Page 108 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Two guards blocked my way into the tower, and despite drones hovering at my back, filming my every move, I didn’t hesitate.

I punched out the first one with a single, well-aimed blow, then rushed the second as he started to shift into his hybridform.

We crashed through the door as it splintered and broke under our combined weight.

I didn’t check if the male was out; I just leaped up and raced for the stairs just inside the doorway.

There were shouts going up now, chaos and mayhem erupting behind me in the courtyard, but none of that mattered.

I took the stairs two steps at a time, racing for the doorway at the top.

It wouldn’t open to my palm print, and this panel was no old, ancient wooden door, but a metal one—meant to protect, meant to imprison.

“Lo! Are you in there?” I yelled, casting my eyes about for anything with which to break the panel.

There, a heavy metal candelabra on a tall pedestal.

The pedestal looked heavy enough to function as a battering ram.

I shifted into my own hybridform, my expensive suit straining at the seams to encompass my newer, much bigger, and more muscular shape.

My now-mobile ears twitched and turned as I tried to glean any noise from the other side.

Was that a sniffle I could hear? My heart clenched in my chest, and anger surged through my body as I lifted the stone pedestal and charged, battering the door with all my might.

I tried not to think of how terrifying that noise had to be to a five-year-old who had no clue who it was.

The door broke with a loud crash as the metal warped out of the doorframe. I dropped my improvised battering ram and leaped at the gap, raking my claws to widen it enough to get through. “Lo! Are you in there? It’s me, Kest. I’m getting you out of here, sweetheart!”

I’d just wedged my head through the gap, getting a glance at the opulent room beyond it: a pink dollhouse, some shimmering gold curtains behind it, and then a blur of white came careening across my vision.

My shoulders were still stuck in the gap, but I managed to lift my arms just enough to catch the ball of fur, a fan of tails colliding with my snout.

“Kest! I knew it! I knew you’d come for me!

” a little voice growled fiercely from against my chest. My knees went a little weak at the sound of that voice, exactly as I remembered it.

Lo hadn’t forgotten me, and she didn’t think I had forgotten her, either.

My single tail—compared to the fan of Lo’s triple one—wagged as eagerly against the broken portal as hers did against my chest.

“Always,” I swore, “I’m taking you home.” It was a promise, a vow, one I knew I’d never break.

THE END