Page 3 of Fifth (Intergalactic Warriors #5)

A BATON cracked against iron, waking them sometime in the middle of the night.

The bars rang like a struck bell and the camp’s noise surged in reply.

Hot light slashed between the slats of the cage, cutting the dark, silvering the grime on the floor.

The scent of sweat, smoke, and unwashed men drifted close, mixing with the faint metallic tang that clung to cages meant for slaughter.

Hannah flinched in the corner. She masked the movement by lifting her chin.

Her eyes cut sharp, tracking like a blade.

She measured the gate. The guards. The limp coil of chain under his boot.

She measured him. The stubborn lift of her chin told him she refused to break despite the tremble of her body.

She had the look of prey refusing to run, aware of predators, but too proud to give them chase.

“On your feet,” a guard barked. Keys scraped. Boots scuffed. Laughter broke close to the bars, harsh and ugly, feeding on the promise of humiliation.

Locus rose without hesitation. His shoulders filled the space, brushing iron.

Heat rolled off his skin, his presence filling the cage.

He reached down and closed his hand around Hannah’s forearm.

Her pulse leapt against his palm, quick and bright, but she didn’t pull away.

Her scent spiked, fear mixed with fury. Despite everything, she refused to cower.

He admired that even as he catalogued the speed of her heartbeat, the tension in her muscles, the angle of her jaw as she silently daredhim.

One guard shoved a hand through the bars, reaching for Hannah’s arm as if to drag her forward.

Locus moved before the touch could land.

His voice cut the space, flat and unyielding.

“Do not touch her.” The guard froze, his hand suspended, then withdrew.

The nearest man stepped back before he knew why. Even through bars, authority carried.

The lock clanked and the cage door screeched open. Rough hands motioned them forward, shoving them into the open. Cold nighttime air rushed across Hannah’s bare skin as they were released from confinement at last. Then they were herded across the yard into a corridor of light.

Torches hissed as they passed, their flames snapping in the dry air. Floodlamps blazed overhead, throwing stark shadows across the packed dirt. Acrude platform loomed ahead, ringed with cameras on rattling poles, lenses already whirring to catch every angle.

Men pressed into a ragged semicircle, their jeers rising, eager for spectacle.

The air stank of oil and liquor, breath sour with expectation.

Locus’s gaze swept the crowd once, registering rifles, knives, exits.

He fixed on anything that edged too near Hannah, each threat weighed and measured.

Their gazes devoured her, and his blood heated with a warning growl he kept caged.

Every angle became calculation—who might reach first, who would shoot first, who would die first.

The scarred leader lifted both arms to the cameras as though addressing honored guests.

His voice boomed, drawing every eye. “Welcome to the preserve, boys. This is the ground where wagers are won and lives are lost. Three trials await. One rule binds them all.” He let the silence stretch a beat, then his grin flashed yellowed and cruel. “Survive.”

The chant rolled through the yard. Aman shook a bucket of credit chips until they chimed.

Another tapped at a battered tablet, taking wagers, shouting odds.

The calls sharpened as faces turned toward Hannah and toward him, the alien who had walked into their camp as if he owned it.

He let them stare. Better their eyes on him than onher.

“Let us give the crowd a better look,” the leader said, voice slick. “Strip them.”

Noise struck like a wave. Rough hands lunged forward. Hannah went rigid, her breath fast and shallow. Her fists clenched white, and her eyes flashed humiliation as cruel as a dagger. The chant rose louder.

Locus took a single step forward. The men in front of him stalled. He filled the cameras’ frame, his voice carrying without effort. “You will stop.”

The leader tilted his head, amused. “You think you set the rules here?”

“I do not think. Istate a fact.” His gaze didn’t shift. “If you strip her, Iwill not run your trials. Your show ends. Your wagers end. Your profit dies. Then I will take both my price and my prize in other ways.”

Spit hit the ground. Voices cursed. Rage rose from men who had only ever hunted from behind walls and with chains between them and real danger. The nearest guard lifted his baton, uncertain but emboldened by the crowd.

