Page 25 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

His chest was heavy with thick pectorals, his abs were well defined, and his arms roped and corded with muscle that even the thick, armor-like scales couldn’t hide.

Gold bars glinted from his nipples, which at least indicated his species bore live young, not laid eggs like many lizards on Earth.

A scrap of cloth—a loincloth—covered the groin area.

There was no way to see how sexually compatible we were unless I was willing to take a peek, and I definitely wasn’t.

Then my eyes flicked to the ears hanging slackly down in repose just below the truly impressive horns.

They were as long as my palm, and while they were covered with scales, these were so tiny as to make them look more like gently pebbled skin.

Even in the dim light, I could tell that the base color on the outside was dark green with an intricate lattice of emerald lines crossing it, while the inside of the ears was the palest green.

They actually looked soft enough that I was tempted to touch them.

I was wrong. There was a single place on his body that didn’t look deadly: his ears.

They were heartrendingly pretty and endearing for a male his size.

They made me remember the look in his eyes just before he killed Farn, and the way he’d maintained eye contact all through the painful punishment of the collar.

Hadn’t I thought he’d looked calculating and intelligent?

I felt like he’d made some kind of pro-and-con list in his head before he decided to kill Farn.

It hadn’t been a beastly, spur-of-the-moment thing; there was more going on in that huge head than just instinct.

Though all the Krektars’ crude joking about my encounter with him on the way to his cell had certainly made me expect a dumb killer.

Sentient, then, I decided, so I found myself sinking to my heels, losing my ready tension as I lowered my knife-wielding hand to my side.

So far, I’d carefully kept it angled away from the light—hopefully, I hadn’t given it away to any guard who might be watching.

I couldn’t kill a sentient being like this.

Maybe in a fight, maybe if he was trying to hurt me, but not while he was passed out on the ground.

That was probably incredibly stupid. I had no chance of fighting off this beast when he decided to come at me.

Once I had made my choice, my brain brought up the look in his eyes as he’d convulsed in pain.

Hadn’t that been compassion? Why would he look at me like that when he was the one in pain? Surely I’d interpreted that wrongly.

His breathing was still deep and slow. He hadn’t moved a single muscle since he’d toppled to the metal floor like a falling tree.

This was probably the only chance I’d ever have, so, against all wisdom, I reached out a single finger and gently stroked it down the side of one ear.

My breath whispered out of me with a sigh.

Wow, that was even softer than it looked. How incongruous.

Then, his eyes flicked open and unerringly landed right on my face. I gasped, only just stifling a scream as it rose up in my throat. My entire body did the damned freeze thing again instead of choosing to flee or fight. It was like I was trapped in the deep emerald glow of that gaze.

A huffing sound came out of those huge, gold-ringed nostrils, and I struggled to interpret it.

Was that a laugh? He still hadn’t moved; he was just looking at me.

The suspense was killing me. I was struggling so hard to get my body to move, to back away.

My thigh muscles were quivering from the strain.

“You may touch, tiny-female-of-the-big-hair,” he rumbled at me softly, the corners of his mouth pulling up to reveal sharp fangs, though the expression clearly showed mirth.

All the conflicting emotions—the horror and pain of the past hour—seemed to bubble up inside me.

Everything seemed to misfire all at once in my brain.

A laugh came out, crackling from my throat until it burst forth far too loudly in the deadly silence of the cellblock.

Tiny female? I had never, ever in all my life been called tiny. Of Amazonian proportions at six feet, I was taller than many a man I met. I’d given up on giving a crap about it years ago and happily wore my high heels and stilettos. Of course, compared to an eight-foot giant, I would be tiny.

The hair, though. Yeah, I’d gotten that comment all my life.

I was a melting pot of various ethnicities.

My mother had been Nigerian, and my father was half-Italian and half-Vietnamese.

Yeah, I had enough mixed genes to not match with anything very much—except for the hair, which was as frizzy as it could get.

I had definitely inherited that from my mother’s Nigerian side.

Right now, it almost passed for an Afro because the hair products I normally applied had long since stopped working, and my favorite hairband had broken the morning of my last day on Earth. Hence, I had two thick rubber bands making a valiant attempt to restrain the whole mess.

