Page 114 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Only when the threat was neutralized did I notice the slender body beneath mine, the fragility of the wrist I was pinning to the floor, even through the EV suit.

Blinking to get my eyes to focus, I took in the fine-boned face with a stubbornly pointed chin, the soft honey-tan skin, and the long dark lashes.

Her cheek was blooming into a nasty bruise, but that didn’t disguise the fact that she was incredibly beautiful.

I pulled back in a hurry, staring down at her prone form with a mixture of confusion and surprise.

“What the hell, Ziame? I thought you said an ally of Drameil? This is a human female.” Ziame was standing at her feet, staring down at her body.

He shrugged. “Akri? I don’t think humans are allies to Drameil.

They’re not common in the Zeta Quadrant. ”

The ship responded in Traders' Common, the way Ziame usually spoke: “I am aware, Captain. However, she admitted it herself.” A screen turned on, and on it I saw the unconscious female, dressed in a form-fitting, figure-hugging undersuit.

With defiant posture, she spoke about how she had come to this quadrant of the universe on a trading mission with the crimelord who had once owned each of us here.

Ziame’s posture, however, softened at the image.

“It sounds to me as though she had no clue who Drameil was… That’s a relief.

We’ll straighten this out.” I bristled at the implication that he wasn’t going to consider this female a serious threat.

She should be locked in the brig, at the very least, until we knew for certain whether she knew just what a bastard Drameil was.

“Oh my god, did you guys knock out a woman? What the hell?” Abigail suddenly exclaimed from the open doorway, condemnation in her expression and tone.

She was about to head straight to the woman’s side, but at least Jakar had the sense to hold her back by the shoulder, a sheepish expression on his face.

His red cheeks mottled with orange and black in a dramatic display of emotion.

“Stay back, Abigail. She’s likely an associate of Drameil, we can’t be certain she’s safe,” Ziame explained to her.

Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I leaned down and picked her up.

Even in the EV suit, she wasn’t a very big thing: light and curved.

I tried not to notice any of that as I shouldered my way out of the small ship and headed for the brig.

Behind me, I heard Ziame introduce his mate to the ship’s AI, but not much else.

Expecting the brig to be empty, I barged in without looking, only to pause in my tracks when I noticed Fierce sprawled on his back on one of the cots inside the two cells.

The huge Ferai beast was on the floor at his side, curled up and fast asleep.

Fierce had sat up, though, and was staring at me intensely, almost daring me to say something about what he was doing here.

Ever since he had declared that he had done the impossible and bonded with the mindbroken beast, he’d been even more quiet and absent, disappearing for most of the day and only surfacing for some of the meals.

Out of all my brothers here aboard the Vagabond, he was the one I knew the least about.

He always kept to himself, spoke very little, and didn’t eat much either, which made it a miracle he had maintained the muscle mass he had.

Secretly, I suspected that was because he ate the same things the beast ate—raw meat and bones—but I had to admit that I knew very little of his species. Fierce was a bit of a mystery.

Ignoring him—since that seemed to be his preference anyway—I headed for the second cell.

It was kitted out, just like the one Fierce was in, with two bunks, each with a clean set of blankets and a pillow.

There was also a cleansing unit in the corner with a privacy screen, though there was no door to close.

Placing my slight burden down on one of the cots, I started stripping off her EV suit and tossing each component out of the cell over my shoulder.

Sitting on my knee at the side of the cot caused my leg to act up again, but I ignored the burning pain.

When the leg brace I tossed next didn’t make the satisfying clatter as it landed, I looked over my shoulder to find Fierce standing behind me.

The brace was between his hands as he studied it.

“Where did the female come from?” he asked.

“She was aboard Ziame’s old ship. We just located it and brought it into the hangar bay.

She’s an associate of Drameil,” I briefly explained.

Then I ignored him and continued taking off the suit.

I was almost done, and trying hard not to notice how soft and curvy she was—how pretty she looked in just that skin-tight undersuit.

I was clearly starting to lose it if I thought this traitor was attractive.

There was no warning: one moment I was pulling off her boot, and the next, a knee came flying up toward my face.

I only just turned my head in time for it to become a glancing blow instead of a full hit.

As it was, it was hard enough for me to see stars.

Cursing loudly, I leaped forward and pinned the damn female in place with my body. “Hold still, damn it!”

Behind me, Fierce snickered but didn’t step in to help, not that I needed any help.

She was slight and small, though average, maybe, if I were to go off the sizes of the three human females I knew.

Abby was tall for a human; Tori and Chloe, tiny.

This hell-hound fell right between those two scales, still not reaching up to my chin.

As I pressed her into the cot, I could feel how her body tucked perfectly against mine.

Or it would, if she’d stop bucking and twisting while trying to get free.

“Need some help, brother?” Fierce asked, mockery evident in the laughter coloring his tone.

“Fuck off. Go get the Doc or something if you want to be useful.” Fierce, like Jakar, had never had a life beyond the gladiator stables; he wasn’t used to technology the way the rest of us were.

