Page 76 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Chloe

Kitan was bristling with anger as we walked through the ship for the last time.

Right now, I still thought of it as the Ever Golden.

She was even still called that because we had planned on repainting the hull with our new call sign while in orbit over Gonovar.

Until then, the new transponder wasn’t active, as we didn’t want to risk the two names being connected by anyone.

I thought that maybe it would feel strange for me to step off the ship, knowing I’d never see it again.

Somehow, when Kitan guided me aboard a small shuttle in the hangar bay, all I felt was relief.

Though this place had been home in a sense, it wasn’t until I’d met Kitan that I’d discovered I could feel safe again, that I could discover friendship, loyalty, and belonging.

That I could find that often-spoken-of but rarely-found true connection between a nav and a pilot.

Kitan was my pilot now, and if he didn’t get to fly anymore, then neither would I.

I wasn’t going to let him face his own personal hell all by himself.

I’d always known I was going to die young, so, really, nothing had changed.

At least I got to spend that last bit of time with Kitan, and maybe I could make things a little more bearable for a short while.

I understood why he was angry. He was furious about this turn of events, but more than anything, he wished I wasn’t coming with him—that I’d have a path toward healing.

I thought that, perhaps, if we left him here, we’d never get the chance to see him again.

Ziame could say he wasn’t leaving without Kitan, and I believed that he was loyal enough to try.

I just didn’t think they would be able to do anything for him.

The Sune would never let Kitan close to his allies; they wouldn’t allow him outside contact.

Better I spent my last moments with him, then, where I had found real happiness.

I was far more right than I wanted to be.

Aboard the small shuttle, a soldier came and took our coms away.

He bowed and scraped as he made his request, but he didn’t leave until he had them in his hands.

It didn’t escape my notice, either, that not a single one of the soldiers dared shift out of their hybridform.

Even Diamed had remained that way. They were still very much on edge, and because of that, Kitan hadn’t shifted back, either.

We were instructed to sit down on the jumpseats that lined the sides of the small vessel.

The interior of the shuttle was extremely spartan, clearly meant as a troop transport of some kind.

The seats were barely padded, but they were made to accommodate both human-shaped bodies and the Sune hybridform.

At least that meant that when Kitan and I strapped in, I could adjust the harness to fit my much smaller body.

“You do not leave my side, Chloe. Not once,” Kitan murmured.

The set of his jaw told me just how angry he still was.

I was about to answer him but had to settle for pressing myself more into his side, beneath his sheltering arm.

The unusually colored Sune officer, Ga’tera, sat down in the seat across from us and leaned in.

“I’ve been instructed to deliver you safely to Suleantra Monastery.

We’ll be at the nearest landing site shortly. ”

Kitan pulled back his lips and snarled, “You think I care? You are returning me to a life of imprisonment. I’d rather be a gladiator than a priest!”

The male made a sniffing noise and turned up his long, pointed nose as if Kitan had said something utterly disgusting. “Gladiators are scum. They choose to shed blood for the entertainment of others! Why would an esteemed priest lower himself to such depravity?”

I couldn’t stop myself even if I wanted to.

An angry snort escaped, and then I leaned across the narrow pathway and poked the damn Sune male right in his chest. “Are you completely daft or just extremely naive? You think those gladiators chose anything? They are slaves! Their owners keep them in stables and sell them for profit—sell breeding rights, sell the rights to their bloody deaths!”

Since the male was currently covered in fur—white fur at that—I couldn’t tell precisely if he had paled, but his eyes took on a shocked cast. “And you’d choose that over esteemed priesthood?

” he asked Kitan. The guy honestly looked like his whole world had just been turned upside down, and I suddenly felt hopeful that maybe he’d let us go after all.

Kitan growled again, his arm coming around to grasp the hand I’d used to poke Officer Ga’tera, probably to prevent me from doing it again. “In a heartbeat. When my brothers and I freed ourselves from that slavery, it wasn’t nearly as sweet a moment as when I escaped Suleantra as a teen.”

