Page 46 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Once he’d left, the air in the shuttle became far more subdued.

Luka was just one big bundle of nerves; he was posing as our handler, and he had to collect the payment.

He was obviously afraid he’d give the game away and get us all trapped in slavery again.

We gladiators were far more familiar with our current roles, instead sinking into standard pre-fight rituals.

As I set our shuttle down in the assigned spot, I turned on my companions, my brothers.

“We can do this. Once this is over, we’ll have credits, we’ll have freedom, and we can go where we want to go.

” Trading handshakes, we all saved Luka for last instinctively.

Turning on the male, the four of us, all at once, looked at where he’d been observing us from his seat.

“Brother,” I said to him, watching his eerie black eyes grow more reflective.

Grabbing his slender hand, I hauled him to his feet and tugged him into a proper clasp—fist around wrist. “You can do this. Pretend you’re in a play, or you’re back home, or maybe just pretend you’re the Caratoa’s captain.

Just know that I trust you, and we’ll have your back. ”

“Aye!” chorused my fellow gladiators, and Luka nodded, squaring his shoulders.

“I can do this as long as you all do your damn hardest to come out of that arena alive.” He met the eyes of each of my brothers over my shoulder and then rested them on me.

“Especially you. I can’t bring your body home to Abby. I can’t. So you damn well survive.”

Grinning, I shook him a little. “I’m counting on it.

” But in my hearts, I knew a back-to-back fight was going to test me to my limits.

I was just as likely to get seriously hurt, die, or come out the victor.

I did know that I had never, in all three of my years as a gladiator for Drameil, had as much to fight for as I had now.

When the shuttle door opened, I showed nothing of my turmoil, hiding what I felt behind my beastly facade as always.

As I’d always made sure to be too wild, too uncontrollable, Drameil had taken to putting a lead on my nose ring.

As I slapped the lead into Luka’s hand, he visibly swallowed, struggling to hide his distaste, but then his mask slid into place as well.

Luka led the way with a disinterested look on his face, pulling me along on that damned lead like he was walking a pet—and not a very well-liked one at that. The other three gladiators walked at our heels, supposedly kept in check by virtue of their pain collars.

We were ushered into the bowels of the stadium through the back doors and into the unvarnished, despair-smelling tunnels that housed the fighting stock.

While Luka spoke with one of the fight’s organizers to check where we would be housed for the afternoon, I spent a moment looking around, checking out the competition waiting in small cubicles in this narrow corridor.

I’d been on Xio several times before, not that that meant I knew much of the planet, as all I’d seen was the inside of a transport and the arena. But I knew the layout down below, and I knew how things would go from here on out, what to expect. That, at least, settled my nerves.

They dropped me off first, unlike the other three, who’d just sit on a bench in an open cubicle.

They stuck me in one of the cages usually reserved for the non-sentient beasts they also pitted out on the sands—like the Ferai beast, still locked in our old cellblock with only the stinking Thonklad for company.

I paced the cell back and forth in three steps, walking in a groove that many feet had worn before me. I focused on the fight ahead, on the first three opponents I knew I’d face. In my head, I recounted their statistics over and over again, making sure I remembered their strengths and weaknesses.

Xio’s primary arena, the Dome, was not as large as many of the arenas I had fought in.

It was meant for the very elite only, so tickets came at a premium.

Each of the fighters pitted on its sands was a prime fighter, with far more wins than losses under their belt.

Generally, fighters of the prime class won more than seventy percent of all their matches, and once that number started dropping, they were sent in for death matches, like Sunder.

Knowing this, I knew the stands would be filled only with the richest and most privileged. I’d fought many prime fights because I’d never been defeated. The fact that these organizers were now allowed to pit me in two back-to-back fights—three against one—probably had everyone salivating.

