Page 45 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Abigail

We were approaching Xio, only ten minutes left until we’d break through the atmosphere.

Already, Ziame had spoken to ground control, and we were good for the approach.

I didn’t know exactly how it all worked, but it sounded somewhat similar to how an airfield with normal planes might work on Earth—except that flights weren’t planned so much as you’d just request a landing slot on arrival.

The past three days had been strange but good in many ways.

The gladiators who planned to fight on Xio had worked out hard to hone their skills, usually doing so for several hours in the morning and one or two more in the evening.

The rest of the time, those with no other important skills worked at getting the ship as clean as possible.

Sunder and Tori had taken it upon themselves to do an inventory of the ship’s hold, but that was a massive undertaking, as it was more than half-filled with what were likely stolen goods.

Until we got more knowledge of what things were worth, it wouldn’t be helpful to try and offload any of that, though I certainly hoped we’d earn a pretty penny that way eventually.

The inventory was so massive and confusing that Tori had complained twice already that she’d lost something she thought she’d already counted—a crate of rations and a smaller box of dehydrated bread-cakes of some kind.

I figured that might be pregnancy brain talking, though.

It was already confusing to me to take a single step into that hold, and Tori still couldn’t find her way anywhere, getting completely turned around the moment she stepped into a corridor.

Kitan was, thankfully, on the mend, that is to say, he was out of the woods and currently confined to bed rest, which he did not endure graciously.

Sunder spent time with him, though, making sure they hammered out the details required for hiring a good navigator.

He was well enough to make an appearance on the bridge and set the autopilot correctly once they’d taken off, and he’d insisted on being helped to the bridge to take care of their landing.

I was fairly certain that Ziame was relieved about that because, otherwise, he’d be the only one qualified enough to make the attempt. I thought he’d been vividly envisioning our fiery death upon landing all day until Kitan announced he’d do it.

“Everyone’s got a com on them, right?” I asked for what was probably the tenth time that hour alone.

We’d found a good number of those, a lucky stroke, as the box that contained them had been right near the door to the hold.

Sunder and Luka knew enough to configure them and had handed them out.

We’d each be able to reach each other anywhere on the ship or the planet, as long as the ship was in orbit.

I absolutely hated the thought that I wasn’t going to be allowed to go down to the arena, even though I probably would hate every second of watching my friends fight. That’s what they’d become over the days, though—fast friends—not to mention Ziame, whose cabin I’d shared since that night.

Right now, the plan was for Sunder, as a free male, to head down to the spaceport’s bars to scout for a navigator, while Ziame, Jakar, Fierce, and Thorin headed for the arena in one of our small transports.

As we wanted to have the Doc on hand in case any of them got hurt, he was to pose as their handler while the ones fighting wore fake pain collars.

Ziame, who was still in the captain’s chair as he surveyed Sunder and a propped-up Kitan at the helm, gave a low chuckle. “Of course, Abigail. Luka has his right there on his shirt, and Sunder’s got his too. You know none of the fighting males can have one.”

Luka was hovering over Kitan’s shoulder as he worked on our landing one-handed, as the other arm was still in a cast. It had been badly broken two days before the fight due to the bad training gear, and he’d neglected to mention it.

Choosing to fight through it was, according to him, the only reason the damn Krektar had gotten the better of him.

“You can stay here with Kitan, ready to fire up the ship, and you can watch the fight on the viewscreen, should you want to.” The censure in that voice told me he probably preferred I didn’t watch him fight.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to, either, but at the same time, not knowing how it was going might very well be worse.

The landing went off without a hitch, and I left Kitan alone on the bridge to see them all off in the hangar bay.

Ziame was going to be flying the shuttle that would take them to the arena, and they’d drop off Sunder along the way.

I half expected Tori to be there too, but she was a no-show, maybe she was resting, as I knew she’d been up early again that morning.

She and Sunder had been spending a lot of time together, so I had expected her to say goodbye to him.

