Page 189 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Luka didn’t say anything—just looked at his cousin, as far as I could tell from behind his back.

Dumber shuffled on his feet, his glare intensifying.

He was uncomfortable; he didn’t know how to deal with Luka.

He was probably not allowed to lay hands on his cousin.

The Dragon might have locked up her son, but I doubted anyone was allowed to hurt him.

That proved to be true when Luka took a step forward and Dumber stepped back, and the more he stepped back, the more the nasty feeling on my skin started to fade.

By the time Luka had made Dumber back up out of the suite, I was back to feeling almost normal—except for the fact that I really wished Luka would come back and hold me again.

Yikes, that pheromone dependency sucked.

“Yeah, thought so,” Luka said, and then he closed the door right in his cousin’s face.

It was a priceless moment, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight.

Luka had just made Dumber back off without even a hint of violence, just that calm, confident approach, calling Dumber’s bluff.

It was sexy as hell; I couldn’t believe he’d just done that.

Luka turned slowly, his face creased into a wide smile. “That was fun. You should visit more often. It’s never boring with you.” I glowed at the compliment, because I could tell it was both a joke and something he genuinely meant. I was starting to think I had really misjudged Luka that first day.

“I’m sorry you have to experience the unpleasant company of my cousin, Ceralion.

He hasn’t got that many brain cells to rub together, but he certainly knows how to apply them to be nasty.

” The dry delivery of those words had me laughing again, my hands clutching at my midriff as I enjoyed Luka’s assessment of Dumber’s intellect.

“I call him Dumber,” I hiccuped at him, a little embarrassed at the outpouring of emotion. This was stress relieving itself, had to be, I was acting like a lunatic. This had been kind of funny, but not crying-from-laughter kind of hilarious.

Luka chuckled, the sound causing goosebumps to break out across my skin—it sounded so pleasant.

“Dumber? That’s a good fit. He’s never amounted to much, but it seems to have gotten worse.

” Not surprising; there were probably many things Dumber did that weren’t going to improve his intellect, from drugs to getting into fights—and the head stomps Dumb gave him.

“So he’s your cousin?” I asked, my eyes roving over Luka’s face as I tried to see the family connection. They were both handsome, but Luka had such a classical face, it looked aristocratic, even refined. Dumber, on the other hand… he was good-looking, but he didn’t have any of that polish.

I still didn’t know if I could see any family resemblance—not the way you could with Dumber and Dumb. When I pointed this out, Luka laughed. “We’re only related by marriage. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Aurelion around as well, have you? Cerelion’s older brother.”

Ah, that had to be Dumb. “I think so. Long hair, scar on his face? Also not too bright? I call him Dumb. They make one hell of a duo.” Luka was nodding along, a grin on his face, but he walked over to the table where a tray of food still waited and gestured at it.

“I demanded more food so I could feed you. Would you like anything from this?” He gestured at the spread of breakfast options.

My stomach rumbled on cue, and just the sight of freshly baked bread had me convinced.

I picked up my list of tasks for the day and pushed it into his hands.

“Your mother is riding us really hard today; there’s a special guest coming in five days. ”

Then I tore a chunk of the bread and stuffed my face with it, ignoring everything else in the room while I ate my first decent meal since I’d woken up on this planet.

The bread was perfect, and the fruit jellies supplied sweet and sour.

Luka had even left a few links of some kind of spicy sausage, and I devoured all of those.

Since I’d been forced to work here, I’d done more hard physical labor on fewer carbs, and I’d lost weight.

So I was happy for some easy carbs now, I could use them.

“That’s not good,” Luka said, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw that he was intently perusing the task list. “This is a lot of work, and you were really sick yesterday.” Then he glanced at the cart of supplies.

“At least let me clean up my own room.” I stared after him as he sorted his supplies and headed for the bathroom to tackle that.

It wasn’t all that dirty—I’d cleaned it yesterday—but I still watched over his shoulder as he used my cleaning tools with apparent ease.

“I clean my own med bay usually. I know what I’m doing. ”

I backed up, found a spot on the couch, and sat down.