All these rich assholes would want to be the ones to personally witness the Beast’s first defeat. Fierce, whose hearing was the best out of all of us, had whispered to me that the betting odds on my second fight were 39 to 1 against my winning. I fervently hoped Abigail didn’t hear about this.

The other three all went out onto the sands, one after the other, returning victorious, while Luka paced in front of my cell or watched from the handler’s bench near the entrance to the sands.

I couldn’t tell the male to settle down and calm down, lest he betray us to the organizer watching him with interest. The Beast wasn’t supposed to be able to talk at all.

As the headliner for this night of fights, I was the last one scheduled to go out there.

When the announcer started prepping the audience for my first fight, it felt like forever—and then some—had passed.

I wanted to get this over with; there was only so much warming up of my muscles I could do to prepare for this fight inside this tiny cell.

When I stepped out on the sand, everything felt so damn familiar that for a moment, I could hardly remember that I fought a free male this time. I was fighting so that Abigail and the others—so that I, myself—could live our lives as free people. That was a worthy cause.

Luka unsnapped the chain from my nose ring and whispered to me, “You can do this. Try to keep your back to the sinking sun—I noticed it’s particularly bright this sunset.

” That was good advice that I hadn’t expected from the Doc.

Keeping my back to that sun would ensure my opponents had that bright light straight in their faces, blinding them.

Barefoot, I walked across the warm sand, reaching the middle and raising my arms high in the sky so I could roar for the audience.

It whipped them up into a frenzy; they were screaming my name, applauding.

Ironic that they cheered me on when each of them had bet that I’d lose my second fight tonight.

Of course, these fights weren’t meant to be to the death, but it was not uncommon for one or two casualties to fall on such an evening regardless.

Then my first three competitors entered the arena, and the fight was on.

***

Abigail

When I returned to the bridge, I found Tori awkwardly perched on one of the jump seats at the back wall of the bridge, as far away from Kitan as possible. Kitan was just as awkwardly sitting in the pilot’s chair, the tension between them thick enough to cut.

Eyeing the two, I said, “What?” My eyebrow raised in inquiry, and I pinned each of them with a stare.

Kitan rolled one shoulder, dipping his head with the pointed, fox-like snout, and refused to meet my eyes.

Tori, however, met my stare, but her face turned completely scarlet.

“Come on, spill it, you two,” I said, hoping this would provide me with a distraction so I wouldn’t think of Ziame risking himself.

Eventually, Tori whispered, “The baby kicked. I let Kitan feel it...” And now they were both feeling awkward, how interesting. I wasn’t sure if there was attraction brewing between the two or if this was just them being awkward over the tender moment.

Either way, it wasn’t a distraction at all.

I just rolled my eyes and sat down in the captain’s chair, my leg jittery with nerves.

Kitan gave me a sideways look and then, very carefully, said, “Shall I put the match up on the viewscreen? They won’t have started yet.

Probably another hour or two before Ziame is up. ”

I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “Put it up when it starts, I guess.” Then I eyed Tori again. “Do you know who fed the beast and the prisoners today?” I knew that Fierce was usually the one to do it, but the males had been too busy prepping for their fights this morning.

She hesitated a moment. The red in her face had gone, and now she looked a little sick. “I went with Sunder. His cage really needs to be cleaned, but we don’t know how to go about it… They normally would knock him out with the pain collar, but we think that’s cruel.”

“Shit, yeah, that’s really cruel. Maybe Luka can sedate it?

” I offered. Then another thought crossed my mind.

“In zoos, don’t they usually have the ability to isolate an animal in one part of its cage?

Maybe when we sedate it, we can make a sliding door between two cells?

So next time, we can just lure it to one side with food? ”

“That is a great idea, female,” Kitan said. “We should do that. I know Jakar is handy enough with some tools; he can probably make such a thing.” He grinned widely, a foxy grin that displayed all his sharp, glittering teeth.

“We should find a safe planet to leave that poor animal on. Keeping it on the ship is no way to live,” I added, wondering if I needed to make sure the males understood that or if they’d like to keep the dangerous animal as a pet or something.