Locus breathed once. The air tasted metallic. He could break the baton. The wrist. The neck. The platform. The yard. He saw each step. He also saw Hannah’s hand tighten on the scrap of cloth at her hip. He was here for one purpose, and no crowd would take it fromhim.

The leader’s eyes narrowed, scheming. Then he laughed. His teeth were rotten bone. “Leave their scraps of clothing. They won’t last. The creatures we have don’t eat cloth.”

The crowd howled. Cameras whirred. The baton lowered an inch, then two.

Locus shifted his body so Hannah’s bare stomach and thigh vanished behind his frame.

Her breath rushed out, then steadied. For an instant her shoulder pressed against him, not in surrender but in the fierce relief of not standing alone.

“Trial One,” a man read from a tablet. “Snare fields. Pit rings.”

A guard stepped forward, eager to explain.

“Think of the pit as a carefully designed death trap. When two fall in, both cannot climb out together. The walls are slick, the snares twist and tangle, and the weight of one body drags the other down. The design forces sacrifice, making escape possible for only a single soul. That is why the expression is repeated so often: ‘one dies, one lives.’” He smirked at the cruelty, his eyes flicking over Hannah as if imagining the moment himself.

The crowd laughed, clearly picturing the spectacle.

Locus remained silent, cataloguing each detail.

The guard was a fool to lay bare the shape of the trial.

Warnings were weapons in his hands. He memorized every piece of cruelty, storing it like ammunition.

His mind already bent toward countermeasure, already preparing to twist their own game againstthem.

The leader spoke again. “Trial Two, predators. Not your typical Earth beasts—lions, wolves, tigers, bears—but creatures no one here has names for. Stolen from other worlds. Earth predators can definitely kill you, the alien ones will destroy you in ways you don’t want to know.

So we chose them instead of other beasts. ”

The crowd jeered. Someone shouted odds on whether Hannah would be torn first. Locus leaned closer, his words pitched only for her. “How did they get predators from off your world?”

“I doubt they walked into camp like you did.” Her knuckles whitened as they clutched her skirt. “Should we be worried? Can you fight off-world creatures?”

He tilted his head, already running possibilities. He catalogued strategies—bait, noise, fire—to push predator against predator. His mind measured terrain he had not yet seen, imagining traps within traps.

“It depends on what they were able to collect. They wouldn’t want these creatures to escape their confines, so that might work to our advantage.”

Her eyes flicked up, uncertain. “How?” Fear edged the question, but curiosity threaded through, aquiet admission she wanted to believe him. He heard her heart quicken, the rhythm betrayingher.

Before he could answer, the accounting continued. “Trial Three, hunters.” The announcer’s grin was thin. “Your new favorites won’t see noon on their first day, let alone the third day.” The crowd erupted, throwing out wagers, voices greedy with anticipation.

Hannah’s spine straightened. She looked at him, not at the headman. Her mouth opened and he shook his head. Not here. Not before men who fed on fear. Her lips pressed closed, but her eyes burned with questions she was forced to contain.

Guards closed in, jeering as they jostled them back toward the cage.

Rough hands shoved at their shoulders, forcing them through the crowd while insults and wagers rained down.

Acamera swung in close until one guard batted it aside with the back of his hand.

Acoin clanged off the bars and spun to the ground before skittering away.

Then the door slammed and the lock turned with a final metallicsnap.

Silence pooled in the aftermath, broken only by the hum of the floodlamps and the cough of a generator settling into its rhythm.

Locus braced his hand over the latch until the vibrations eased, steadying both the cage and him.

When he finally turned to her, his gaze lingered on the lines of her face and the faint tremor at her mouth she fought tohide.

“When you refused to allow them to strip us, you risked everything,” she whispered, confusion threading her voice. “Why?”

“I risked nothing that matters. The only thing of value here is your survival. Their jeers, their profit, their spectacle—none of it weighs against that. Iwould burn this yard before I allowed them to take what is mine to guard.” His eyes held hers, steady and unflinching. “You are mine to protect.”

“That isn’t protection.” She folded her arms tight. “It sounds too much like ownership. They’re not the same.”

“I know the difference. Protection is duty. Ownership is a lie the weak tell themselves when they want to believe they manipulate life.”