Page 356 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Jenny

I was still smiling as I got back to work.

Akri—what an odd guy—but I really liked him.

He looked at me with kindness and with this intense curiosity that I felt mirrored in myself.

He wanted to know everything about me, and I certainly wanted to find out more about him.

Too bad my current situation wasn’t going to allow me to actually sit down and talk with him, maybe even ask him out on a date.

I could see myself doing that if this were just a normal job and if I had any choices here.

My eyes darted to Drova behind the bar; the old male was deftly pulling drafts from the tap, the glasses foaming in bright colors.

His red eyes moved from the draft he was setting down to the door as soon as the bell jingled, his posture growing stiff.

I followed his line of sight, but saw only more patrons entering; it wasn’t anybody threatening—no one I associated with Drova’s gambling issues.

He seemed to conclude the same and went back to serving guests, but it was a good reminder that I needed to be on my toes today.

I touched my hand to the silk scarf that covered the pain collar around my neck.

If I saw my chance, I should try to escape, but that thing was a liability.

With it covered up, most people might not realize my status, but this was Ov’Korad, where slavery was legal.

Even if I managed to escape from Drova, he would just report his property stolen to the police.

They’d hunt me down and return me to him.

To distract myself a little from my possibly grim future, I looked over my shoulder at Akri.

I immediately couldn’t help but grin. He was hunched over his food, arm curled around the bowl, and shoveling that stew into his mouth like it was about to vanish into thin air.

He must have been really hungry; no wonder he’d ducked in here, when this wasn’t a safe place for a guy like him.

I suppressed a shiver just thinking about that posh English accent, which was so shocking to hear on a completely alien planet.

For the next ten minutes, I worked while keeping an eye on the two things of interest today. One was definitely fun to watch, especially when I realized he was watching me too. The other… definitely not. Drova seemed to get grimmer by the minute. Had he lost that big this time?

There it was—the jingle—as one group of patrons left and new people ducked inside.

I recognized the Sithral male who led the newcomers immediately, bad news.

This was definitely it, and I had a feeling I was going to be paying the price for Drova’s addiction.

Honestly, it was a miracle it had taken him over a year to lose so badly.

I knew this Sithral male was called Laimeil, and he was kind of like a loan shark.

The few times I’d seen him had always made an impression; he was terrifying to me.

His skin was parchment white, and he had no nose in that oval-shaped face.

Two gold-capped horns jutted from his chin, and vertical slits bisected his cheeks.

When he spoke in sibilant tones, a mouth full of needle-like teeth was revealed.

He wasn’t the only Sithral I’d seen, but he was the only one who gave me the creeps like he did.

They weren’t a majority on Ov’Korad, since they much preferred the warmer, drier climates of the neighboring planet, Ov’Karal.

I’d still seen enough of them to know that there was some kind of class system, and Laimeil was at the top.

Strutting across the sawdust-covered floor like he was walking over marble, he closed the distance between the door and the bar in only a few long-legged steps.

Drova was frozen in place behind the heavy wooden counter, his hands wringing together in front of his dirt-stained apron.

It looked like he was praying for a hole to open up beneath him and swallow him whole, but he didn’t run off like I half expected him to.

That meant that whatever he had to pay this shark, he had it, and that meant me.

If he couldn’t pay up, he would have fled, because this loanshark would have ensured compliance through pain.

I discovered I had frozen in place, just like Drova, when a patron drunkenly stumbled into me.

Usually, I was extremely good at dodging; par for the course around here.

Eyeing the door, my heart sank into my shoes when I realized there was no way out.

One of Laimeil’s bodyguards had taken up a position right next to it, and I could see another duck around the bar to stand in front of the kitchen doorway.

I was trapped; they had blocked all the exits.

Now what? My heartbeat started racing, my body readying itself for action.

A thrill shot up my spine, my eyes growing a little wider.

How about I threw this tray of drinks in bodyguard number one’s face?

No… better idea: what if I started a brawl?

The chaos could be the distraction I needed to get out of here.