The other males all boarded the shuttle.

Luka, dressed in the best clothing we could find, looked very nervous as he did so.

Ziame waited at the door, turning to look at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Don’t worry too much, alright? I have much to return to.

” When I felt my eyes actually tear up a little at the thought of him being in two back-to-back three-on-one fights in not too long, he hurried to pull me into his arms.

“Look, you did really well renegotiating the terms of the fight with the organizers. You hammered out the details of payment, earning us even more than before, and you arranged for the payout to happen here so it goes to us instead of Drameil. You did an amazing job. Now, let me do my part.”

I had done all that. Didn’t mean I liked any of this, even if I was the dumbass who suggested it in the first place. Grabbing hold of his horns, I tugged his head down so I could look him in the eye. “You come back, okay? I can’t do this without you.”

I’d been independent all my life. I’d also been alone. I knew I didn’t want that now, not out here in space, where everything was scary, strange, and dangerous. I wanted Ziame, so he needed to come back, and then he needed to be true to his word and never, ever do this again.

“I promise, my sweet,” he said, deadly serious, his long ears perked straight forward to show that his attention was fully on me. Then he leaned in and nuzzled my face, the smooth band of his gold nose ring warm against my cheek.

When he let go of me, he walked into the small shuttle with his back straight, but his tail clung to me as long as it could. From inside the shuttle, I could see three pairs of eyes on me—probably watching our entire exchange. The only gladiator who’d kept his peepers to himself had been Sunder.

The door slid shut, and I backed up so the shuttle could leave.

I tried hard to make myself feel amused by the younger gladiators and their curiosity.

It was better to focus on that than on Ziame heading for what seemed to me like impossible fights.

Come on, Abby, the others all thought he could do this; it should be all right.

***

Ziame

“Sated your curiosity?” I asked the other three fighting today and was gratified to see them guiltily snap upright. They knew they shouldn’t have been looking at that private moment, but they had anyway.

Jakar shrugged, shaking off my censure as if it were water, but Fierce frowned after a moment and shook his head.

“She chooses you? She’s your mate?” It was clear he couldn’t wrap his head around the entire concept.

For a moment, it felt as though he thought I was unworthy of a female like Abigail, but then I realized it wasn’t that.

Sunder and Kitan had both been something before they’d been forced to be gladiators, they’d had lives of their own, though Sunder’s was half a lifetime ago.

Fierce, on the other hand, had always been a slave, sent into gladiator training at fourteen and fighting ever since. That life was all he knew. Of course, he wondered about relationships and how those worked; he’d probably never seen healthy examples.

“She has not yet chosen to be my mate,” I said gently, because I didn’t want to lie. “But I will try very hard to convince her.” I winked, and that made them lose their stiffness and chuckle with me. Fierce and Jakar shared a look, but when I settled my eyes on Thorin, his darted away.

“I wish you luck, then,” said Jakar. He looked thoughtful, a little envious, even. The young Pretorian male clearly wanted a mate of his own; I couldn’t fault him for that. I was far too elated and happy to know that, out there in the Zeta Quadrant, I’d finally found a female of my own.

Finishing my pre-flight check, I sent us out of the hangar bay and started weaving through the spaceport until we found the right bar. According to our galactic database searches, this bar on Xio was one of the hotspots for navigators; finding one here should be easy for Sunder.

The older male was dressed in a generic jumpsuit, the kind we’d found dozens of in all the ship’s cabins.

We’d had to change the back panel to accommodate his wings, but thankfully Luka had been handy with a needle and thread.

A belt around his middle was weighed down with a gun and a blaster, and his com was clipped to his lapel.

Before we reached the bar, he went around to each of the males and discussed some last pointers for the fights. Weaknesses, things to watch for, and tells to cover. He saved me for last, just as I touched down in a nearby parking lot. To me, all he said was, “Good luck. I have faith in you.”