts forward in a blur aimed directly for Kael’s throat. Kael meets him mid-air. He catches the shifter by the shoulders, slams him backward into the ground with a force that shakes the arena, and before the panther can recover, Kael’s fist cracks against his cheekbone, then again, then a third time, each blow heavier than the last, each hit fueled by something simmering just beneath his skin. A growl tears itself from Kael’s chest-deep, resonant, unmistakably hellhound-and the panther freezes under the sound, instincts overriding pride, obedience momentarily drowning out defiance. Kael shoves him down, one knee pressing into his spine, hand gripping the back of his skull in a silent, unmistakable command: Submit. The panther’s body stills. His claws retract. His breathing evens into shallow, miserable surrender. It’s over. Kael holds the position one beat longer, chest heaving, eyes burning with a heat I can feel from across the pit. Then he releases the panther with a shove and rises slowly, blood streaking down his torso, his knuckles raw, his lip split, but his posture straight, unwavering, victorious.

For one suspended moment, the entire Underhold stares. Then the explosion hits. Cheers. Screams. Stomping. Frenzy.

Rafe slams his hand on the railing, laughing like a man watching his profits triple in real time. “That,” he bellows, “is two!”

Kael glances toward me, brushing a smear of blood from his chin, and there’s something in his eyes I didn’t expect-something dark and bright and devastatingly alive, something that says he has not felt this free in a very long time.

Evander lets out a weak, pained laugh. “He fights like he’s got demons in his bones.”

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