Tempting Evil (Riley Jenson Guardian #3)(26)

He thrust out a hand and I shook it. His fingers were rough, textured by time, grime, and probably years of hard work. He didn’t seem the type to work for scum like Starr, which was an odd thing to think about someone I’d barely met. For all I knew, Tommy could be Starr’s uncle. “I’m Poppy. Thanks.”
He took Kade inside, and I headed back to my room to clean up. Neither Berna nor Nerida were there, but my bag was sitting on my bed. A quick check revealed that my clothes and underclothes had disappeared, but all my toiletries remained. Grateful for small mercies, I headed into the bathroom to clean up. Surprise, surprise, there were cameras here, too. I couldn’t see any microphones, though. Maybe they figured not a lot of nasty talk could happen in a bathroom—which only went to prove the installers were men. All women know just how nasty bathroom conversation can get—especially when it centered on men. Though, given the man behind this whole weird show wasn’t exactly chummy with linear lines of thought, maybe he just didn’t care.By the time I got back to the bedroom, Berna and Nerida were both there, the still-clothed bear-shifter prowling the room like a caged animal and the overall-clad fox-shifter lounging on her bed, reading Cleo. The cream overalls were extremely tight and left very little to the imagination, making me wonder why she bothered. Hell, her breasts were so tightly packed they were stretching the material to the max, making the pocket—and the gray and white hanky sticking out of it—stand out like, well, dogs’ balls. If she thought the overalls would draw less attention, she was seriously delirious.
Both of them were studiously ignoring me, so I returned the favor and headed over to my bed to open the window. Fresh air drifted in, touched by the coolness of the oncoming night. But aside from the snorting or stamping of horses and the occasional crunch of a guard’s footsteps, very little noise carried on the breeze. All the normal dusk sounds—like the warbling of magpies or even the singing of crickets—was nonexistent here, and that one fact sent chills up my spine. Anything that scared insects senseless was something to worry about, in my estimation.
At six forty-four, Berna reluctantly began to strip. She seemed big in her clothes, but she was positively huge out of them. And none of it was fat. She was just large in every conceivable way—huge shoulders, brawny arms, melon breasts, big hips, and chunky, muscular thighs and shins. She pretty much looked as if she could snap someone in two without effort between those legs of hers, which made me wonder about her earlier statement that she wasn’t a top wrestler. How could someone be built like that and not be one of the best?
It wasn’t a question I had the chance to ask, because she’d barely finished stripping when our escort showed up. He gave us all a once-over, nodded in what I presumed was approval, then motioned us to follow him.
Which, of course, we did. The remaining women who’d been on the bus were already in the hallway and being guided away, and amongst them were two women I didn’t recognize. Probably two of the three women who had remained from the last group.
We were escorted along until we’d reached one of the arena doors, which had been locked against my earlier explorations.
According to the plans, the arena was designed after the old Roman gladiatorial arenas, though on a far smaller scale. But as we walked into the room, I realized the plans gave no real indication of the sheer scale of the place. Not only did everything soar in this room, but everything seemed oversized, as if the whole intent was to make the room’s occupants seem small by comparison. Which was probably the effect someone as warped as Starr would want. The ceiling arched so high above us that without the spotlights it would have been shrouded in darkness, and the statues of naked men and women that lined the wall were at least double the standard sizing. The arena walls were high enough to prevent most shifters and weres from leaping out, though it wouldn’t have stopped winged shifters. The arena’s center was sand, but studded posts stood at either end, the wood chipped and stained. By what, I just didn’t want to know. 
Tables and chairs lined three-quarters of the arena. A long table dominated the far end, the white tablecloths, gold settings, and grandiose, highly ornate chairs that looked like something out of the courts of kings. Starr’s seating area, obviously.
Though he and his entourage weren’t here yet, a lot of people were. There weren’t many women, meaning the whores probably didn’t rate an invite to this little shindig. Some of the men I knew from the files Jack had given me on known Starr associates, but there were many more I didn’t recognize. Just as well Rhoan was coming in with the camera—I had a feeling there were a lot of wanted people in this room.
