Page 10 of Adtovar (The Alliance Rescue #1)

I parted ways with Maddie and set off toward Bozzo’s office. He mentioned dispatching guards to escort me, but impatience gnawed at my gut. The quicker I could make the deal and get Maddie off Budak, the better.

My horns itched incessantly, a persistent tingling sensation I could ignore no longer.

Alone in the dimly lit corridor, I allowed myself to scratch them.

In public, an Aljani caught scratching his horns suffered the greatest shame.

The horns of an Aljani were not just physical features, they were revered as emblems of strength and character.

To witness an Aljani treating his or her horns with anything less than the utmost respect, such as absentmindedly scratching them, would be to witness the tarnishing of their dignity.

Fherris, the Framaddi assistant, appeared startled when I entered, his eyes widening slightly as he gestured for me to proceed into Bozzo’s office.

As I stepped inside, the transformation in my host’s demeanor immediately became apparent.

Gone was his eagerness to please. Now, he seemed smug, a self-satisfied grin playing on his bulbous lips.

His eyes gleamed with an almost gleeful light as if he savored some private triumph.

“So? How did it go with the human female?” He leaned his bulk back in the desk chair, rubbing his stumpy hands together.

“Good.” I settled into a chair fronting the desk. “She has agreed to the sale. I promised her there would be other human females for her to interact with.” I added the excuse of other human females rather than leaving Maddie’s agreement to my charm alone.

“Are you sure that’s why she agreed?” Bozzo smirked at me.

A chilling, uneasy sensation crept up my spine like icy fingers, leaving a trail of dread in their wake.

“Yes,” I insisted. “That and the promise of certain freedoms not allowed here.” If needed, I could produce a blueprint of the imaginary arena, including more comfortable quarters and a lush garden for the females to enjoy. Ako was more than thorough when building my cover.

Bozzo snorted and, with the punch of a few buttons on his desktop, conjured a shimmering holo-screen, casting a ghostly glow across the dim room.

The visual came into focus, displaying footage of my leaving Maddie’s cell and my subsequent stroll down the corridor, absentmindedly scratching my horns.

I cursed inwardly, frustration bubbling through my blood.

The gladiator cells were in such disarray, cluttered, and chaotic that I never suspected Bozzo had this level of sophisticated surveillance in place.

Although I felt confident he hadn’t wired the individual cells.

I couldn’t imagine Bozzo not replaying that footage if he had.

“I’ve always heard an Aljani’s horns itch when they find their mate,” he said, fat greasy lips turning upward in a sly grin.

“Horns itch for a number of reasons,” I grunted, gesturing around the room. “Least of all the dry desert air on this planet.” My excuse was complete fabrication. Aljani horns itched for two reasons alone... from illness and for their mate.

“Yes,” Bozzo agreed, his grin deepening to the point I wanted to punch it off his face.

“But this doesn’t seem like a miniscule affliction.

” He rewound the clip, showing how I clawed at my horns as I stalked toward the office.

“I’ve heard several species have found mates within human females.

And everyone knows the affection Duke Ako held for his human female. ”

More than his words, watching as my fingertips landed on my horns repeatedly stunned me. I’d scratched my horns several times in Maddie’s cell as well, unable to resist trying to relieve the insistent tingling.

Shit!

My horns hadn’t itched in decades. Not one moment of discomfort until the subtle tingle began the moment Maddie entered Bozzo’s office. As my host played back through the footage, I let my mind return to the first time my horns had itched in the presence of a female.

Keela.

I couldn't recall the moment I first met her. We’d known each other forever.

Our families were friends, and there wasn’t a moment of my childhood that didn’t have Keela in it.

Yet I remembered vividly the day things changed between us.

She’d been walking across the meadow, laughing with her sister, and at the sight of her, my horns itched just as they did now.

It had been so easy. We’d smiled at each other, and I’d reached out and stroked my fingertips along her cheek, knowing at that moment my life had forever altered.

A month later, we stood before our village in a bonding ceremony.

I’d been so young, still involved in my warrior training, but as the daughter of a warrior herself, Keela knew well what my duty demanded and never complained.

When our daughter Akelia arrived a year later, I finally understood the meaning of love and contentment.

The Vaktaire-Romvesian skirmish was over, but there were still raids on Aljani outposts on other planets.

Keela didn’t complain when orders arrived commanding me to join a contingent of Aljani guard on a distant moon.

She hugged me goodbye the morning I left, laughing as we teased about how much fun our reunion would be.

She knew, as a warrior, it was my duty to protect my people… all my people.

I just didn’t protect my wife and child.

A month after I departed for duty, Keela and Akelia caught a brain fever and died.

The news came to me on a distant moon in the middle of bloodshed.

I wanted to die too. So, when the Ulkommanian raiding party caught me out on a scouting mission, I didn’t resist. Death would be a relief from the agony of losing my mate and child.

Part of me relished the pain and torture of the experiments and augments by the Ulkommanian while I waited for death at their hands.

When Alliance forces raided the underground labs and rescued me—the Ulkommanian may have stopped torturing me, but my suffering wasn’t over.

Because of the augments, I was stronger and faster than any other Aljani…

than most other species, for that matter.

If the universe wouldn’t destroy me for leaving my mate and child to die, I would do it myself.

I joined a brutal gladiator familia, the first of many, and went into the ring looking for a way to die and end the endless pain and loneliness.