During the entire time I was laughing hysterically, the Beast lay prone on his back on the floor, just watching me with what could only be described as a soft look in his luminous green eyes. When I calmed down, he inquired softly, “Feel better?”

It sent me into another peal of giggles for some unfathomable reason; I was reacting like a complete lunatic. Until I suddenly felt something caress my bare ankle—then my laugh turned into a shriek. I looked down to find the tip of the Beast’s tail had curled itself around my leg.

Scrambling backward across the dirty floor, I stared at the thing in shock while the Beast rose to a sitting position, his tail sweeping back and letting me go without a fight.

The tip was bare of spikes for about a foot, and I watched as it lazily curled through the air, coiling and uncoiling. It was very agile.

There were growling sounds in the air; they had to come from some of the other cells because the Beast was quiet as he watched me. When I made eye contact, he nodded his huge head, horns tipping my way. “Easy, female. I will not harm you,” he murmured in a soothing voice.

I had a hard time believing that, but he didn’t move anymore; he simply remained seated with his back against the bars, his thick legs tucked close, and his hands raised in a universal sign of surrender.

I felt like my entire reality was turning upside down for at least the third time since I woke up.

Was this guy not going to hurt me at all? Were the Krektar wrong about him?

When we’d sat like that for some time without either of us moving, the Beast finally spoke again in a very low and rumbling voice. “I’m going to move towards the shadows. If I sit out in the light too long, the Krektar will get suspicious.”

He didn’t move until I’d nodded at him from where I was pressed against the back wall. Unlike him, I was completely in the shadows, but he appeared to have no trouble seeing me. When he rolled to his feet slowly, I flinched, and immediately, I saw his mobile ears flick back in response.

When he rose to his full height, I felt my breath stall in my throat, and fear made my heart pound.

He was so freaking tall that the tips of his horns actually brushed the ceiling.

My lizard brain was fully in charge at that moment, telling me to stay still, to not draw his attention any further.

My mouth was dry with panic, and it only increased as he moved into the shadows and sat down on the creaking cot.

Now I couldn’t see his face anymore, couldn’t read him at all.

“They don’t listen in on us; they only have cameras,” the Beast said.

“Bad ones at that. In the dark like this, they won’t be able to tell what we’re doing.

Be at ease. I will not touch an unwilling female.

” His words reassured me, at least somewhat.

I still didn’t know if he was telling the truth or just placating me so he could get close.

When I thought about it, that seemed stupid.

He probably outweighed me three times over; if he wanted me, he could take me.

I nodded, incapable of vocalizing any of my racing thoughts.

I was hard at work trying to figure out whether to trust this guy.

He was certainly far more talkative than I had expected him to be, and I was almost starting to feel grateful for the painful translator surgery.

At least I wasn’t completely helpless, unable to understand what any of these aliens said.

Now that my mind was slowly calming, I became aware of the cold permeating the cellblock. This place wasn’t heated like the rest of the ship, and it was far cooler than my clothing could combat. Already, my toes felt like clumps of ice in my pretty black stilettos.

“You are cold?” the horned male asked me as I sat there, trembling and shaking against the wall for some time. I nodded, uncertain of what he was going to offer or say next. Did he think I’d willingly get close to him for the promise of heat?

After a brief silence, I saw a shift of movement high up.

His horns? Then, there was a creaking noise as he rose to his feet.

“There is a blanket on the cot. I will move to the other side. You are safe.” And then, I heard his footsteps as he crossed in front of me from one part of the cell to the other.

I waited a moment before I got up and found the cot by touch.

As I crawled onto it, I found a warm spot—the area the Beast had been sitting on, probably. I tucked the blanket tightly around me and then curled up on it. The bed smelled surprisingly nice, spicy and sweet, with a hint of male sweat that was appealing rather than gross.

Though I tried to stay awake, to stay alert, the warmth, the smell, and the exhaustion from all the hectic events since I had woken from the stasis pod were too much for me. I sank into oblivion far quicker than I expected.