Page 77 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

I couldn’t see the monastery; this tiny troop transport had no windows or viewscreens to allow for such a thing.

Still, I knew the moment we were there—I could sense it in the rumble of the engines when we came down for a landing.

I was grateful that Chloe was there with me now; she was keeping me calm.

Had she not been here, I think I would have lashed out by now—fought till the bloody end.

No, I scoffed; they would have tranqed me like an animal. They’d never risk killing me.

When the shuttle hatch opened with a hiss and the sweet scent of the Aranga blooms filtered inside, my fur stood on end immediately.

I flashed back to my time growing up in this place—the strict rules, the endless training, and the sheer exhaustion from all the shifts.

The memory of my blood mixing with the scent of the blooms came to me, when I wasn’t fast enough, or good enough, or when they’d taxed me so much that my body simply broke down.

A fine trembling started in my body that I couldn’t seem to control, and it shamed me.

I didn’t want to show weakness; I didn’t want this place to get to me the way it did.

Then Chloe put her hand on my leg and squeezed, and I felt myself settle down a little.

She pulled me back into the present. I wasn’t alone this time; I had Chloe to protect.

I was an adult this time around, and I had bargaining power.

Maybe I could even force them to get Chloe the implant she needed.

With that idea firmly in my mind, I raised my head and met Officer Ga’tera’s stare head-on.

No one had moved yet, no one had urged Chloe or me to get up, and I had a feeling the officer had noticed my near breakdown and given me a moment to get myself together.

When our eyes met, there was a cool, detached look in his; it bordered almost on contempt.

“Allow me to escort you home, esteemed priest,” he said formally, rising to his feet and gesturing outward.

There was no stopping the inevitable at this point, and, as the damn officer had known, I wouldn’t risk an all-out fight with Chloe there.

So I got up, firmly anchored my girl beneath my arm, and stepped outside.

The courtyard didn’t look any different from when I’d been here last, over ten years ago.

The same pale white walls rose high, cradling the Monastery in sheltering arms. Guards patrolled the tops of those walls, and ancient but beautifully maintained towers broke up each section with elegant spires that concealed all kinds of security.

Inside the courtyard were the training grounds, barracks for the soldiers, and many precisely maintained gardens.

There was only one small landing pad for ships, and that’s where we were right now.

If I turned around, I knew I’d see the tall domes and spires that made up the monastery.

All of it was built from a soft pink stone that blushed a dusky red under the setting sun.

Nestled as the place was between two long arms of a quartz mountain range, you could only conclude this place was beautiful.

It was a beauty that went only skin deep; it hid the horror beneath—the slavery that Sune denied they had.

Inside these walls, and with a ship we couldn’t fly, there was no point in trying to escape—not at this moment.

So I did the only thing we could right now: follow Officer Ga’tera as he led us all by himself along the winding paths and toward the vast grand halls of Suleantra.

Soon, we were between the endless rows of twisting, changing, evolving statues that depicted true shifters in flux—the thing all of Sune revered the most.

Chloe gasped at the sight of the statues, and then again when she noticed monks in hybridform, skinform, or entirely on four legs.

They were working in the gardens along the paths we walked, praying in front of statues, or sitting on benches and avidly watching us as we passed.

She stared for a moment at a Sune in full shift, likely never having seen the completed transformation before.

It was a young male, and he lolled out his tongue, panting eagerly as we passed him.

His golden eyes glimmered with adoration as he stared at my triple tail.

A Sune true shifter was so rare that even in the largest monastery on the planet, which housed thousands of priests, only a handful were present.

Most priests never had the chance to work with one of my kind.

The best they could do was attend the rituals we were forced to perform or catch a glimpse of us when we were escorted past.

When we entered the grand hall itself through its grand double doors—Suleantra’s most sacred center of devotion—I knew we’d receive a full welcome from the heads of the order.

Just great. Exactly what I wanted: to see the seven stuffy men who had ruled the first fifteen years of my life with an iron fist. I wondered if all of them still lived or if they’d since replaced a few of their number.

I wouldn’t mind at all if the oldest and stuffiest, Grand Master Purveyn, had passed away.