Ga’tera didn’t say much more for quite some time—long enough for the shuttle’s gravitygenerator to cut out as we entered Sune’s atmosphere, for it to switch on again, and for us to land at the main port of the Sune capital.

When the shuttle door opened, Officer Ga’tera held up a hand to us, imperiously gesturing to make it clear we weren’t to move.

Instead, Diamed was escorted off by one of the soldiers, and the female had the audacity to give us a sassy smile and a wave before she hopped out the door.

In parting, she said, “I hope your friends are smart enough to leave, or something bad might happen to them after all.” It sent cold shivers down my spine.

Was she threatening the freed gladiators?

This lady was one cold bitch. Was she going to rat out their location to Drameil?

Try and catch some credits for that, too?

There was nothing either of us could do about it now, so, while Kitan and I shared a worried look, neither of us said anything.

Only four soldiers remained, belted in at the front of the shuttle, while we stayed near the exit.

A pilot and nav duo sat up front, in skin-form and simply dressed in flight suits.

Maybe Ga’tera had waited until we had less of an audience; he certainly lowered his voice to make sure we weren’t overheard.

“The green-scaled male—what was he? I’ve never seen one of his kind before,” he asked. It was not at all what I expected him to want to know, not in what was likely a limited amount of time while they flew us to this monastery.

Kitan didn’t bat an eye at the odd line of questioning.

“Ziame is our captain. He is Lacerten and was stolen and imprisoned while on an anthropological exploration mission. He’s been forced to fight for a crimelord known as Drameil.

” Then, knowing Kitan, he couldn’t resist teasing, so with a smirk, he added, “It’s a good thing for you that I didn’t want to brand my brothers as criminals.

He’d have wiped the floor with you—burned you to a crisp. ”

The officer raised his brows and flicked his black-tipped fox ears. “I’m supposed to believe that?” Kitan shrugged, making it clear he didn’t care one way or another. “You can rattle off his combat stats, can’t you, Chloe?”

I rolled my eyes but dutifully rattled off the most recent stats for Ziame: “Undefeated prime, seventy-eight wins by KO, one hundred thirty-seven wins by forfeit. Fire-breathing, venomous bite, blades on arms, spine, and on his prehensile tail. Horns and scales hard enough to deflect bladed weapons—not to mention retractable claws on hands and feet.”

The male across from me had a satisfying reaction, dropping his mouth open to stare at me as if I’d just sprouted another head.

“She’s not just a pretty face, my Chloe,” Kitan said with obvious pride.

“Now… remember that I can shift whenever I feel like it, and I’m very familiar with those specs.

” He had suddenly lowered his tone into something deadly serious, cold, and threatening.

I had to suppress my own shiver, but it was clear from the way Officer Ga’tera had pinned back his ears that I wasn’t the only one affected by that tone and the threat.

“Fine, I hear you,” the male said. “But you can’t fight all of us without risking your mate.

And you’ll never get clearance to leave the planet again with this vessel.

It’s been blocked from exiting the atmosphere.

” He didn’t say it, but it was clear that they’d thought of this problem and had taken every precaution.

What I couldn’t understand was why they would treat Kitan like a flight risk, like a captive in every way, yet still think they were doing him an honor.

I didn’t know exactly what they wanted from him either or why he was so special just because he had a triple tail. With Kitan’s previous statement, I finally had a strong inclination, even if it did boggle my mind a little.

While I was processing those possibilities, Kitan started bouncing his leg up and down in anxiety, his arm around my shoulders growing stiff as a board the longer we were underway.

Across from us, the officer kept staring, and sometimes he looked like he was on the verge of speaking, but then he’d snap his jaws shut again and look away.

At this point, I didn’t think he had it in him to break the rules and help us, so I turned my head and tried to soothe Kitan instead.

“Whatever happens down there,” I whispered, “it’ll be alright. We’ll get through this.” His golden eyes shimmered when he looked at me, and the barely concealed terror inside them didn’t abate.

***

Kitan