Chapter 2

The lesser demons dragged me the rest of the way and tossed me into the staging area of the arena.

The place was full of battered fighters. Some stared at nothing with hollow eyes, and others drowned in despair.

A group of guards walked over carrying branding irons and numbered tags. They meant to stamp a number into my face and turn me into another piece of livestock for the fights.

The Demon King, reduced to this. The humiliation burned worse than any wound, and I thrashed against them with everything I had.

However, the hours of abuse and the loss of my hellfire had left me too weak. My resistance barely amounted to anything.

The branding iron was about to press into my cheek when a commotion of heavy footsteps cut through the noise.

It was Corvin Rask.

He had been someone I personally promoted from nothing, my most trusted confidant, and the man who ran this arena. With him here, I believed I would have my strength back in no time.

Hope flared in my chest, and I fought harder, desperate to call out to him.

Before I could speak, the guard beside me slammed me down to my knees and clamped a hand over my mouth. Corvin still noticed the disturbance.

He walked over with a frown and barked at the men. “What the hell is going on here? You cannot even handle one person? Hurry it up. Do not mess with the opening time.”

The guards mumbled their apologies without lifting their heads.

Panic surged through me as I watched Corvin turn to leave. I threw every last ounce of strength into jerking my head free from the guard’s hand.

“Corvin, your king is right here.” My voice rang out across the blood‑soaked arena.

Corvin stopped in his tracks.

A whip came screaming through the air in the next second and cracked across my face. I let out a stifled groan as the wound split open from one side to the other, and the burn spread through my entire body.

The guard who struck me snarled. “You have some nerve, calling him by his name.”

I forced through the pain and kept my eyes locked on Corvin.

I watched his expression shift. The first flash of shock faded into something evasive and calculated.

He stepped forward and pressed his hand down hard on the whip mark across my cheek.

His eyes were full of contempt, and his mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile.

“You are the Demon King? Who is going to believe that?”

I faltered for a moment. If I had not trusted Corvin completely, I never would have revealed my identity in a situation like this.

However, this had been the man I raised up with my own hands, my closest confidant.

I drew a deep breath and fixed him with a cold stare. “Very well, Corvin. I will remember what you did here today.”

The guard beside him raised his whip high.

Corvin frowned and waved him off. “Enough. Stop wasting time. Someone on the outside specifically requested him for a fight. That has nothing to do with us. If you want to hold a grudge, make sure you hold it against the right people.”

With those orders given, the guards swarmed in. They branded the number into my face and threw me out into the arena.

I scanned the stands surrounding the pit, and there they were, sitting exactly where I expected them.

I had already guessed who pulled the strings behind all of this. Seeing the two of them sitting there in the flesh made it almost impossible to hold myself back.

They noticed me too.

Troy’s lips curled into a mocking smirk. He pulled Vanessa into his arms and toyed with a strand of her hair. He glanced down at me every few seconds with open contempt.

Vanessa smiled and nestled against his chest. Then she mouthed the words at me across the arena.

“I came to see you off, honey. Do not blame me for being heartless. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for not being good enough.”