Entombment in the catacombs here was far too nice a fate for him, if you asked me.

The dome that housed the heart of the monastery was painted on the inside to reflect a starry sky, sunstones glowing and twinkling above our heads.

As always, it was a jarring sensation to come from the bright outdoors and feel like you’d stepped into instant night, with only the glow of ever-changing statues made of quartz and the flickering lights of votive candles to guide the way.

The place was meant for visitors to find a spot among the many cushions strewn about and lie back to contemplate the domed ceiling and feel small and insignificant, or to watch the even more surreal appearance of the shifting statues and contemplate what a true shifter was like—the thing all were supposed to worship.

Officer Ga’tera led us between the pillows and to the dais that rose at one end of the dome.

On it, atop pillows, the heads of the Suleantran Order of Priesthood lounged, a circle of candles illuminating their presence.

There were always eight of them: a true shifter like myself, serving as the head, seated at the center in the front, with the other seven arranged in a semi-circle behind him.

A farce, of course. In one glance, I saw that it was still Dyantos who supposedly presided over the order.

He sat on his pillow, staring vacantly ahead of him, now shifted into the shape of an Illeayan deer.

Velvet-brown fur, delicate and slender legs tucked beneath his body, and a huge set of spiraling horns rising above his pointed snout: one horn on the tip of his nose—the smaller one—and the second rising from between his eyes.

Three long tails draped around him in what was an obvious display.

Dyantos had long lost his mind, nearly robotic in the way he followed the council’s orders—sitting and posing, nodding along, or giving booming approval when required.

The only moments I could recall Dyantos ever showing any kind of liveliness were when he got to interact with children, blessing them or making small talk.

As a child growing up here, my worst fear had been that one day I’d turn into a shell of a man just like he had.

I looked to see if Chloe had noticed Dyantos and if I could tell from her expressive face what she thought.

Anything to keep my mind off the fear that that fate was now a possibility again.

She was looking up at the ceiling, though, studying it with an enraptured look on her face.

Almost, it made me feel a little of the awe she must be feeling at seeing it for the first time.

I found myself gazing back at Dyantos and then at the shadowy figures reclining beyond him.

With my sense of smell, even through the heavy scents of the candles and incense, I could pick out the scents of the seven council members.

I winced. Nope, no such luck—Purveyn, the old fart, was still there.

Though two of the others had indeed been replaced.

It was Purveyn who got to his feet and came around Dyantos’ left side to greet me.

I felt a shiver run down my spine; it meant that he’d replaced Fargus as the actual head of the order.

Fargus was still there, draped on a pillow to the left, but one look and I could tell he’d lost his edge to old age.

He was just lying there, appearing to almost nap, while Purveyn, old as he was, still looked sharp as a tack.

“Welcome home, lost son,” he said in a deep voice.

His skin-form was clad in gold brocade robes, expensive and beautiful as they shimmered in the candle- and sunstone light.

It matched the gold of his eyes as well, but he’d lined them in black to make them stand out in his wrinkled face.

Steel-gray hair, neatly sleeked into a traditional Sune topknot, sat on top of his head.

I shrugged a shoulder and, in my most insolent tone, said, “I wasn’t lost, and this isn’t home, Purveyn.” His eyes narrowed sharply at me, but he didn’t respond to my jab or my disrespectful way of addressing him.

“We’ve prepared the very best quarters for you and your mate,” he continued. “You’ll get a time of rest, of course, to recover from your traumatic abduction.”

I growled at him and snapped my teeth. “I wasn’t abducted, you ass. I ran away. Big difference.” I turned to the large open hall behind me and yelled, “Your revered priests are treated like slaves—that’s why I ran away!”

Officer Ga’terra started at the aggressive sound, but Chloe clutched at my arms and held me tight, her blue eyes bright.

“It’s okay, Kitan, we’ll get through this.

” Her soft whisper was a balm to the anger and the fear in my soul.

When that damn Purveyn just laughed, I knew the hall was empty—there were no guests and no other priest to hear my outburst. They just wanted to know how far they had to go to break me.