Page 194 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Luka

The room was dark when I leaped inside, but my eyes had already adjusted to the gloom of the hallway. The narrow room held two bunks and a row of pegs from which clothing hung. My eyes landed on the small lump on the top bunk first, and the glow of Noa’s blonde hair told me enough.

The bottom bunk held an Aderian woman, and my stomach curdled at just how deeply my mother had sunk.

While each life was as valuable as another, the fact that she had stooped to enslaving her own species somehow felt even worse.

Most species didn’t do that—they considered themselves superior to the species they subjugated and rationalized it that way, sick as it was.

Large, liquid black eyes blearily blinked up at me from a face that I faintly recognized.

I had no time to connect the dots; this woman might scream or call for help.

This was what Pato had tried to warn me about.

I moved in, doing what I’d learned from Sunder—pinning her in place while also covering her mouth so she couldn’t scream.

“Pato, get Noa up,” I told the little monkey riding on my shoulder.

His slight weight was immediately gone when he leaped onto the top bunk.

The female I had restrained came fully awake when I pinned her, bucking in my grip, but she was no match. I easily kept her subdued. My brain finally clicked onto the knowledge that had been tickling the back of my mind. “Mikasul?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

She stopped moving, her dark eyes roving over my face until she recognized me.

They went wide then, in shock or confusion.

My senses told me the latter, which meant that she had known I was here.

She was calm, so I gambled and took the risk of pulling back and letting her up.

The woman had been my mother’s loyal assistant for at least the last decade.

I had seen the two, thick as thieves, as they worked well into the night.

I wouldn’t trust this lady further than I could throw Ziame, which was to say, not at all.

She, like most Aderians my mother employed, lacked the common basic empathic ability or had a twisted version of it, like my cousin Ceralion.

So, when I stepped back, my body remained tense and ready to interfere.

I also remained solidly in front of the exit so she wouldn’t make a break for it.

What I couldn’t stop myself from doing was lifting my eyes away from the viperous female to look at Noa.

She was sitting upright on the top bunk with nothing more than a pooled blanket around her hips and a snug white tank top to cover her.

It outlined the soft shape of her breasts, the dark outline of her nipples shining through the thin fabric.

I could tell at last that the tattoos curled around her pretty shoulders but ended in a few delicate sprigs and curls on her collarbones and the upper slopes of her breasts.

She made a coughing noise, and I yanked my gaze up to her face in time to see the laughter in her blue eyes.

“Up here, pretty boy. What are you doing here? I was going to meet you at the exit to the spaceport!” She swung her legs out from under the blanket and over the edge of the bunk, ready to jump down.

I wanted to help her but forced myself to stay put, lest Mikasul make a break for it.

The Aderain woman was avidly studying Noa and me.

I couldn’t help but stare at Noa’s pretty legs, her colorful flowers decorating her until well up her thighs.

I was going crazy with the urge to stroke my fingers along that pretty skin, my body heating with desire, my cocks straining against the back of the zipper holding these damn-tight leather pants closed.

She leaped down gracefully and hurried to shimmy into one of the uniforms dangling from a hook on the wall.

I stopped her and handed her the pants and shirt instead, which she gratefully took.

The clothing swamped her, but she was adept at rolling things or tucking them where necessary to make it work.

While these weren’t really my clothes exactly, it still felt a little like she was wearing my things. A primal instinct I didn’t even know I had filled me with satisfaction; she was dressed in my scent now, in things I’d provided for her.

“I didn’t know that,” I told her, privately thinking that it was better not to mention our real destination in front of my mother’s old assistant.

She had fallen from grace, or she wouldn’t be here, but that didn’t mean that anything we said in front of her wouldn’t end up directly in my mother’s ear.

“Let’s hurry. The cameras are still disabled.

I heard the guards say they don’t have all the parts,” Noa told me.

How the cameras had ended up in that state was unclear, but I figured Noa had had a hand in it.

Good, that meant no one saw me on the way here.

Now I just needed to figure out how to deal with Mikasul.

“Oh, I won’t say a thing. You can trust me, Lukalyn,” the female said as if she’d read my mind.

“If you’re escaping, please take me with you!

” Her eyes shot from Noa’s to mine, a cunning expression on her face that she didn’t do a good job of hiding.

From my empathic senses, I felt a lot of insincerity, though I’d already known I couldn’t trust her.

This female was an adept liar—or she used to be, but life hadn’t been too kind to her.

Noa started to make a sound, about to warn me, but I raised a hand.

“Listen, Mikasul, you know I can’t do that.

” There was nothing inside this room that made for good ties, and she’d need to be restrained, or she’d run to the nearest guard to sound the alarm.

I’d prefer it if I could knock her out, but I was all out of sedative.

The human woman proved as innovative as always.

She grabbed the bottom sheet of her bunk and started tearing it into long strips.

Yes, that would definitely work for ties, but I could make things easier for us in another way.

Approaching the Aderian female, I crowded her into her bunk, aware that her aura was sparking with fear now.

Not typically the impression I was going for as a doctor, but this time, it didn’t bother me.

