Caged Warrior (14 page)

The match continued until the stench of sweat was almost too much for Leto’s senses.

Collars off. Collars on. Again and again. Always random. Taunting. Returning and hampering
his gifts.

With his powers back in force, he chose another strategy. Not Silence. Not Fam. He
attacked Nynn. Their eyes locked just as he swung his mace. A moment in time caught
between them. So clearly, he could still see every detail. Her narrowed ice blue eyes
and distinctive freckles. Damp honey blond hair streaked across her forehead. He even
caught the tiny lines creasing her top lip as she pinched her mouth.

She raised her shield just in time to save her skull from the arcing smash of his
mace.

Leto didn’t stop. He kept at her, again, again, trying to provoke her. Only when the
mace caught her inner thigh did he relent. She sprawled on the Cage floor among shouts
and groans from those gathered to watch.

“Enough!” He signaled that match’s Cage operator to shut it down. The spotlights on
each octagonal post dimmed to half intensity. Leto’s collar resumed its damping properties.
“Well done,” he said to Fam and Silence. “We’re finished for today.”

Some good-natured heckling accompanied the Indranan as they left the Cage. Fam had
a slight limp. He would be in pain for the next few hours, but with a Dragon King’s
physiology, he’d be back in fighting form in mere days.

Disgusted, Leto knelt where Nynn lay in a sweaty heap. She clutched her thigh. A massive
contusion turned her thigh ugly colors. Welts and spots of blood showed where the
mace had bit her skin.

“Idiot.” Her lips curled back in a hateful grimace. “No armor for thighs. Why not?”

“It limits mobility and encourages speed. If you’d
done your job and fought back, you’d be standing as victor. Not lying here defeated.”

“You wanted this. To teach me another
bathatéi
lesson.”

“That was last week. And the week before. Now, I’m pissed. I’m two days on from a
Cage match with a piece of lab filth who won’t use her greatest asset.”

“I
can’t.
”

“You did. And you sure as hell remember it.”

“But control it?
Make
it happen? No way.” She waved an unsteady hand at her bruised thigh. “This should
be proof.”

Leto grabbed her chin with wrenching force. She gasped, struggled. He held fast. Her
ragged breathing heated his skin. He could make out every blond lash and each delicate
freckle.

“Do you want to lose?”

“I wouldn’t be working this hard if I did.”

“Do you want
me
to lose?”

“What the hell does that matter?”

“If you do, if you want to show me up, if you seek revenge for these weeks, then I
will kill you after the third match.” Her jaw clenched beneath his gouging fingertips.
“Do you understand me?”

“What, no ‘lab filth’ on the end of your threat?”

He pried her hands away to get a better look at her wound. Rather than apologize or
even assess the need for medical treatment, he raked taut fingers over the damaged
skin. Nynn screamed. She whirled her good leg in a well-aimed arc. Leto caught her
ankle, threw it away from his body, and felt only disgust. She lay gasping on the
Cage floor.

“Nynn of Tigony, I can’t think of an insult strong enough to justify your failure.”

♦   ♦   ♦

Audrey crawled onto all fours. The welt on her thigh throbbed as if on fire. The sharp
points of Leto’s mace had cut a stippled pattern in her skin. Just as disturbing was
the way she could still feel his blunt fingernails dragging across her marred, trembling
muscles.

Fucking sadist. No wonder he was heralded.

Body, mind, soul—stabbing pains became the full measure of her world. Only that wasn’t
true. Somewhere beyond these cavernous burrows, her son was in pain. And in a place
she had never seen, her husband lay dead in the ground. Who had arranged his funeral?
Probably his parents. She’d always told them she was an orphan. Because she was. She’d
just never told them that she was an orphan born in shame, high in a fortress in the
northern mountains of Greece.

Dragon Kings adapted. That had been the key to their survival for so many thousands
of years. She wondered how many, if any, had envisioned such a fate for their race.
Hiding among the humans. Retreating to spend isolated lives in clan strongholds. Grasping
at any chance to bear a child.

The woman she’d fought still stood in the Cage, in a pose that reminded Audrey of
Leto. Arms crossed. Leaning against one of the eight support beams. She had black-on-black
eyes and spiky, luminous silver hair. Tall and thin, her limbs were like those of
a track-and-field athlete. Maybe a high jumper.

Here, she was every inch a warrior.

Silence, she was called.

Even her expression was silent, if the word could be applied to a set of features.
She revealed nothing as she stared at Audrey. No disdain. No pity. No empathy. Just . . .
staring. The only thing Audrey might discern was curiosity. Why else would a person
stare so long?

The Indranan man, Fam, fell into limping step with Leto outside of the Cage. He looked
like a puppy trailing after the alpha of the pack. Perhaps he had been fighting for
some time, but Fam carried himself with no grace and little authority, especially
considering the wounds on his shins and calves. Had Leto trained him? Instinctively,
Audrey knew that wasn’t the case. He possessed few of the traits and skills Leto had
been droning on about since her arrival.

Yet Fam was popular. Fellow warriors greeted him with ribald comments and slaps on
his bulky back. His only strength came from the gift the Dragon had inexplicably bestowed
on the Indranan. Telepathy. She shuddered at the remembered feel of Fam’s mind plundering
hers. That eerie feeling stayed with her long after the contact. A slithering familiarity.

No wonder she resisted contact with the Heartless. She . . . Dragon damn, she’d lost
something. What if getting it back was even worse?

When Fam embraced Hellix in that masculine football player way, her respect sank even
further. He was sloppy and cocky. He was soft. Yet she was the one still breathless
and quivering on all fours. Pride pushed her to her knees, then to unsteady feet.
A stumble. A hearty laugh from those who still watched.

