Page 64 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

The women, Abigail and Tori, were each on opposite sides of the table.

Abby was sitting with her body tucked beneath the brawny arm of her mate, Ziame.

I had to suppress a fan-girlish giggle at seeing the Beast in the flesh yet again!

Abby was talking animatedly to the gladiators across the table from her, grinning widely.

Tori was shy and quietly sitting at the side of a big Tarkan male in stone-skin.

Why was that guy in battle-form? I struggled for a moment with that—it was a sign of distrust, of aggression.

Was he going to hurt someone in a moment?

Did he expect a dagger in his back? Then Kitan shifted at my side.

He was in hybrid-form; he couldn’t shift because his arm was still broken. Was it like that for the Tarkan too?

I let myself be guided to an empty chair at the end of the table.

Nobody looked at me—probably instructed not to—but I didn’t care; I was grateful for that.

And the fact that Kitan sat down between me and the others?

That helped, too. I let go of the tightness in my chest and tried hard to let myself be in the moment.

I could do this. I could adjust. I could relax and learn about these people—learn to trust them the way the other women did.

***

Kitan

My heart was racing. I was nervous because I was with Chloe, and I wanted everything to go right.

I’d been a nervous wreck all day because I worried that my stowaway hadn’t liked her gift this morning.

She was here now, though, sitting next to me with her long blonde hair shimmering around her shoulders and her blue eyes wary but not scared.

She’d come out of her room for me, while Abby and Tori had failed to convince her all week.

I’d kept my distance, even though I’d wanted to be at her door every single day.

Doc had been right in suggesting I not let her latch on to me as the only person she knew aboard the ship.

I had to let her get to know the girls first.

But she’d come out of her room for me! She trusted me, and now I was going to make it my mission to ensure she enjoyed this meal—and would come out for every single meal after this.

A mission that turned out to be not as difficult as I expected.

She listened to the banter of my brothers around the table and the respectful, friendly way in which they interacted with Abby and Tori.

I joined in, tried to ask her questions when it seemed she was interested, and then discovered she knew tons about the gladiator fights. Made sense—the pirates probably watched the broadcasted fights all the time; she’d grown up on this stuff.

When she discovered who Fierce and Jakar were, she could rattle off all their stats, much to the amusement of my brothers.

I was a little jealous about it, but also kind of amused.

She hadn’t talked about seeing me in any fights.

I was a prime too, just like the others here.

That kind of hurt my pride a little. Then again, it was amusing to see her lose all her reservations when she talked shop with my brothers.

She knew plenty—enough to make you wonder if she could fight herself.

Doubtful, but maybe she’d enjoy training with me once my damn arm was healed.

I wanted to draw the meal out, but my brothers were busy enough, and I had tasks too.

We were still working hard to clean the ship and inventory exactly what was aboard it.

Portions of several decks had been closed off by bulkheads due to hull breaches, and there was an enormous amount of repairs to do that we knew nothing about.

It fell to Ziame and me, for now, to figure out what we needed.

We weren’t engineers, but at least we knew how to run ship diagnostics.

There was Doom, of course, Da’vi, but with his hands burned, he couldn’t do any actual repairing.

It looked to me like he was struggling to adjust to feeling that helpless—I could sympathize.

With my broken arm and busted ribs, I was excluded from training right now, which meant I missed the physical activity and the camaraderie of working out and sparring with my brothers.

Even Ziame, who could never fight in an arena again, still went to train every day.

Turning to Chloe, not expecting she’d say yes, I suggested she join me on my mission to check every nook and cranny of this ship.

Her eyes lit up, though, and I felt my chest grow warm; she was so damn beautiful like that, it stole my breath.

“I can do you one better,” she murmured with a smirk.

“I can show you all the smuggling hatches.”

The other males had been in the process of leaving the mess hall.

Ziame was saying goodbye to Abby and was closest. Still, they all froze and turned her way.

“Did you say smuggling hatches?” Ziame asked.

She looked like a prey animal caught in the crosshairs of a hunter at that moment—scared of all the attention on her.

But she wasn’t shy and insecure the way Tori was.

Despite her fair skin, she didn’t blush.

Instead, she squared her shoulders and lifted that stubborn chin of hers.

“Yes, I did.” I couldn’t have been more proud of her at that moment.