Page 115 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Camila

My headache was terrible; my jaw felt like one big, throbbing mess.

But I pushed all that to the side and focused on the huge guy standing over me in this tiny cell.

I was pretty sure he was the same guy who had hit me in the face in the first place, the leather and the piercings seemed to match, even if it had all happened very fast. At least that monstrous, green-scaled creature wasn’t in the cell with us, though I still wasn’t sure if the hellhound lying in the doorway was much of an improvement.

The guy was close to seven feet tall, with long blond and bluish braids pulled back from his elegant forehead in a widow’s peak.

Pointed ears stuck up on either side, while a silver chain draped from one earlobe to a ring in his nostril, a single medallion dangling from it in the center of his cheek.

Sharp cheekbones made his face look harsh, as did the cruel twist to his otherwise lush lips.

The bottom one was bisected by two rings, snakebites, as I remembered they were called.

My cousin Tina had them, much to the horror of her mom, my older sister Freddie.

On Tina, they made the pouty teen look, well…

more pouty. On this guy, it was just blatantly hot.

I had the extremely disconcerting, ill-timed urge to lean up and tug on those rings with my tongue.

I had always found the bad boy type sexy as sin—too attractive for my own good—so I’d steered well clear of them.

This guy was a bad boy to the umpteenth degree: leather pants, heavy leather boots with chains on them.

A leather jacket hung open to reveal some kind of form-fitting gray undershirt that lovingly hugged every sexy dip and valley of his sculpted chest. A thick chain pretentiously draped from one hip, and what looked like the edges of tattoos curled over the collar of his shirt and out from beneath his sleeves.

Add the piercings, the sharp blue-green eyes, and what appeared to be a near-constant glare…

My panties were soaked, my entire body felt foreign, and my heart was pounding for reasons far beyond fear.

It was crazy, and it made me angry as hell.

I did not like how this guy seemed to have so much power over my libido.

I was a cool, rational human being who made cool, rational choices.

Okay, so my track record of late was pretty bad. Even I had to admit that. After all, I’d somehow gotten myself nearly killed by my superiors, ended up floating in space for dead, and now I’d landed myself in the brig of an alien ship.

But he stepped in front of that beast when he noticed it scared you, my brain helpfully tried to supply.

Yeah, he did do that, but he also knocked me out and told me my fighting turned him on, which was just an awful thing to say on so many levels.

He also clearly didn’t trust me, but he had approached closer, and I felt like he was almost considering sitting down at the foot of the bunk. Yup, there he went.

Stretching out one long leg in front of him, he made a fist with one hand and pressed it into his thigh.

It was a gesture I’d seen my father make on numerous occasions ever since his leg had healed badly from a break due to lack of medical care.

Narrowing my eyes at that fist caused him to move the hand and tuck it behind him at his side, his handsome face twisting into an impressive scowl.

“Answer my question, female. What do you know about Drameil?”

Right, they seemed to really hate this guy, and I had not a single clue why.

I wondered whether I should keep my mouth shut and protect the mission, but then decided against it.

The UAR hardly deserved my loyalty after they’d shot at me and tried to kill me.

They’d damn near succeeded, too, if it hadn’t been for Akri’s well-timed rescue.

It wasn’t like I knew much anyway; these need-to-know missions meant it was already a damn miracle I knew we were heading for a guy named Drameil for some kind of trade.

And I only barely knew what we were getting in return: weapons.

What we were there to deliver? Not a clue.

I shrugged. “I don’t know much at all.” I saw how his mouth twisted into a snarl; he was ready to snap at me, to tell me he didn’t believe me. Holding up a hand, I urged him to stay quiet. “What do you know of the UAR?”

“I’m not here to answer your questions, female; you need to answer mine,” he snapped.

His entire body was bristling with tension, but for some reason, I wasn’t scared.

He hadn’t retaliated for kicking him in the face, I could see the bruise that mirrored my own forming along the stubbly edge of his jaw.

And he had stepped between me and the hellhound when he realized I was scared, which was galling to admit.

This guy might act all tough and mean, but I had a feeling he was far more bark than bite.

Shame, really, I wouldn’t mind if he took a nibble.