“Useless Tigony bitch,” Hellix said. “Tricksters aren’t worth anything more than a
bad fuck.”

Fam dropped his sickle. “I’d take her. Trickster or not.”

“You’d take a hole in the wall if it got you off,” said another of Hellix’s followers.

Audrey noticed Leto’s reaction, even if he refused to look in her direction. He had
taken up a towel. Face, bare shoulder, upper back—he scrubbed the sweat from his incredible
body. Upon hearing the comments from Hellix and his friend, he dropped the towel and
picked up his mace and shield. Not aggression. Just a reaffirmation of his place within
their society. Champion. Default leader.

While she’d made him look like a fool.

She would have no dependable ally in Leto of Garnis. As for the world at large, she
needed to find it. Soon. Before pleasing that man and winning ridiculous sparring
matches became as important to her as it was to him.

Silence finally pushed away from the post. She walked forward and held out an arm.
Warily, Audrey considered refusing, but in a place of such isolation and mistrust,
she chose to accept the gesture at face value. With Silence’s help, she tested her
leg’s ability to hold her weight and found it resilient enough to walk. Silence looked
her up and down with that unnerving black stare, and nodded. Dragon damn, even her
body language was unreadable. Audrey couldn’t have interpreted that little nod had
her next breath depended on it.

The woman returned to the Cage wires and retrieved her shield, with its serrated edge.

“Thank you,” Audrey called.

The slight lift of Silence’s brows was practically a spoken question.

“You could’ve taken off half my face.” She touched her bleeding lip and nodded toward
the shield. “I appreciate that you didn’t.”

“Hey, quit flirting with the new kid,” came a man’s voice, although this one had none
of Hellix’s aggression. “That was me once, all shiny and useless. I might get jealous.
But food first. You know how hungry I get sitting around and watching other people
fight. Just
famished
.”

Silence nodded her slight good-bye to Audrey, then joined a man at the base of the
Cage’s steps. He was Silence’s lover, Hark. He didn’t look like the rest of the muscle-bound
warriors. He didn’t need to. His lean, street fighter’s build was a deceptive trick.
He could carry the Sath’s traditional
nighnor
as if it weighed nothing. With cheekbones high and elegant, and his eyes the clearest,
brightest blue—his combination of strength and grace was surprising, but in that,
he was perfectly paired with Silence.

Audrey watched as the pair stealthily, unhurriedly moved past Hellix and his sycophants.
The bullies didn’t heckle or jeer. Only watched them pass.

Strange.

But useful information.

Audrey staggered toward the Cage’s exit. Surprisingly, Leto met her there. He looped
the mace over his shoulder, offered his hand.

“What, some pity gesture?” she asked.

“You should know by now that pity is of no use down here.”

“If you think I’m touching you after what you did to me, you’re insane.”

The nearly placid set of his features didn’t change. “Let Hellix or Kilgore touch
you instead. Makes no difference which way you want to torture yourself.” He dropped
his hand and nodded toward the whipping post in the corner of the training arena.
“
That
will be your next lesson if you fail to learn from this one.”

A shudder ripped up the length of her spine. The agonizing pain in her leg was only
a taste of the pain a whipping post could entail.

Leto stalked away. Much as had been the case with Silence, the others made no sound
as he passed. Only Hellix stabbed a hard glare his back.

Audrey berated herself as she slowly, unevenly made her way out of the Cage. Between
the menace of Leto’s threat and the admiration she couldn’t yet admit, she realized
exactly how much danger she faced. Stick. Carrot. And losing herself.

She couldn’t stay in this underground prison any longer. But did she dare risk her
life and Jack’s to make an escape?

A
udrey actually had no idea
how
she’d escape until the opportunity presented itself.

Kilgore. The galley cook who never looked at her as if she wore clothing—always straight
through her garments, searching for skin.

She hid a shudder when the guards summoned her to the bars of her training cell. Kilgore
waited for her. He appeared as spit-shined as a man could manage in that underground
prison. Hair washed and combed. Threadbare uniform clean. In a warped way, he looked
like a man picking up his date.

For Audrey’s plans, the strange little man with the round, too-large head would do
nicely.

Leto would never let her out of his sight, and the guards were like machines. She’d
gone over every crevice and crack in the training room. She’d even gotten completely
soaked probing the trickling waterfall, as well as where it transformed from clean-flowing
water to a one-woman latrine. Not the best evening.

“Leto keeps you locked up in here,” Kilgore said, pityingly. “Would you like to go
for a walk?”

She glanced at the guards, who watched with some
interest. Each of her words would be important, chosen with the same precision as
a well-timed roundhouse.

“Of course. I’m yours to command.”

Kilgore’s eyes widened. They were tinged with yellow. Jaundice? Audrey hid a shudder.

He handed the guards one package each. They accepted them without fanfare, only secreting
them into their armor. What was inside each . . . she didn’t want to know. One man
unlocked the iron bars. He literally looked away.

Audrey had learned that the entire complex traded black-market goods through Kilgore,
even though it was obvious he hadn’t been outdoors in a very long time. He was revolting.
Jaundiced eyes. Sallow skin. Sunken eyes. His hair barely covered his scalp. Proof
that human beings shouldn’t spend forever in the dark.

“Come on, then, Nynn of Tigony.”

Even the way he said her clan name was enough to make her skin itch with disgust.
He thought he was going to fuck a Dragon King. Better than that—a Tigony woman from
the Giva’s inner circle.

Not going to happen.

“I’ll be right back,” she whispered.

She hurried back up the corridor to her room. Leto had started the habit of leaving
a training knife with her overnight. With no way out of her personal prison, why not
spend free hours practicing? Although made of wood, the knife might be enough to disable
one unsuspecting opponent. Then she would need to find a real weapon.