The Arena Book Novels & Stories

I snapped at him. The Arena was fit for the Wrath realm. It was enormous, with paintings of fighting demons on the wall and blood splattered all over them. The sandy ground of the arena was also painted red with blood. There were rows of seats going up. It was more like a colosseum. I walked between Ren and Briva, who had changed in their swim gear again and noticed some of the demons earlier. Some were still naked, some in swim shorts. Nobody had normal clothes on. But everybody had black eyes. And having seen how Adrian punishes the ones who disrespect him, I was betting my bikini that this would be anything but a fair, clean fight.

Alora’s POV The arena looked more like a sports ground than anything sacred. From the way it looked, one could see that it had seen some good days. There was a wide circle cut into the earth, flat dirt in the middle, ringed with rows of concrete seating that climbed in rough tiers. The steps were cracked in places, patched with cement that didn’t match. Grass pushed through in the corners where nobody bothered to clean. Four steel poles stood at equal points around the ring, each one wired with floodlights.

He was the evilest amongst them all. "Shut up you dope and just get up there." I couldn't help but cringe as I was forcefully hauled inside the arena. Sweat was forming throughout my body and no amount of wiping could dry my clammy hands. I was utterly scared to my wits. "Let me fucking out here! Give me back that fucking time you stole from me! I earned it fair and square, you cheating bastards!" I slapped both hands angrily on the metal railings. A soft humming circled and I flew on my butt to the floor, electricity surrounded the arena. "Ugh!" I groaned nursing my damaged behind. Oh, just fucking shit! Goddamit!

"The Council claims I had freedom of movement to commit murder. They say I slipped their watchers, evaded their geas, appeared and vanished like a ghost in the night. But a duelist has no privacy. Every move is witnessed. Every strike is recorded by the arena's memory crystals." "And if you lose?" I smiled, the sharp expression that Rina Vale had learned from a thousand villainess novels. "I won't." The arena was gold and bone. Sandstone columns rose like ribs from the earth, supporting a canopy of enchanted glass that filtered the dawn into amber shards. The dueling circle was a perfect disk of white marble, etched with runes that would contain lethal magic and prevent death - usually. The

“We keep Aurelia safe now more than ever. If Romano is Truely head of La Estirpe Carmesí, no doubt he’ll want to use that little power to get her from me and the council might dig deep into her life and find out she’s more than just a pet to me. If they find out her blood can make them walk under sunlight, she’s done for.” The underground arena breathed around us like a living thing. Sound came at odd angles and in layers. The fighters were a moving current in the background, a river of muscle and purpose that never completely stopped. Their shouts rose and fell, the slap of palm on skin, the hollow thud when a body met the canvas. There was a smell to the place that pressed into the back of

"We are not going on about this again, Ara. We've been planning this for a long time and I will not have you back-out on me now." Ara bit her lip, as to show her doubt. "Erikka, I'm scared. I don't belong in this type of place," she said, gesturing to the glowing club name right above the entrance of a well-known nightclub from where they were standing. Bouncers were posted to watch the laughing group of teenagers next to them. "No buts!" Erikka had already pulled her inside before she could even mutter even one word of refusal.

On the day of the battle, scheduled four days after Manuel's positive answer, a big crowd stood excited on the stages of the largest arena in the academy. It was a circular building on the left side of the river, with an empty space fifty meters wide encircled by hundreds of overhead seats. 'It resembles the Colosseum.' Sara thought, lazily standing at the center of the arena surrounded by the crowd of students. 'There are some inscriptions on the ground and even on the walls below the stages, it seems that I won't have to worry about breaking it.' She was waiting for her opponent to appear, turning a deaf ear to the screams of the crowd above her.

The sun is setting over the tall, curved wall of the arena, casting the space in snaking silver shadows as exterior lights flare to life, highlighting streaks of red–pathways of blood. “Go,” Kaleb repeats, and I move as guards stalk in my direction to drag me kicking and screaming into the arena. I’m sure they’d love that, wouldn’t they? If I cried and begged for mercy, to see my friends face one last time before facing my own death in the fae king’s twisted games? The guards reach for me, but I shove past them, walking myself through the inner sanctum of the base of the arena, past the barred windows, past sponsors and trainers bagging up the gnarled remains of their dead.

I'll call you when we're done. Other students began to fill the auditorium, making the place although slowly, noisier and hotter in temperature. A fat student that had the shape of an hard-boiled egg sat in the seat next to him minutes before they commenced. Behind his sat a girl with eyeglasses so thick he suspected they were bulletproof. She had an awfully small nose that reminded him of rats. In the seat before him was another girl that looked so thin it reminded him of someone with a terminal disease.

The bandaging looked significantly more professional than anything I would have accomplished myself. Not that the competition was fierce. Meanwhile, the Arena medication system operated on a fascinating principle. If you survived a fight, congratulations. If you died afterward from the wound, the Arena still credited the kill to your opponent. Fun, right? Milena rose to her feet now. “All I’m saying is for you to be careful.” I pushed myself to my feet also— and instantly regretted that decision. Pain flared across my stomach. Shit. “Maybe submit more,” she continued.