Page 338 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Jakar

Having my mate squeezed up tight against my chest while I climbed was the best feeling ever.

Her soft curves, her warmth, and her delicious scent covering my skin.

I loved all of it. Too bad she was too scared to enjoy the climb.

Climbing with a mate was supposed to be a special treat for Pretorian males, and I could already see why.

Her slender body rubbed against me with every move I made, and there was just something about her trusting me to carry her to safety this high up in the branches.

Yeah, I wanted to do this more. I hoped she’d let me.

I covered the distance quickly; carrying Meena made no discernible difference.

We reached the tree where I’d cached my supplies in a matter of minutes.

I’d left them where I was when I’d heard her frightened scream, rushing to her location with no plan in mind.

The biosignature scanner Akri had given me had only displayed Meena’s specific signature; I couldn’t tell who had been with her.

The two Kertinal males hadn’t posed much of an issue.

I’d knocked out and tied up the first one while the male struggling with Meena distracted him.

I’d been a little less restrained with that second bastard.

I’d seen how he’d laid his hands on my mate; he got to pay with his life for that. I felt no remorse over it.

In some criminal circuits in the Kertinal Empire, it was a tradition for killers to mark their kills with notches in their horns.

I had counted three of them on the male I’d thrown against that tree, but his companion…

he’d had seven of them, seven murders he wanted to commemorate.

Maybe I should have killed that asshole too, but I didn’t like killing my foes when they were no threat.

“Here, sit down,” I told Meena, settling her light body into the curve of a tree branch where it forked away from the trunk.

Her eyes were huge and wide in her face, her hands scrambling to find good handholds.

She didn’t need to worry. I’d never let her go before I knew she was secure; I’d never let her fall.

“Grab here,” I urged, taking one of her hands to wrap it around a secure handhold.

She was breathing rapidly, her eyes darting down to look at the forest floor far below us.

I hoped she wasn’t afraid of heights. That would put a damper on our climbing trips.

If she was afraid, I’d just have to figure out how to cure her of this fear.

Once she learned that she was safe with me, maybe she’d start to like it.

I took the pack I’d stored in a fork of branches only when I was certain she was sitting safely against the trunk of the tree.

Strapping it to my back, I made sure all my supplies were secure.

“We’ll put a bit more distance between us and that camp.

I want to make sure they weren’t meeting up with anyone. ”

My words finally shook her out of her worried stare-down with the depths below us.

“Yeah, good plan. I’m pretty sure I heard them talk about meeting up with some dude with bikes?

Something about, uh… Exka?” She looked adorable when she scrunched up her face like that in confusion.

I wanted to lean in and nibble on those little frown lines between her brows.

Since I was sure she wouldn’t appreciate that, I refrained, pressing my upper fists against my thighs where I squatted on the branch in front of her.

Unlike humans, my balance was excellent, and without my boots, with my claws extended, I had a good grip on the bark beneath my feet.

“Exka makes sense,” I told her. “That’s the second-biggest port on Rakex.

They probably had a way to smuggle you off the planet there.

” Then I shuffled carefully closer, making sure I was welcome.

On the ship, she’d had a habit of flinching back the moment any male approached her, even the human ones.

When she just kept on staring at me, I dared to reach out with my hands to gather her around the waist. She was so small compared to my body, and so freaking soft that I couldn’t get over it.

I inhaled her scent greedily when she tucked her head against my chest, her crown of hair just below my chin.

So trusting today, she was letting me touch her. My heart was soaring in my chest.

I held her tight for a little longer, ready—with her in my grip—to climb again, but savoring the moment.

“You are safe, Meena. I will never let anything harm you, I promise.” The words fell from my lips in a fervent vow.

As a gladiator, I’d known never to make such promises to my brethren, not even the younger ones.

You couldn’t promise something you had no way to guarantee.

I knew I couldn’t fully guarantee this either, but this promise was far more important than any I’d ever made before.

She let out a long sigh against my chest, her body shuddering in my arms. “I know you mean that,” she whispered, “but I need some time to fully believe it… to really feel like I’m safe again.