So instead of using the com device strapped to his wrist, he turned and went to physically fetch the Doc.

I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t know how to use the com, or if he had forgotten it was an option.

The Ferai beast remained at the entrance to this cell, seated on his haunches and studying the bucking, wildly pummeling, and scratching little thing beneath me.

“Really, you’re just gonna sit there and look?

” I told the animal, which I knew was smart enough to understand what I was saying.

Indeed, its black snout pulled into a wide-fanged grin, letting me know it was mocking me, just like his bonded master.

To the female beneath me, I said in a warning tone, “Listen, darling. If you want to turn me on, keep doing what you’re doing.

If not, I suggest you stop.” The hell-hound of a lady gave a long, angry shriek, piercing right through my eardrum, but she stilled.

Her breaths were heaving out of her. Her pretty, soft, and curvy chest moved up and down against my own body in a far too tantalizing way.

I jerked back, moving to get some distance between the two of us while I shot her my fiercest glare. I was not letting her soft body and pretty face get under my skin. Clearly, I needed a shower and some me-time if I was letting her get to me.

The female had scooted backward on the cot, tucking the one boot she was still wearing beneath her body.

A glare fiercely met mine, making my skin prickle and my blood heat.

This female was so full of fire. If she weren’t in league with Drameil, I would have happily tried to convince her to share some bedroom gymnastics with me.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I propped myself up against the wall next to the cell door, allowing myself to take some of the weight off my aching leg.

“So, you can at least understand what I’m saying, huh?

” I asked, watching with some amusement as her glare just intensified.

The bruising on the side of her face was becoming worse, black, purple, and red shaded the edges of her cheekbone and jawline.

I felt a pang of guilt at the sight and tried to shut that feeling down.

With that video feed—in her own words—she’d condemned herself.

I couldn’t forget that she’d come here, to this part of the universe, to make friends with the bastard who had enslaved my brothers and me.

“So sexual harassment of your prisoner gets you off, does it? You sick bastard?” she asked.

Her voice all deep, sultry tones and lyrical accent, was now hidden behind a sharp bite of temper.

My cock twitched to life in my pants for real this time; it was all too easy to imagine those soft lips wrapped around it. Yeah, I was a sick bastard, all right.

I shrugged. “I was only trying to take off your boot to get you more comfortable. Sure, you might be our prisoner, but I wouldn’t treat you as a slave.

I have standards.” I made sure my tone implied that I thought she didn’t.

She made a snarling, angry sound, winced, and brought up a hand to touch her sore jaw.

“It’s not broken,” I told her. “I didn’t hit you that hard.

” It was harder to shove down the guilt a second time.

I didn’t like that I’d hurt her. If I’d realized in time that I was dealing with a small female and not some dangerous foe like I was used to in the arena, I would have restrained her, not knocked her out.

“I know that,” she growled—actually growled—which I thought was a rather impressive sound when it came from such a tiny throat.

“Now what the hell is going on? I assure you, I have no intentions of harming anyone. My own people tried to kill me yesterday, and now this? As if I haven’t got enough shit on my damn plate.

” I was even more impressed with her swearing. What could I say? I was a simple man.

Hmm, I shifted, re-crossed my arms, and contemplated the female on the cot.

She looked positively outraged and also very confused.

Old instincts kicked in, I felt the urge to scratch at it, to question everything, and get the facts.

The hurt, angry part inside of me wanted to hold onto the thought that she was a traitor; it made for an easy target to vent some of the frustrations inside me.

It was a good thing that the Ferai beast made a huffing sound, its burning red eyes meeting mine in what almost appeared to be a reprimand. The female was the one responding. She made a gasping, shocked sound and, with a mild quiver in her voice that surprised me, said, “What the hell is that?”

I shifted my body away from the wall so that I could position myself between her and the beast. “That’s a Ferai beast. Never seen one before?

They’re highly intelligent, he can understand every word we say.

” The Ferai beast, which I thought I’d heard Fierce call Snarl, of all things, made a snorting sound, amused.

“So he’s tame?” she asked, tilting her head a little to the side to look around me. When I seesawed my hand in front of me, her pretty brown eyes went wide. “It’s not?” Laughing, because the high pitch of her voice finally made her seem more like Tori or Chloe, which was familiar, I shook my head.

“Look, it’s bonded to Fierce. If you don’t do anything stupid, he’s perfectly safe to be around. Right, Snarl?” I directed my last words at the beast. Mercifully, it dropped its front to the ground, lying down and presenting a much smaller shape, mouth opening and tongue lolling out.

“Oh,” she murmured, her body losing some of the ready tension. With a sigh, I moved a little closer, carefully watching to make sure she remained calm.

“Now tell me what you know of Drameil,” I said.

If she had any information on where he was—on his operations—maybe we could do something.

Take him down. We all struggled with how badly we had to look over our shoulders everywhere we went, just in case some bounty hunter or mercenary spotted us and thought to haul us in for a pretty profit.