I couldn’t imagine Ziame wanting to, but he had told me this animal was normally kept as a pet, not that I could see how.

“Of course,” Kitan said. “He has lost his bonded; there is no way to safely keep it now.” He agreed with me with a solemn nod and then eyed Tori, who was still perched in her jump seat. She looked away, red tinging her cheeks again, and I noticed how that made Kitan’s grin even bigger.

She looked awkward and hesitantly asked, “What about Sunder? Is his mission going all right?” We had worried that Sunder might be recognized in one of the bars when he tried to procure us a navigator.

He also needed to find us a lead on a replacement transponder so we could change the ship’s identity.

He’d been advertised for today’s fights as one of the main contenders, and since his fight had been the only death match on the docket, he’d drawn a crowd.

Except now, it was canceled and replaced with Ziame’s impossible twofer.

Kitan couldn’t do it himself—he needed to be here to fly the ship and was still too hurt to go out—so Sunder it was.

I eyed the fox-like male for a second, wondering if Tori’s concern for Sunder bothered him in any way.

The male was trying to scratch beneath the cast on his arm with one of his claws and was clearly frustrated that it wasn’t working.

There was no apparent interest in Tori’s question, except when he casually mentioned that he could send the Tarkan male a message.

Tori nodded anxiously. She was nibbling on her lower lip, and I realized maybe I was wrong about her being interested in Kitan.

Maybe she was interested in Sunder, she had been spending an awful lot of time with him.

Then I shook my head. Don’t be stupid. This could just purely be friendship.

It wasn’t like Tori was in a good place to look for a boyfriend.

In many ways, I reminded myself, I wasn’t either.

I had just been abducted and thrown into this crazy world; I could hardly trust my own feelings, now could I?

I thought of Ziame risking his life today and felt cold fear clench my belly and crawl up my throat.

I remembered only too well how it felt to lie curled up in his arms each night.

I wanted him back safe and sound; I wanted him at my side.

My thoughts were interrupted when Sunder’s face appeared on the large center viewscreen on the bridge.

He was wearing a billed cap that covered the crown of short horns he sported, and his slate-gray eyes were worried.

The tusks that jutted up from the bottom of his mouth were more pronounced in this face-only shot, ten times enlarged on the screen.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Tori wince, clearly disconcerted by the close-up of the gargoyle male.

No wonder—he really was rather ugly and scary-looking.

“What’s wrong?” Sunder demanded in a hushed tone. “I was just about to enter the bar. Did something happen to Tori?” He hadn’t seen her then, lurking in the back of the bridge; his eyes were focused completely on Kitan.

The fox male winced as he shifted his battered body, then tried for a nonchalant shrug.

“Just checking in. Making sure you know what to look for.” He tried to stretch out a leg and winced again; the smattering of burns that covered him was clearly starting to hurt more.

I knew he had another dose of painkiller waiting for him, but it was still too early for that.

Luka hadn’t protested about Kitan landing us and flying us out of here; he was our only choice, after all.

But I knew better than the others that if the situation were ideal, Kitan would have stayed in bed for at least another two days.

Sunder growled, “I know what to do. Don’t worry. I’ll get us a navigator.”

“A good one!” Kitan interjected with a saucy grin, his pain momentarily forgotten. His fox-like appearance suited him far more than he knew; he was a trickster, playful. But that mood only struck him in short bouts while he was recovering, and it didn’t last long now.

Sunder narrowed his eyes. “I’ll get us one who’ll get us away from here, and you can sort out the rest. We can’t be picky right now.” The connection broke right after, and I heard Kitan curse and growl under his breath, though he didn’t try to call Sunder back.

I turned to check if Tori was at least reassured and discovered the girl had slipped off the bridge without a word, which left me alone with my thoughts and an irritable male while I waited for news on Ziame’s fight.