Mikasul didn’t know exactly who I was anymore; she was unsure of me.

I pinned her by the throat, my pointer fingers finding the pressure points on the sides of her spine, pressing gently on the nerves there.

In moments, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she passed out.

She wouldn’t stay out for long, but as Noa and I tied her up and gagged her, that certainly made things a lot more pleasant.

We were ready to go in a few minutes, Noa taking a last moment to grab a final strip to tie up her hair.

Then she dug a little scrap of fabric out from under her mattress, briefly showing me a few glistening earrings and a few hotel guest cards.

Pato made an eager sound, tiny hands reaching out to grab for them.

Noa smirked at the monkey and tucked them into the front of her shirt, pressed between her breasts.

Ah, so Pato liked to collect things, huh? That was going to be interesting when he met Fluffy. I had it on good authority that Fierce’s pet Riho loved to collect the shiny wrappers of ration bars. At least he seemed happy enough to let Noa transport his little stash of things.

I checked the time—still a couple of hours before dawn.

If we were lucky, Mikasul would confirm that we seemed to be headed for the spaceport next to the resort when they found her come morning.

That would possibly give us a little extra time to make our escape and get as far away from here as we possibly could.

“Wait, Noa,” I told her just as she started to open the door.

“Let me take care of that collar.” I fished out the scissors and the pair of needles from my pocket—I’d carefully rolled them in a strip of fabric.

My breathing stalled as I waited for her to trust me with that tamper-proof collar or not.

It was a big thing; if I made a misstep, I’d cause her a lot of pain, and she would know that.

Tilting her head at an angle, she lifted her chin, but it still took her a moment to turn around and offer me the pale column of her neck.

My palms were sweaty when I lifted them to get to work, so I wiped them on my shirt first. At least this didn’t require any kind of sterilized equipment; it was just going to be a few clicks, I hoped.

The clasp looked the same as those on the collars my friends had worn, as the collar I’d worn for three years myself.

Though it was far smaller, thankfully, my fingers were well-adapted to the finest of procedures.

I was a master surgeon for a reason, though I’d never expected this to become my specialty.

The collar slid down her neck with a soft snicking noise, snagging in the neckline of her oversized sweater, and she made a soft, shuddering noise.

I acted on instinct, stepping closer until my front was pressed against her back, my palms on either side of her head against the door.

I dropped my face into the soft blonde hair piled on her head, drinking in her scent, the soft warmth of her slender body.

“You are free,” I said against her delicately rounded ear shell.

A shiver rattled along her spine. She sagged against my body, her head tilting until I could see her face.

“Thank you, Luka.” Then she turned, her arms curling around my neck, and her pink mouth brushed against mine.

I pushed back, pressing her into the door so I could feel the press of her breasts against my chest. My urges overwhelmed me until I had her pinned to that door, devouring that pretty mouth of hers, her taste swamping my senses.

Noa moaned, the sound a caress, her aura filled with an answering desire.

She was as into this moment as I was, welcoming me eagerly when I pressed the hard bar of my cock against her most private place.

She curled one leg, hooking it over my hip, and I was seriously contemplating opening up those too-large pants so I could stroke and taste her most private place.

A noise alerted me, then Pato suddenly climbed up my leg, leaped for my shoulder, and started chittering in my ear.

Yes, I got it, buddy, we needed to go. The time to fool around would have to be later.

When I pulled back, Noa’s eyes were heavy-lidded; she looked up at me through her lashes, all slumberous.

It cost a lot of willpower to pull away, but I somehow managed it.

“She’s waking up. Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Then, for good measure, I added, “We need to get to the spaceport. Guest ships are leaving first thing in the morning; we need to be on one.” Noa’s eyes went wide, darted past my arm to look at the Aderian female tied up on the bed, then gave me a nod shadowed by a frown.

Yeah, that was obviously stupid to say if it was my real plan. Smart girl.

We stepped out of the tiny bunkroom and into a still-empty hallway.

It was lined with doors spaced close together—rows upon rows of tiny bunkrooms to house my mother’s slaves.

One such door swung open as soon as we walked past. I was in front of Noa in a heartbeat, my body primed to attack this newcomer.

It was the Xurtal female, and behind her I saw a pale blue face from an alien species I had never seen before.

I froze, unsure if this was a threat or not; the female had given me a message once for Noa, after all.

She stared at me with a fierce glare, her dark red eyes narrowed dangerously, so that my skin prickled in warning.

“Aradne, Moira!” Noa whispered to the two, sounding happy to see them, so I eased to the side, relieved not to have to confront the former gladiator female. I was pretty sure I’d end up squashed if I tried that, and I liked my parts in working order—especially since Noa seemed interested now.

My girl hugged the two women, whispering with them.

Then the Xurtal female shoved a bag into her arms and, with a rough motion, sent her stumbling into my arms. I caught and righted her, but when we looked, the two females had already disappeared into their rooms. “Ready to blow this joint?” I asked, and Noa laughed quietly, so I assumed I’d messed up that colloquialism—though I was pretty certain I’d heard Camila say it more than once.