Page 91 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

With a final sigh, his face brushing against the side of mine for a brief moment, he pulled away and began systematically stripping off his clothing.

In return, I quickly rolled them up and stuffed them into my pack, shouldering his pack on my other shoulder.

In the dark, with only the starry sky to light us and the distant spotlights illuminating the walls and the shuttle, his body gleamed.

His skin was pale against the darkness of the hedge that provided our limited cover.

Sadly, I was too worried that someone might spot him to properly admire his physique.

Then he shivered into a shift, transforming into his red fox shape and nodding at his back to prompt me to climb on.

I adjusted my awkwardly loaded body to ensure everything was secured tightly enough not to fall or make noise, then eagerly slid onto his back.

The box with my implant, tucked tightly into one of my pants pockets, dug into my thigh as I settled my legs on either side of Kitan’s flanks.

“Good to go,” I whispered, leaning close to his back and wrapping my arms around his neck.

He flicked an ear back, nearly smacking me on the nose with it.

Then we were off, his body fleet-footed as we edged along the side of the gardens in front of the monastery and toward one of the walls.

My eyesight wasn’t nearly as good as Kitan’s in the dark, but even to me, it looked like we were far too exposed.

Someone on the wall was going to spot us.

Then a long, low building came into view.

Built right up against one of the walls, it had remained hidden behind the tall hedges encircling the garden.

Some of the windows glowed with light, while most were dark.

The distance from the shelter of the garden hedge to the building's edge was the shortest I’d seen so far.

Even this one was illuminated with a floodlight, and, right as we reached the corner of the hedge, I saw a patrol head the other way.

They were walking slowly, casually—they didn’t expect any trouble.

While I held my breath, terrified we were about to be discovered, Kitan didn’t pause.

He lengthened his stride, crossing the empty space at a fast run and skidding around the corner of the building.

This place didn’t offer much in the way of cover, but we were now out of sight for those on the wall above us and for the patrol we’d just seen.

The wall stretched toward a gate on my right, with the low building on my left.

Here, there were thankfully no windows. Kitan gave a little shake of his body, and I slid off, flinching when my feet made a scuffing noise as they landed on the hard, gravelly ground.

With a twitch of his three-plumed tails, Kitan shifted again, this time into his hybridform.

His large body was covered in red fur, digitigrade legs with clawed toes digging into the hard ground for traction.

He swung his sharp snout, glittering fangs bared, in my direction, his clawed hand briefly cupping the side of my face.

“Okay?” he whispered, almost soundlessly.

At my nod, he turned his back to me and focused on the gate.

No, not the gate, I realized. In the dark, I hadn’t immediately spotted it.

Unexpectedly, the grate was the same pale color as the stone wall.

But there was indeed a grate set into the wall at knee height.

It looked like it would be an extremely tight fit for Kitan to get through.

If I shoved my packs ahead of me, I would be able to get in more easily.

I didn’t know what exactly Kitan was waiting for, his ears twitching this way and that as he listened.

When he moved, it was with a quick explosion of action.

His lithe body leaped toward the grate, grabbing hold of it and yanking it free with a heave of straining muscles.

The sound it made was terrifying, groaning as the metal gave way.

The moment he had a gap large enough for me to fit through, I was there, sliding in with no hesitation.

There were sounds now—alarms going, voices shouting.

I made myself slide in fast, luckily unperturbed by the small space or the dark, just worried that Kitan wouldn’t be able to follow.

I shouldn’t have worried; he wasn’t in his hybridform for long and slid in behind me in a shape I struggled to understand.

Something long and slinky, but with a pelt and glowing eyes.

It had limbs—a half dozen of them—and it easily maneuvered in behind the grate it had pulled free.

Its body was so long but thin that I had to scoot back in a hurry to make more space.

Then there was its tail—a triple one, of course—and it was using it to grab hold of the grate and yank it back into place.

The darkness was thick inside the, thankfully, dry drainage tunnel.

As the only way out was forward, I struggled to turn around and crawl further inside.

It took me a moment to properly position the two improvised backpacks so that I could traverse this narrow place.

The small box with the implant awkwardly pushed into my abdomen as I crawled.

I sucked it up, far too aware of how exposed we still were.

They’d heard the sound; if they realized we were in this tunnel, they’d be waiting for us on the other side.

Panting, I scurried forward on my hands and knees as fast as I could, hearing the scuttling noises of whatever creature Kitan had turned himself into coming after me.

I tried to ignore how this made me feel—the fine hairs at the back of my neck standing on end with alarm, a primordial feeling of being hunted by something I neither knew nor understood, something that moved in too uncanny a way to be safe—like a slinking snake or a centipede.

By the time I saw light filter in at the end of the tunnel—just faint starlight, but lighter than what was available inside this small tunnel—I was soaked in sweat.

I wasn’t sure if that was from fear or exertion; it certainly wasn’t easy to crawl this way.

Nearing the end and approaching the grate, I had a quick peek outside and drew in a relieved breath when I noticed there didn’t appear to be anyone waiting for us.

Drawing my hand across my mouth to wipe some of the sweat from my upper lip, I flinched when I saw red reflected on the back of my hand.

Blood. It wasn’t just sweat—blood was dripping from my nose again.

Damn it! Not now. I couldn’t deal with this right now.

I didn’t want to worry Kitan about it when there was nothing we could do.

Feeling something press against my back, I flinched, flattening myself against the wall as Kitan, with his long, slinky body, slithered past me.

The sleek fur was shockingly soft where it brushed against my skin, somehow making him seem far less scary—even if he did currently have far too many legs.

As soon as he was at the grate, I saw how his body shifted, expanding outward and turning into something with thick, rocky skin and many horns on a sturdy snout. The body was so solid and sturdy that he easily barreled through this side of the grate, tearing it straight out of the wall.

I blinked, shocked at how rapidly the situation had changed, only to startle when he shifted into yet another form—something that looked to me much like a horse: tall, with black fur and a silky mane, three tails with a black plume on the end lashing the air behind him.

With an eye on the wide expanse cleared between the fortress walls and the forest, I knew he needed me on his back again so that we could cover that distance as fast as possible.

He was much taller than before, and I had to leap onto his back in an awkward, clumsy scramble.

Once up, I clenched my thighs around his body and clutched my fingers into his mane, hanging on tight.

I’d barely even settled, and he was already tearing away from the walls at a fast gallop, his muscled body stretching out beneath me, muscles contracting and lungs heaving in great bellowing breaths of air.

There was shouting behind us. I saw light beams swing around and illuminate the night as they searched for us.

A glance over my shoulder showed me how many silhouettes swarmed the top of the walls, searchlights sweeping out across the stretch we were trying to cross.

It looked to me as if they knew just what section we were in; this was the only area with lights on.

And not just that—it sounded like there were engines roaring, as if vehicles were being launched after us.

A light beam swept past us so closely that I saw the tips of Kitan’s tails flick through it.

Had they seen that? “Come on, Kitan, almost there,” I urged, leaning in close to his stretched-out neck, noting the white lather of sweat dripping along his flanks and neck.

He’d gone through so many different shifts, so close together.

Could he sustain this? After what he’d been through the past week, was this too much for him?

It felt like my bones were rattling right out of my skin, each pounding step of his massive, hoofed feet shaking through me.

It was becoming harder and harder to hang onto him, my thighs burning from the exertion of holding onto his big body, my fingers cramping in his mane as drops of blood still splattered from my nose.

Shit, I needed to stop the bleeding, or there would be a trail far too easy for them to follow.