Yet something inside me wouldn’t stop fighting... or perhaps the gods themselves hadn’t finished with me. I didn’t die. Instead, I excelled in the arena, using the fights as a way to cleanse the burning rage and guilt seething inside me. I was brutal. I was merciless. I was champion.

I’d relegated myself to a life in the arena…

enduring one bloody battle after another until the gods smiled at me.

Duke Ako heard of the undefeated Aljani gladiator and attended one of my fights.

Impressed, the Duke purchased my contract.

I expected another master and, instead, found a comrade.

Duke Ako lost his mate, too, and shared grief gave us a sad kinship.

He released me from the pit and offered me a job.

Instead of fighting to injure, I would fight to protect.

Ako gave me reign over the protection of his most precious treasure. His son Nansar.

Only Nansar was no treasure. He proved a spoiled brat who coveted his father’s throne and would do anything, even aligning with the vicious Kerzak, to see his father deposed.

When I stood against Nansar’s actions, I ended up back in the pit.

But this time, it proved a blessing. I met my human daughter Willa and her mate Charick and together, with the help of others, we were able to stop Nansar’s schemes.

In all those long years, thoughts of mating again never entered my thoughts.

My loneliness was a punishment from the gods for abandoning my mate and child, one I was most willing to bear.

While I was grateful for the second chance at life and family gifted to me by meeting Willa and Charick, I never dreamed of more.

It was unheard of for the gods to gift more than one fated mate in a lifetime.

Instances such as that were rare and magical.

But it felt the same. The tingle in my horns. The irresistible urge to scratch along the slick bone. Could the gods be so forgiving? Could I receive another gift… another mate? The thought lingered, intriguing and unsettling. And one I certainly didn’t need Bozzo to discover.

It pained me to speak of Keela and Akelia. I hated the idea of uttering their memory in the presence of someone so unworthy as Bozzo. But to protect Maddie, I would conjure the pain once more.

“I had a mate once… and a child. They died. I do not want the heartbreak of having another.”

Bozzo studied me for a long moment with his piss-yellow eyes. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost parental, and strangely empathetic.

“Sometimes the gods give us what we need, not what we want or think we deserve.”

I snorted, trying to pretend I found his comment ridiculous.

But his words buried into my heart like a warm blade.

Could he be right? Now was not the time to ponder the whims of the gods.

I needed to get Maddie to safety. I schooled my face to something I hoped appeared as aggravated disdain.

“I do not have time for this theory of yours, Bozzo. I am due on the Ardeese Valout in a moon cycle. I will purchase all the females, plus four gladiators of your choice.” I regretted not asking for the males Maddie mentioned but felt in dire straits of losing the upper hand in the negotiation.

I needed to make a deal Bozzo he could not refuse.

I named a number of credits, several thousand more than the gladiators and females were worth on the open market.

Bozzo’s yellow eyes went wide, and he shifted in his seat, the secretions seeping through his pores like heavy sweat.

“That’s a lot of money,” he finally uttered in a rough voice.

“It is,” I admitted. Bozzo was no fool. To pretend otherwise would make me one.

He steepled his stubby fingers together, resting the roll of flesh that stood in for a chin atop them.

“I’m tempted,” he admitted, but his smile was sly.

“But it occurs to me that a way to make even more money is for the legendary champion Adtovar to enter the arena again.” His grin widened, and he licked his lips as though finding the words delicious.

“Especially an Adtovar that has been spit-shined back to his prime.”

“I’ve already told you. I don’t fight anymore.” The words felt like a lie, especially since all I wanted to do was beat this greasy bastard to a pulp.

“Perhaps.” Bozzo tapped his fingertips together, studying me. “Perhaps you will not fight for yourself. But maybe you will enter the arena to win your mate’s freedom.”

“I do not fight.” I reiterated, digging my claws into my palms to curb the need to scratch. Every time Maddie came into my thoughts, my horns itched like crazy.I wanted to disavow her as my mate, but the words choked off before they reached my tongue.

“I will sell you the gladiators,” Bozzo waved his hand like it meant little to him, then his eyes narrowed slyly. “But not the females. However, I will allow you to win them.”

“Win them?” I grated.

“Each match you win equals one female, with the human female being the last won.” He offered with a sly, self-satisfied smirk.

I knew I should say no. I should pretend the females meant nothing to me, take the gladiators, and return to the Historia . Once there, we could make a new plan to rescue the females.

But the idea of leaving Maddie made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t leave her, and I didn’t want to. Perhaps I should just kill Bozzo and deal with the fallout. No. The Alliance Rescue mission was too important. I could do nothing to derail it. There was only one pathway to Maddie’s freedom.

“If I agree, I want two conditions.”

Bozzo’s slimy, fat lips ticked upward, and he nodded at me to continue.

“One. I want the females left alone. You will stop using them as prizes until I am given the opportunity to win them.”

“And two?”

“I want my quarters in the female’s section. To protect them.”

Bozzo laughed loudly, not believing my excuse. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself.

“You don’t trust me to keep the females unharmed?”

“Not as far as I can throw you,” I snapped.

“You’re pretty strong, Adtovar.”

“And you’re pretty fat, Bozzo.”

His laughter echoed through the office. “Deal!”

I didn’t laugh.

My stomach churned with unease, and a heavy weight of guilt pressed on my soul as I remembered my promise to Willa—a promise I would willingly break to safeguard Maddie and the other females and secure their freedom.

What choice did I have?