Of course, with so many people already here, the babble of voices and reek of aftershave and humanity was almost overwhelming. But it was the underlying scent, the base rawness of death and despair that seemed to be leaching from the sand itself that had trepidation stirring.
This room wasn’t about fighting. Wasn’t about enjoying a spectacle. It was about control. About destruction.
Of hope. Of humanity.
I didn’t realize I’d stopped until Berna shoved me from behind.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she said, voice low and annoyed.
“You’re a bear-shifter—can’t you smell it?”
“Misery,” Nerida said softly, her sharp gaze briefly resting on mine. In the amber depths of her eyes, fear flickered. “This place is drenched in it.”
“Weres,” Berna said heavily, “are very strange people.”
“No. It’s just that dogs of all kinds have noses designed to trap smells, and certain emotions are accompanied by strong scents. Fear, for example.” I glanced at her as our guide led us to a table near the wall and the stained post. “I would have thought a bear-shifter would know that, given your olfactory senses are as keen, if not keener, than a wolf’s.”
She shook her head. “That may be true, but we are attuned to physical scents and sounds more than emotional ones. The click of a gun being cocked one hundred feet away or the scent of a carcass two miles away, for instance. Emotions have no scent for us.”
“So this arena doesn’t worry you?”
“I’m being paid good money to fight in it.” Her gaze came to mine. “So are you.”
“I love a good fight as much as the next wolf, but this arena isn’t just about fighting.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If that turns out to be true, then maybe the three of us should plan a little bust-out.”
“With cameras on every corner? They’d catch us inside a minute.” Though if I wanted to get out of this place, I’d damn well find a way, cameras or not. “And I’d be careful where you said that, because they have voice monitors as well as cameras in this joint.”
She looked around as she sat down on the chair near the wall. “Really? Where?”
I nodded to the black dome above the table to our left. “That looks like a PTR-1043. It comes complete with sound and motion sensors.” I grinned at their surprised looks, and embellished the truth with a little lie. “Fucked a home security guy for a while. He liked to go on about his hardware.”
Nerida snorted. “As all men do.”
“I’m gathering that’s where you picked up the finer skills of a thief?” Berna asked.
I glanced at her. There was no animosity in her voice or on her features, yet I felt the wave of her disapproval all the same. “Yes.”She harrumphed and didn’t add anything else, simply crossed her arms and stared out over the arena. Nerida looked at me for a few seconds longer, then said, “You don’t seem like a thief to me.”
That’s because I wasn’t, but if I was fooling Berna and everyone else, why wasn’t I fooling the fox-shifter? What was she picking up that the others weren’t? I forced a casual shrug. “And what does a thief look like?”
“Shifty. Desperate. You don’t.”
“Well, I’m not right now, am I?”
A set of trumpets blasted before she could answer, and an unseen announcer ordered us to rise. I ignored the speculation in Nerida’s eyes, pushing to my feet as I glanced over to the main table. Starr, his lieutenants, and their hangers-on were entering the room like royalty. And considering at least one of them was a queen, maybe that was appropriate.
Starr himself wasn’t the type of man who immediately drew the eye. He was on the small side, thin, with bristly brown hair and sallow-looking skin. Not that this was the real Starr—he’d been killed off some time ago and replaced by the shapeshifting son of the man who’d started the whole cloning nightmare. This Starr was flanked by his two lieutenants—Moss in front, Merle behind, both men naked from the waist up. Of the three, Merle was perhaps the most eye-catching. Not only did he have the build of an Adonis, but strong, almost feline features and the striped skin of a tiger. In any normal situation, I would have named him yummy and pounced. But knowing who he was, what he was, kind of killed desire.
Which wouldn’t matter a damn if he had an aura as powerful as Moss’s.
One of the accompanying guards pulled out the most ornate of the chairs. Starr didn’t immediately sit, instead leaning his hands on the table as he skimmed his gaze across the crowd. He seemed to pause when he came to our table, and though we were far enough away that I couldn’t even see the color of his eyes, a chill ran all the way down my spine. It was as if, in that brief moment, Starr sensed who I was.