Okay, Luka knew how to clean, and he was sexy when he was confident and kicked Dumber out of his suite.

His pet monkey was cute too. It suddenly popped up on the back of the couch and slowly approached, head tilted to the side as he watched me.

When I made a cooing sound at it, he came closer and started grooming my hair.

With a sigh, I closed my eyes and leaned back. A little nap wouldn’t hurt—I still had so much left to do. I fell asleep immediately, my body relaxing more fully than it had in all this time, trusting Luka to keep me safe.

*

Luka

She’d fallen asleep—no wonder, with the dark circles still beneath her eyes.

We’d come a long way since we first met, from her skittish behavior to what already felt like trust. Learning that I was a captive here had certainly helped, but having to tell her that she’d somehow become dependent on my scent? That hadn’t done me any favors.

I didn’t entirely understand the phenomenon, but I had my suspicions.

Without access to a database to do some research or a lab to verify the results, I had no way to know for sure.

It was unheard of for this kind of thing to happen outside of our species—or even within our species—but I was starting to think that it had.

Maybe my gladiator friends had taught me more than just a few fighting skills; I certainly couldn’t deny just how strongly I was attracted to the prickly female sleeping on my couch.

Done with the bathroom, I hurried to make my bed with military precision before dusting as I’d seen Noa do.

It seemed excessive, all this work every single day.

On the Vagabond, Da’vi and Akri had worked to program cleaning bots to do most of the work, and everyone else was responsible for their own private spaces, while we took turns cleaning the mess hall and galley.

All this decadence surrounding me right now was just making me feel guilty; it made me hate this resort even more than I already did.

With some kind of important visitor arriving in a few days, the need to escape was growing.

I had a sinking feeling I knew just who it was that my mother was preparing for.

I didn’t plan on being here, and I didn’t want Noa to be here, either.

My mother had lost her amazing ability at empathy—the one I’d inherited from her—when she’d been injured in a ship crash.

Yet she was smart enough to read social cues, and I had no doubt that she’d seen my interest in the colorful human girl.

My eyes strayed to her form, where she lay curled on the couch.

Pato sat next to her head, carefully watching me as I worked.

She was of average size for a human, but that still made her small compared to my six feet, and she was slender, with thin wrists and prominent cheekbones.

She needed more food, especially since her system was running in a higher gear at the moment.

She knew it, too, from the way she’d attacked that food earlier.

I approached her once I’d checked the last task off the list for my room, gently sitting down next to her so I could wake her.

I didn’t want to because she looked peaceful asleep, and I could shamelessly stare at the colorful tattoos that decorated her arms and legs.

Like a pervert, I wondered if they went all the way up her body—how much of her was covered with them?

The patterns resembled flowers: big pink blooms, yellow ones, and even purple and blue.

It would have looked loud and might have even clashed if not for the exquisite way the ink had been drawn onto her skin and the way green vines tied everything together.

My eyes snagged on the inside of her left wrist, where one pattern didn’t match the rest of her tattoos.

Framed in leaves and inked in red, a staff with two twining serpents had been drawn, wings flaring out from either side at the top.

It was a beautiful symbol, tastefully framed by her other artwork, but it did stand out as different.

“It’s a Caduceus,” she murmured. With her right hand, she traced the symbol on her wrist, her voice still husky from sleep.

“My mother was a nurse, and the Caduceus is sometimes used to represent medicine. It’s also supposedly the symbol of Hermes, the god of thieves and outlaws…

It’s a reminder of my roots.” A medical symbol, a symbol of healers but also one of outlaws?

That resonated with me on such a level that I could only stare at it, my fingers tracing over the delicate, dark red lines etched into her skin.

My gladiator friends were all outlaws in a way, with bounties on their heads courtesy of Drameil, our former owner.

I had checked; there was no such bounty for me, but I felt outlawed all the same, touched by that dark period of my life when I was forced to work for the crimelord.

I didn’t fit into my old life anymore, and I didn’t want to—I’d learned enough about myself to know that it would never have made me happy anyway.