Page 212 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Luka

I was exhausted, and my shields were frayed thin from the fighting.

Soon, I’d collapse from the strain. Noa’s arrival had given me a second wind.

I hated that she was back here, but she wore no collar around her throat, so she had managed to free herself—and chosen to come back.

I’d sensed her feelings when our eyes met, so bright and pure.

She loved me. She’d seen the mark I’d had tattooed on my chest, a mark to celebrate her and to celebrate what I’d been through.

As we’d shared that look, I had felt something shift inside me, and I thought that meant she’d accepted our bond, that it had now become something almost tangible between us.

That’s when I’d felt renewed strength surge through me, and I’d made short work of the last of my opponents.

My fists were aching, my muscles burning, but that last guy dropped to the stage with a satisfying thud.

“More?” I demanded of my mother. “Want to send me something really challenging? Where’s Jo’qual?

” I really wanted to get my hands on that bastard, but as I mentioned the name of the yellow Kertinal, I sensed a spike of unease come from my mother.

Oh, this was something she’d lost control of?

She didn’t know where her top goon had gone.

Drameil turned to look at my mother with a questioning expression on his face, as if he were now backing up my demand to produce this male for me to fight.

Her face remained entirely calm and placid as she urged a guard to go and find the male, but I could sense that she was a little concerned.

She had lost control of him, and she knew she couldn’t produce him.

A commotion sounded at the end of the room, near the grand double doors that led in and out.

Guards in my mother’s livery were stopping a male dressed in all black from charging inside.

It was a Krektar male, so I didn’t hold any hope that he was one of the good guys.

He was shouting something that sounded suspiciously like, “The cops are coming.” The words caused instant pandemonium inside the ballroom.

People fled the table in a mass exodus, trampling over each other to get out. Guards closed in around the crimelords gathered at my mother’s table, ushering them to the servant exits that still had a clear path out of the room. My mother and Drameil were going to slip away if I didn’t stop them.

I leaped off the stage, picked up the nearest chair, and swung it into the back of one of the guards surrounding Drameil.

As he crumpled, sharp pain lanced through my skull.

Dodging beneath a swinging arm, I felt my muscles scream from the hard, sustained exercise, but I managed to slam that chair into the back of Drameil’s legs, and he went down like a ton of bricks.

The guards closed in hard around him, dragging him to his feet and aiming laser pistols at me—ones I was no match for.

I spun at the sound of a roar I knew all too well, rolling underneath a table to avoid being blasted to bits by Drameil’s guards.

Sunder had charged into the room and was fighting several of the guards who were trying to usher my mother to safety.

And Noa was behind him, brandishing a knife and an angry grin.

My mother was not nearly as protected as the other Crimelords fleeing the place; she’d sent most of her men to fight me, and I’d managed to be the last one standing.

After this was over, I’d religiously attend all of Sunder’s training sessions, no matter how much I’d rather spend my time making love to Noa or working on my research in the Vagabond’s lab.

I reached them and their cluster of fighting people, taking note of the large Pretorian who protected Noa’s flank with a wicked grin. Then there was Aradne, swinging a broken chair leg like a club and taking out her rage on any opponent she could reach.

I swept past them, reached Noa, and yanked her into my arms, heedless of the knife in her hands.

“Noa, my lovely Noa!” I murmured into her hair, running my hands up her spine to satisfy the need to make sure she was unharmed.

My senses told me that she was, but I smelled and saw the blood that coated her skin beneath her clothing.

“Luka,” she said, her arms clutching me tightly around my middle. I worked hard to focus only on her feelings, to make sure that all the fighting and carnage happening behind me stayed outside. “I love you, Luka,” she said, and I felt it. I knew.

*

Noa

When all hell broke loose, my only thought was to reach Luka.

I was terrified that he’d get injured in the crossfire, in the chaos of all these criminals rushing to flee the scene.

They were even fighting among themselves, and Aradne was magnificent as she took out all her pent-up anger on the nearest guards or guests she could reach.

Across the room, I spotted Luka chasing after a cluster of guards that surrounded Drameil, and I flinched in horror.

I understood the urge to stop the guy, but those guards were waving guns, it wasn’t like that unarmed fight on the stage.

Too many people moving around me meant I lost sight of him for a moment, but the sound of laser blasts was loud even over the roar of the panicking crowd.

Then he appeared from beneath a table and charged in my direction, and I was so relieved to be able to close my arms around him. He was alive; we were both alive! And we had the bastards fleeing the scene, we’d made it.

Over Luka’s shoulder, I saw Aradne dodge underneath one of Sunder’s huge wings and swing her improvised bat at the Dragon.

The woman went down like a ton of bricks, and then so did Luka.

He just collapsed right on top of me. I was not a screamer, but I screamed then.

Was he hurt? Had he been hit by something?

He was too heavy for me to hold him up, so we went down together in a sprawl of limbs.

I landed roughly on the hardwood floor, with his body on top of mine.

Yashan and Sunder closed ranks around us, but they didn’t help me get up. It felt like I lay there forever beneath his solid weight, searching his back with my hands and listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat. Was he bleeding out somewhere?

Pato chittered at my shoulder, the sound panicked and worried as he crawled closer and patted Luka’s face with his little black hands.

They came away stained with blood, something that actually relaxed me.

I understood what had happened. His empathic gift…

he’d felt that blow to his mother’s head as if it had hit him.

I hoped that didn’t mean he’d actually gotten injured from it too.

“It’s okay, Pato,” I tried to reassure the monkey, and myself.

“He’s just unconscious, but he’ll be alright. ”

I couldn’t see what was going on around me like this, but I heard the authoritative shouts of the Aderian police as they arrived. It seemed some things were the same the universe over, like yelling “freeze” at fleeing criminals.

Sunder helped me out from beneath Luka at last, assisting me in propping his head in my lap while we watched the Aderian officers sweep through the mansion and round up everyone they could find.

It was a little depressing to discover that, except for Luka’s mother, all the other crimelords had managed to escape, reaching their ships outside just in time to fly away before the police arrived.

A good number of the lower-ranking people had been left behind and captured, though, so the Aderians were still calling the mission a success.

I shared a look with Sunder and knew he, too, thought it was no such thing. They’d had a chance to round up the scum of the universe, and they’d failed miserably. At least the Jihari slaves and those at the Nerizana mansion were being rescued. Luka and I had made it out of this nightmare somehow.

A medic came to attend to Luka at some point, declaring that he had a serious case of empathy fatigue. He patched up the swollen mess Luka’s fists had become and then left to attend to others nearby.

It all became a bit of a blur after that, so I was grateful when Yashan and Jasmin showed up to usher us to their ship. Only once I’d stepped foot aboard their colorful vessel did I remember the data stick I’d tucked into my bra—the one with all that data on Drameil the Kertinal had been after.

As Sunder and Yashan helped lay Luka down on a bunk in one of the crew quarters on the ship, I fished it out.

“I think you need to have this, Sunder,” I offered.

“Maybe the authorities can do something with it.” I held out the data stick to the Tarkan male, and he cocked his head in confusion, so I explained briefly how I’d obtained it.

His eyes lit up immediately, and he took it from my hand as if I’d just handed him the Holy Grail.

“This must contain the data on all the locations he’s been to!

I can finally find him!” He darted from the room without further explanation, but I didn’t need one.

I was just glad to be done with it, all I needed now was a shower and to curl up on that bunk with Luka.