Circumstances lately haven’t really helped with that.

” The last she said ruefully, with a little husky laugh that invited me to laugh along with her.

I didn’t. This was a serious matter, and I wouldn’t joke about a kidnapping.

“I understand. As long as you know that I’ll always come for you, I’ll always protect you.

” Emotion filled me—mostly anger—when I remembered how I hadn’t been there for her that morning, when those bastards stole her right off the busy Rakex city streets.

“I should have listened to my instincts and come to the city…”

She patted my chest a little firmly, and I shivered in response. “Hey, get it through your head right now! This wasn’t your fault, and they weren’t even after me. I should have been safe.” I liked how she stood up for me—even against my own voice of doubt—and I smiled, though she couldn’t see that.

“Why wouldn’t they be after you? You are the prettiest human female of them all…

” I said to her, still smiling as I thought about that.

I’d lucked out, she was well worth any kind of wait.

I shouldn’t have been so impatient. Any male would be lucky to have her, and I could easily imagine why she’d been the one stolen from the crowd.

She stood out among them with her beauty and her regal bearing, not to mention that fierce warrior spirit.

She laughed, and this time, there was genuine humor in the sound.

“Gosh, you can’t help yourself, can you?

You just have to be charming when given the chance.

” I was pretty sure that, though she said it like it was an accusation, it wasn’t a bad one, so I simply nodded, my hand sliding along the curve of her spine in a gentle caress.

I liked being called charming; I hoped that meant she liked my words.

“I still failed,” I said, but not angrily at myself this time.

“I managed to break both my com and my biosignature scanner.” Not that the latter would have helped us find our way out of the woods, it only pointed Meena’s way; I just hated having lost that tool.

What if I ended up losing her a second time?

My fists started to clench as the possibility filled my mind. No. Never. Over my dead body.

She tilted her head back so that we could look each other in the eye, her body still pressed closely against mine. I was starting to think she was using me for warmth, not because she really wanted to cuddle. Little bumps covered her skin where it was exposed to the cool Rakex night air.

Our faces were so close that it wouldn’t take much to close the gap between our mouths; I craved the sweetness of her lips against my own. I’d never kissed a female, and I desperately wanted to know what it would feel like, why my brothers seemed to enjoy the act so much with their own mates.

“Yeah, but it was an accident, and you already have a plan. That doesn’t seem like a failure to me.

Humans have a saying: ‘shit happens,’” she said, and grinned when I pulled a face at her words.

“It means we can’t control everything. Some things go wrong even when we have the best intentions.

We just have to gather ourselves and try again.

” She frowned, and I could just see the gears starting to turn in her head, her thoughts focusing inward.

She was like that when I gathered her more tightly against me and prepared for another climb.

As instructed previously, I gently warned her about what I was about to do, but she gave no response.

This climb didn’t seem to bother her nearly as much, but I still made sure it was only a short one, putting as little distance between her kidnapper’s campsite and safety as I dared.

Once there, I set the lightweight tent up high in the canopy of the trees.

Anchoring it as securely as I could—these tents were made for this kind of thing—I’d made sure to practice pitching one under Da’vi’s supervision, so I knew I was doing it right.

Meena was still distrustful about climbing inside it, since the bottom of the tent was actually suspended like a hammock over the deep drop.

As soon as she was inside, I gave her the bag with her things and a ration bar to gnaw on.

After promising her I would stand guard outside all night, I knew she would soon be fast asleep in the tent, curled up beneath the blankets like a little tree-dweller.

I wanted to crawl in there with her, hold her in my arms, and keep her warm.

Instead, I stayed firmly outside, keeping guard while resting my body.

For a while there, it felt like we were being watched, that prickling sensation of eyes on the back of your neck.

I searched the dark for the source but couldn’t find it, shrugging it off as the curious interest of a forest critter.

I still didn’t close my eyes, but with my lower hands clenched around some branches to anchor me, I did relax, letting Meena’s soft sleeping sounds fill me with calmness and contentment.