Page 386 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

This one was wearing a pair of black pants and a long, open robe in the same color.

The Sythral were fond of silver and gold, and of decking themselves out in their wealth to show it off.

This particular one didn’t even have gold to cap the two horns jutting from his narrow chin.

He had none of the gold curling around the edges of his clothing or dangling in chains from his chest. He had no gold at all.

The lack of wealth on display only made him seem more menacing, reducing him to the bare essentials of his species, which was terrifying.

I’d once seen a Naga visit Drova’s bar: scary-looking guy, with his long snake body and male torso.

There had been something noble about him, too.

The Sythral? They reminded me of snakes as well, with their needle-filled mouths that could open to frighteningly large proportions.

They were insidious and evil. They reminded me of the bad guys in one of my favorite gate-hopping sci-fi shows.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice croaking.

Now my mouth felt dry and disgusting, and I swallowed a few times to ease the feeling.

I didn’t see Akri anywhere, and I was terrified that something had happened to him.

I didn’t know what was going on. How had I gotten here?

Who was this guy? Why had he kidnapped me?

The Sythral male hissed again, the noise making me think that what I had just said had infuriated him.

Should I have recognized him? “I’m your worst nightmare!

” he said, his body shifting in a far too liquid a manner, as if he had no bones.

I couldn’t remember if other Sythral I’d seen had moved quite like that.

His pompous answer didn’t tell me anything, but it instilled an even deeper fear in the pit of my belly.

I might have woken up on a pretty fainting couch, but whatever he had in store for me, I wasn’t going to like it one bit.

The fact that I was unsecured and free to move about only told me he thought I wasn’t a threat.

Sure, I could see four men stationed around the room—guards kitted out in black gear—but they looked like they were bored, rather than worried I’d harm their master.

“What do you want from me?” I asked. And where was Akri? But I didn’t dare ask that in case he’d gotten away and they didn’t know about him. If they did have him locked up somewhere, I didn’t want them to realize that I cared about him, that might be really bad.

The Sythral male rose to his feet, and I didn’t like how that made him tower over me.

I got to my feet to match his posture, but it didn’t make me feel any less vulnerable.

I tried hard to hide how weak I still felt, and how confused I was by what was going on.

The last I remembered was falling asleep in Arki’s arms after we’d made love in that tiny little cave.

My brain was having a hard time wrapping itself around this new reality.

He scoffed, his long, slender body appearing almost like a wraith or a skeleton beneath the long black robe.

Then, he swung a cane around, and I finally saw the first sign of gold, the tip of the thing glinting luridly in the bright light.

I flinched back, nearly tumbling onto the settee behind me to avoid having that thing hit me in the throat.

“I want you to tell me where you found him! I want to know who you were going to sell it to!” he screamed in my face.

His mouth opened so far that, for a moment, all I saw was needles and a deep, black hole I could disappear into.

I didn’t understand his questions, not until he pulled something from his robe and shoved it into my face.

I stumbled back, then fell onto the couch, staring at the green amulet he dangled in front of me.

This was about that thing? Was he trying to stop Akri from finding out what was on it?

Or was Akri the he he was talking about?

No, my brain still couldn’t process what he wanted from me.

I didn’t have all the facts, but maybe that was a good thing.

I couldn’t tell this asshole what he wanted, no matter what he did.

Maybe that’s why Akri hadn’t gone into detail about why he even needed what was on that thing.

Because, face it, I might love my action movies and my sci-fi shows, but I was no hero material.

I loved adventure, but torture? I was going to cave so freaking hard.

Then the thought crossed my mind that by keeping my mouth shut, I could maybe prevent Akri from getting hurt…

Could I do it for him? My body filled with a wave of resolve, and I knew. Yeah, for him, I could.

“What is that?” I asked, opting for the playing-dumb tactic. In response, the male hissed again, the sound rattling up my spine, causing goosebumps all over my body. I really, really wanted to disappear into that damn couch, but since that wasn’t an option, I settled for clenching my fists.