No, bad thoughts. Don’t think about how sexy he is.

“I just want to know how much I need to explain,” I said, and when he shrugged, I added, “I guess I’ll just explain everything.

” Taking a deep breath, I dove in. “Earth, it’s part of the UAR, or United Alliance of Races, an alliance between three species.

Together, they control nearly seventy percent of the Alpha Quadrant.

The remaining thirty percent—we call that lawless space.

It is home to a huge variety of species, and it’s an extremely dangerous place to be. ”

Recently, there’s been a group called the Clade who have begun to shape that lawless space into something more orderly. They’re also taking the war right to the UAR’s doorstep and staking claims to outer colonies that technically belong to the UAR.

He growled, “This is Alpha Quadrant talk. We’re in Zeta—it’s a mindbogglingly vast distance away.

None of this has any bearing on what’s going on here.

Talk about Drameil!” He made a cutting motion with his hand, and then pressed his fist into his thigh again, his lips pressed into thin lines. Was he in pain in some way?

“I know! I’m getting there,” I told him, trying to ignore the fact that he’d started rubbing his fist roughly into his thigh. I didn’t think he was aware he was doing it so openly, not after he’d hidden the movement when I’d noticed it earlier.

“The UAR battleship was on a mission to this quadrant by invitation, to initiate some kind of trade with this Drameil,” he growled under his breath, but I ignored him.

“I’m just a lowly Space Marine, I lead my squad, plan training, and otherwise just do what I’m told.

For this mission, I knew only that we were along for protection and that we’d be receiving armaments of some kind.

I don’t even know what we’re giving this Drameil in return.

I’d never seen or heard anything about this guy before that. ”

I saw how the lines around his mouth eased a little, his shoulders going down.

Taking a bit of a gamble, I reached out with one hand and pushed his hand off his thigh.

When my dad rubbed his leg like that, I often massaged it for him, so my fingers knew just what to do, digging into the hard, knotted muscle, rubbing in circles and listening to the hiss of his breath as his tension eased some more.

He didn’t stop me, didn’t push my hands away.

His eyes actually sank closed, and his body tilted to lean back against the nearest wall.

I eyed the open cell door and briefly contemplated making a break for it, but that hell-hound was still sprawled in the opening.

When my eyes made contact with those burning embers glowing in its eye sockets, I shivered.

I swear it looked like it was daring me to even try.

No, thank you. Contrary to how it had appeared the past few days, I was not suicidal.

So I continued, “A few days ago… I was called into my superior’s office.

Something smelled off to me, so I was on edge.

Then they pulled out the guns.” His eyes sprang open and focused on my face, their blue-green gaze extremely intense.

He didn’t say anything, but it was clear I’d at last caught his attention, that he was finally hearing me.

“They were about to execute me on the spot, I swear—uh… God, I don’t even know your damn name!” Frustrated, I started to pull back my hands to fiddle with my braid, but the elfish guy grabbed my hand and pressed it firmly back into his knotted thigh.

“It’s Thorin. And your name?” He sounded gruff, but I had a feeling that this time, it was to cover up any kind of warmth—maybe even to hide embarrassment over not having made introductions of any kind.

Of course, when you thought I was a bad guy for some odd reason, manners went right out the window.

Was I seriously making excuses for Mister Sex Appeal here?

“Hi, I’m Camila,” I said. Finding the situation I was in exceedingly strange, but not seeing any reason not to keep up the thigh massage if it kept him friendly, I flexed my fingers and went back to work on those knots.

I was fairly certain that mentioning Drameil was a trigger for this guy, so until I knew more, I was going to tread very carefully and try to avoid saying that name.

I focused on what had happened to me, trying to make him feel sympathetic to what I’d gone through—less antagonistic.

I needed them to understand that I didn’t want to be their enemy.

By the time I’d finished explaining my miraculous rescue from Akri and my shock at seeing an eight-foot-tall beast show up just as the ship had turned against me for reasons I didn’t understand, it almost looked like Thorin had fallen asleep.

I hadn’t realized just how much of a live wire he was, how much tension he’d constantly been holding in that big body of his, until suddenly, it was gone.