I moved through the crowd of guests, trying to pretend I was just doing my job, when I was really approaching the door. I couldn’t hear the words exchanged between Drova and his loanshark, but I didn’t need to anyway; I knew what was going down. Almost there. Just a little more.

“Hey, boss, I think your payment is trying to get away,” someone called out from right behind my shoulder.

I spun around, dodging a pair of grabby hands, but the sight of the Hoxiam behind me took me by surprise.

Carnivorous and always hungry, the Hoxiam were not allowed on most planets since they tended to prefer eating people.

This one had clearly been fed a steady diet of flesh, because he was huge and bulky, his blue pelt gleaming with health.

He curled one clawed fist around my left arm, squeezing tight enough to cut off the circulation. Despite that firm grip, I still struggled to pull free, but it was hopeless. His shout had drawn the attention of every single patron in the bar, and a hush was starting to fall over the place.

From the corner of my eye, I could see that Akri, still in the corner by the bar, had jumped to his feet.

His set of tentacles was writhing around his shoulders, the ends curled up into thick knots, almost like a set of fists.

Oh no, I really hoped he wasn’t going to stick his neck out to help me. He’d get himself killed.

Aware that my strength was no match for a well-fed Hoxiam, I subsided in his grip, fighting my instincts to get away.

Maybe if I acted like I wasn’t concerned, Akri wouldn’t interfere.

Now what? I could see that the Sythral and Drova were furiously arguing, but they were talking quietly, not allowing their conversation to be overheard.

The crowd of patrons was on edge, staring at the Hoxiam with unease now that they’d noticed him. If I threw my drinks at them—which were miraculously still on the tray I was holding—would they start brawling? Or was the Hoxiam enough of a deterrent?

I was taking too long to think this through; Laimeil was leaving the bar.

Drova had sagged against it in utter defeat, and he had the decency to look sorry for me when his eyes came my way.

Or maybe he was just sorry that his free help was leaving, now he’d have to pay for a replacement, and that was going to hurt his bottom line.

Oh God, that guy was creepy, and the closer he got to me, the stronger my desire became to flee or fight.

The Sythral male was tall but slender, yet I knew it was all coiled power and strength.

One of my few memories of this male was from when he’d personally punished some poor bloke in the alley behind the bar.

I remembered seeing him crush the Tarkan male’s hand from the tiny window in the storage room where I slept.

To crush the hand of a Tarkan required incredible power—a Tarkan could turn their skin to something almost resembling stone.

“Good catch,” Laimeil drawled. “You’ll be going with us, female.

” He reached out to me with a pale hand tipped with obsidian-black claws.

I reacted instinctively, pulling back my arm with the tray and hurling it at the loanshark.

As the drinks crashed and splattered all over his fancy black suit, he hissed in outrage, his hands reaching for me.

One yanked at the red scarf around my neck, yanking it free and exposing the pain collar for the whole crowd to see.

The other grabbed at the shoulder of my flimsy dress, tearing it, and all my stolen credits came tumbling out.

Now I was screaming in outrage, fighting in earnest against his clawed grip and the Hoxiam’s immovable hold.

Those were mine, fair and square, but despite our struggle, patrons dove to the floor to grab the fallen money.

Greedy, awful, filthy bastards. Without that money, I had zero resources, and I saw my chances of survival without Drova dwindle before my eyes.

I screamed in anger, scratched at Laimeil’s face, and then was sent reeling when the asshole retaliated with a hard shove.

Everything seemed to be standing still for a few drawn-out seconds, and then the chaos I’d wanted to create exploded around me.

Something barreled into us with force, ripping the Hoxiam’s grip from my arm and tackling the giant, blue-furred male into the Sythral.

They went down in the sawdust together under the sound of patrons screaming, chairs scraping and tumbling as people leaped to their feet.

Akri was standing next to me, arms out at his sides, his long black leather coat fanning out around his legs, and his chest heaving.

Was he always this tall? This big? When the Hoxiam leapt at him, the two seemed almost matched in size, which had to be a trick of the eye—the Hoxiam was almost eight feet tall.