Chapter 1 The Thief and the Torc

Eva

I cut through the chain-link fence behind the abandoned megachurch, the metal squealing under my bolt cutters. Beyond it was the entrance to The Pit: Harlan County’s favorite secret, an underground fight club carved into the remains of an old coal mine. Folks whispered about it like it was cursed, but they also whispered about me, and I’ve learned that whispers are mostly bullshit.

Still, the moment my boots hit the dusty floor, something cold slid down my spine. Not nerves. Not excitement.

Fear.

Ugly and inexplicable, like stepping into a room where someone just died.

I made myself breathe. “Bad vibes,” I muttered. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

The air tasted metallic. Moonlight seeped through broken ceiling panels in faint silver streaks, catching the dust. I tightened my braid and adjusted the straps on my pack. The torc I needed was supposedly hidden deep inside The Hollow, the private vault beneath The Pit’s main arena. Some wealthy occult collector in Nashville wanted it badly. Bad enough to pay me six months’ rent.

And that was all I needed to know.

I moved fast and silently; old habits from orphanages and shitty foster homes. I arrived at the elevator shaft, forced open the rusted doors, and slid down the cable into the dark. As I went deeper, a rising sense of unease pushed against my skin, like static or a breath on the back of my neck.

Nope. Not thinking about that. This was a job.

The hallway at the bottom was dim, lit only by flickering industrial lamps. Shadows crawled along the walls in ways I didn’t like. I swallowed, wiped my palms on my jeans, and pushed myself forward.

A roar hit me next, like a living creature clawing its way up the tunnel.

Deep, animal, hungry.

Then the smell: blood, sweat, moonshine, and something darker underneath. Something that made my pulse stutter, even though I couldn’t name it. I stepped out onto the upper catwalk that ringed the arena.

The Pit.

They’d hollowed the old mine into a coliseum of rust and rage. Chain-link octagon in the center, floodlights bolted to coal ribs, maybe three hundred people packed shoulder-to-shoulder around it. Half of them looked like they’d come straight from a trailer park, the other half like they’d crawled up from hell.

Money changed hands in bricks. Liquor poured from mason jars. A preacher in a stained collar stood on a stack of crates, screaming scripture between rounds like a ring announcer on bath salts.

In the cage, two men were trying to kill each other with their fists.

One of them was already on his knees.

The other, the one still standing, was the biggest son of a bitch I’d ever seen. Six-eight easy. Pale as death under the lights. Thick black hair, loose and wild, hanging past his shoulders in sweat-soaked strands. Shirtless, every muscle carved like he’d been chipped out of the mountain itself. Blood streaked his chest, some his, most not. His knuckles were raw meat. And when he threw the final punch, the light caught the silver torc hanging against his sternum on a rawhide cord.

My torc.

The crowd went rabid. Bills rained like confetti while the preacher howled about the wages of sin. I ignored all of it, eyes locked on the torc: the shimmer of ancient silver against sweaty skin. So much for it being in a vault.

The winner lifted his head slowly and deliberately, as if he’d smelled something the rest of us couldn’t. His gaze swept across the catwalk and locked onto me.

Steel-grey eyes. Should’ve looked human. They didn’t. In the light, it looked like he had no pupils: just cold, endless silver.

The noise of the arena vanished. The smell of blood and sweat thickened in my throat. Every instinct I owned, every instinct sharpened by a hundred bad decisions and close calls, screamed at me to run.

But I couldn’t move. My feet felt nailed to the grated metal. He tilted his head slightly, like an animal gauging the distance.

Then his lips moved. No sound reached me up here, but I read them clear as day: Mine.