“You know what it is! You took it off my gladiator, Brake! Where did you find him? You’re too young to have been the one who stole him from me!

Where was he?” He shook his fist with the amulet in my face again, as if that could somehow make me remember what he wanted to know.

He threw the chain around my neck, holding me by it for a long, protracted moment, and then he hissed and shoved back as he let go, forcing me to stumble into the couch a second time.

The name Brake did ring a bell; it was what those bounty hunters had called him when they tried to stop us near Akrod’s docks.

That had seemed like a simple case of mistaken identity, but now it was obvious it wasn’t.

It had to be the name of the male Akri had come to possess.

He was dead, brain dead. Akri had explained how he’d gotten into the body, but how he’d ended up on Akri’s ship? I had no clue.

I shrugged, trying to go for that unconcerned act.

“No clue what you’re talking about.” Then I found a bold streak in me again, that streak that made me love adventure, that allowed me to land on my feet when I’d discovered myself kidnapped from Earth.

“Why would I tell you? You’re a Sythral without gold, you’re no threat to me. ”

The long vertical slits in his cheeks vibrated with the angry hissing noise he made.

I was scared to my core, but somehow I managed to remain seated where I’d landed and stare up at him with defiance—defiance I definitely wasn’t feeling anywhere near as strongly as I was making it look.

This could be a terrible mistake, hitting him where it hurt the most.

“How dare you! You have no idea! You filthy, disgusting, classless, dumb thief!” he spat, then tilted his head and jutted his chin at one of the guards.

It was a Krektar who outsized and outmuscled me at least three times over, and he manhandled me to my knees, yanking my arms behind my back with a painful wrench.

I couldn’t prevent a pained moan from escaping, and I could tell that it excited the Sythral to hear it.

“You are going to be your own downfall, just like on the planet!” the Sythral declared, pacing in front of me as the Krektar guard held me.

A gleam in the red eyes of the evil creature before me made me want to flinch back into the stocky body of the guard behind me.

“No stupid thief outsmarts me, and you are stupid!” he reiterated.

I wondered what he was talking about, a sinking feeling forming in the pit of my stomach.

Had I done something that had allowed him to find us? Was this my fault?

The cuffs clicked around my wrists as they locked magnetically, and a hand on my shoulder kept me in place on my knees in front of the alien creep.

His red eyes glowed with glee as he watched me in this new, vulnerable position.

Another jerk of the head had the guard melt away, back to his spot against the wall.

The Sythral waved his cane, the gold tip arrowing toward my face, and I flinched back even though it wasn’t moving fast.

I was seeing stars the next moment. He’d moved like a cobra, snapping out an open-palmed hand and hitting me in the face with it.

“Do not move!” he said, and then he added, much more gleefully, “You don’t even know, do you?

How that silly water contraption led me right to your cave.

You might as well have lit a fire, would have been warmer while you waited for us to catch you! ”

Oh shit, I hadn’t been thinking about anything but the burning desert heat the next day.

I hadn’t realized someone could be searching for us from the sky, that a simple bit of tarp would be like painting a bullseye on our backs.

This was my fault, and I should have told Akri what I’d done, I thought I was helping.

But I’d gotten us caught instead. Maybe the Sythral thought this information would cause me to talk, that pointing out my mistake would make me more amenable to caving.

I was only more resolved to do better this time, to not fail Akri again.

I knew not to move this time when the cane with the gold tip gently swept in front of me, tipping my chin back so I was looking the Sythral in the eye.

“You think you can cause my downfall? Think again! Who are you working for? You’re a nobody.

You’re not smart enough to engineer this kind of plan!

Was it Dexi or Lakola? No… Jalima sent you, didn’t he? ”

Oh boy, Jalima? I knew that name. He was one of the major crimelords who ran the criminal elements in this quadrant of space.

One of supposedly twelve, he was currently rumored to have claimed several major pieces of territory that once belonged to Drameil, another major crimelord who had fallen on hard times.

And I knew that he had annexed all of the territories that once belonged to Carator when he was killed half a year ago.