Page 84 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Kitan

For three days, I toiled, brought to one of the three training chambers by a member of the Suleantran Council.

Once more, it was Purveyn, but some of the others took their turns too.

Silas was not so bad; he at least let me have a drink of water in between, and he allowed Chloe to share in his food.

I could tell that she hated being allowed to eat when I wasn’t, but she knew me well enough to take the food anyway.

Each day was hard, but it became a little less tough as my body adjusted to the many shifts and learned to cope again.

In a way, I knew it was making me stronger.

For five years as a gladiator, I’d barely been allowed to shift at all; now, I was rapidly making up for that lack, and it was making me much better at it than I’d ever been.

The stakes were higher. Before, I didn’t have anything to lose except myself; now, there was Chloe.

We never saw my parents again, and we still hadn’t received the implants Chloe needed, so I worried very much that Purveyn wasn’t going to come through on his word. It seemed like something he’d do: make me feel like I’d won a battle and then rub it in my face.

But on the fourth day, I woke up feeling better than I had in days, with my Chloe curled up against my side and my muscles, for once, not aching so badly I thought I’d fall apart.

There was a sound at the door, and then Officer Ga’tera suddenly entered.

It was still early, before the prayer bells, and light was only just starting to filter in between the drapes that covered the windows automatically at night.

I was, sadly, still too tired to do much more than carefully shift out from beneath a still-sleeping Chloe and sit upright.

If I’d been feeling less like shit warmed over, I might have shifted to my hybridform and taken up a defensive position between my mate and the officer.

As it was, I managed to balance on the edge of the bed between her and him, but I doubted I looked like a threat.

The officer didn’t approach farther than the edge of the sleeping area, holding a silver stasis box in his hands. “I’m not here to escort you anywhere,” he said in a low voice. “Just to deliver the implants that finally arrived. I suggest you have your mate carry them with her at all times.”

I didn’t know why he’d say that. Was he warning me that someone might take the box from these rooms again if we didn’t keep an eye on it?

Why would he even warn us? “Purveyn signed off on giving them at last, did he?” I managed, getting to my feet with a burst of strength, even if that made my legs scream in agony.

None of my muscles wanted to do much beyond rest. If only I’d get a day off, I’d recover enough to function again.

Another round of this after a day of rest would be far easier to bear.

Officer Ga’tera waited patiently as I made my slow way over to him, his face unreadable as he looked not at me but at the box he was holding.

“I am delivering them the moment they arrived, per his agreement with you.” Ah, so Purveyn hadn’t given permission, and somehow this officer had decided he’d stick his neck out and give us the box, knowing full well that the high priest might not otherwise.

“Thank you,” Chloe murmured from behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder, trying to hide my wince as my muscles cramped painfully.

She was sitting upright in bed, her layered blonde hair haloing around her face in an adorable mess.

Her eyes were sleepy, and her cheeks rosy.

The only shirt she owned right now was draped over her slender form, hinting at the slopes of her breasts and the fact that she wore nothing underneath.

Turning back to Officer Ga’tera, I growled in warning, not liking that the other male was seeing her like that.

He smirked, the first real emotion that had crossed his face that morning.

“I won’t look at your mate, revered priest,” he said.

Then he took a step closer, his silvery eyes on my face the entire time, and placed the box with the implant in my hand.

“Keep it close at all times,” he said as a final warning.

Then he turned on his heel and left the chambers as quickly and quietly as he’d come.

I turned to Chloe and held out the box to her, and I saw her pretty eyes glitter as they lit up.

“Is that really it? They came through for us?” she asked as she crawled over the bed to my side.

“So he says. Do you know how to check if it’s what you need?

” I worried that we’d be scammed—given something subpar, something that would tide us over but cause new problems down the road.

She nodded, biting her pretty pink bottom lip in concentration as she took the box I held and placed it on the bed in front of her.

Her slender fingers flew over the small touchscreen embedded in the side of the vacuum-sealed box.

“The specs look good,” she said after a moment.

“Better than good—this is top of the line. If what’s in here matches what the box has registered…

I’d never have trouble with the implant again. I’d be even faster, more efficient.”

There was so much excitement in her voice, such a dreamy desire for what she could do with this implant, that I felt it too.

With that implant, what would it be like to fly with her?

We’d be unstoppable—that’s what. We’d be the perfect team to fly the Vagabond for my brothers.

A sharp pang of pain, of loss, shot through me at the thought.

Likely, they’d allow her just enough time connecting with a shuttle nav-console to gain the feedback she needed, but neither of us would ever truly fly again.

Was that a fate worse than death? To not be allowed to fly?

I knew that if Chloe wasn’t at my side right now, I would have thought so.

Maybe having each other would be enough to sustain us—to keep holding on.

But for what? They’d want us to have children, and if any of them were like me.

.. I shuddered in horror at the thought.

“They haven’t brought any food yet. They’re late,” Chloe murmured at my side.

Her hand slid into mine and jarred me from the horrible thought spiral I’d ended up in.

“That’s a good sign. Maybe there’s no training today.

” I could really use the rest, though I didn’t want to say that to Chloe.

I didn’t want her to worry more than she already did.

She nodded, and with the implant box clutched beneath one arm, headed for the bathroom.

“Let me wash up at least and get dressed.” She hurried into the bathroom without waiting for my reply, and I contemplated whether I felt good enough to follow her inside.

Would we have time to share a moment together?

Or would they come and disturb us again? Was I even fit enough to try?

Taking a single step was agonizing, though, so in the end, I had to concede that I was far too sore to share pleasure with my Chloe. A real shame, that—it had been far too long, and the repeated cleansing of my jumpsuit had caused the scent of her cunt to wash off of it.

When Chloe came back out, breakfast had been brought in, and I’d managed to stuff myself already.

Far too many evenings, my body had gone without sustenance, too worn out after the rigors of the day to manage anything but a full collapse on the bed.

I knew that, if not for the steady presence of Officer Ga’tera each evening, helping Chloe to get me back here, I would have been forced to go without a bed too.

She snorted a happy laugh when she saw my already empty plate and sat down at my side, perching the box in her lap this time.

“You’re taking his advice very seriously, huh?

” I asked her and, at her nod, sighed. “Good. I think he’s right.

Purveyn will try to take that from us in some underhanded way.

He likes toying with his power over others far too much. ”

We didn’t talk while she put some food on her plate, and as we waited for whatever our day was going to bring, I noticed she barely touched it.

With all the strain on me over the past four days—the constant shifting—it had been hard to pay attention to how she was doing.

Now, I instantly worried that her health was deteriorating. Why had she lost her appetite?

I didn’t bring it up, though. Right now, there was nothing I could do to fix it.

We had the solution in her hands—literally.

Now, we just needed a surgeon. I wasn’t holding out hope that Purveyn would come through for us this week.

He’d probably drag this out as long as he could, just to inflict more pain, more fear on us.

I eyed the box in Chloe’s lap again, eyed the pale, slightly clammy tone of her skin, and made up my mind.

We had to try to escape; I had let defeatist thoughts rule me so far.

What if Ziame and Abigail had done what they said they would?

What if they were waiting for us up in orbit?

Were they allies I could somehow count on after all?

I had a place to run to with Chloe if we got out. At least, we could locate the Vagabond, even if she wasn’t in orbit here. We’d have a home aboard that ship. I knew that Ziame and the others would gladly welcome us, even if we were on the run from Sune authorities.

Wheels spinning, my thoughts churning through the options, I was slower than I liked when the door opened again.

I turned, blocking access to Chloe and shielding her from sight by positioning myself solidly between her and the door, only to be surprised—it was Kest, of all people, who’d just walked in.