Page 3 of Healing Creek (Arena Dogs #3)

Chapter Two

The auction room was chaos. Security officers were taking cover with their blasters ready.

The sound of screams and bones snapping reverberated beneath the shouts of the guards.

Adrenaline spiked, as Creek’s body prepared for battle.

His fists clenched around the bars of their gilded cage.

All the pain in his joints and bones faded to nothing and a growl worked its way up his throat.

A lean human male with spiky white hair appeared out of the crowd. His eyebrows shot up and down in a comical display as he pulled a device out of his pocket and held it to the cage lock. Creek thought he had to be an ally of Feeona’s, but the small drone flew at him like an angry hornet.

Blaster fire erupted near the door that Feeona, Seneca, and St. Germaine had exited less than an hour earlier. He and Jupiter both crouched low in the cage. No sense dying before they joined the battle. Most of the guests had dropped to the floor as well.

Creek glanced toward the new fighting and saw Seneca bound off a guest’s back onto the top of a table and then leap through the air.

His muscles stretched and his body twisted.

His shoulder hit the corner of the roof of their cage.

He rolled across and dropped to the floor between the human and the door.

He landed in a crouch and bared his teeth in a warning growl.

The spiky-haired man put his hands up, palms out. “Whoa. Whoa. Friendly, here. Knock,” he said as he tapped his chest. “I was just trying to help your buddies get out of the cage. We could use them out here.” Pleading strained the man’s voice.

“Sen.” Jupiter’s voice was calm. “What’s wrong?”

“The cage lock is rigged to explode.” Seneca barked an alert then dove to the side, taking Knock with him. A blast struck the floor where they’d been standing.

The man tangled up with him stared at the ceiling. “The things I do for a stubborn, half-pint—”

A shake from Seneca stopped his words. Seneca pulled a thin crystal code-key from his waistband and shoved it into the man’s hand. “Use this.”

Knock nodded furiously. “Yes, yes. Use this.”

A scream brought Creek’s attention back to the center of the auction room and the Dreat. They were still in their shackles but free from the magnetic locking system and using the strength of their bulky bodies to shove the guests out of their way.

The lock on the cage clicked open and he and Jupiter bounded out.

“Put them in here.” Creek shouted to the Dreat, indicating the guests and the cage.

One of the Dreat answered with agreement in his own language and Creek nodded.

Seneca was gone, across the room tossing a guard from an elevated position.

Creek and Jupiter ran up behind the cluster of guards that surrounded the rest of the pack.

Jupiter pulled a guard out of the fight and ended him.

Creek did the same. The next man he attempted to grab was quicker, dodging his grasp.

Someone struck him from behind. Pain exploded through his lower back and he swung around to defend himself.

The man was already swinging again. Creek caught the punch and snapped the man’s arm.

One by one they were improving the odds.

Another of Jupiter’s pack brothers barked out an alert then appeared from the far side of the cluster.

He leaped into the air and, looking weightless, bounded across the heads and shoulders of the crowd of guards.

Jupiter made a foothold of his hands and was ready when the other Dog stepped into it.

Without hesitation, Jupiter threw him up into the air and then he was gone, fighting on.

It was clear these Dogs were a team. Creek admired them, honored to fight alongside them.

The honor of being a gladiator had never been his.

He’d never had brothers to fight with. To fight for.

The sounds of battle and death were dying away when Jupiter barked an alert and headed across the room. Creek followed long enough to see he was headed to where Feeona lay on the floor in a corner, breath heaving.

Creek left him to look after his mate, and instead aided the Dreat in getting free of the cumbersome shackles. When that task was done, he strode to where all the Arena Dogs now formed a ring around Feeona, Jupiter on his knees beside her.

Creek’s friend brushed his mate’s forehead with the back of his hand. His fingers smeared blood across her caramel skin. “Talk to me, Fee.”

She spoke through gritted teeth. “Using the security system to lock down the crew and keep out reinforcements.”

One of the Dogs, their pack leader, Mercury he thought, growled and his gravelly voice rumbled in his throat. “Let them come.”

The woman’s eyes snapped open and she took in the group. “Oh, my.” Her eyes shut tight again. She stretched out a hand and Seneca took it. “Explain it to them.”

Seneca wove his fingers with Feeona’s momentarily and they both seemed to draw strength from it.

As he released her and stood, there was no sign of the submissive role he’d played before as he addressed their leader.

“I assume you eliminated the security team in the landing bay, but there are at least another dozen guards that were assigned to other areas of the ship. The ship also has a crew of fifty. And we don’t know how many of them will defend the ship.

There are plenty of arms and any person can pick one up and do damage. ”

Another Dog yipped. Mercury nodded and he took off toward the landing bay. “My mate and Hera are still in the shuttle with the pilots. Lo will make sure they’re safe.”

“Fee will make sure Lo can get back to them,” Seneca assured them, making it clear they’d planned and prepared for their rescue mission together.

“What’s she doing?” The largest of the Arena Dogs rumbled the question.

Jupiter answered from where he still kneeled at Feeona’s side. “She has a neural implant that allows her to interface with computers. She’s using it to control the ship’s security systems.”

“Icy!” It was Knock, the human with spiky hair, that spoke. “So, she was the one controlling that drone earlier. Wha—”

Mercury silenced him with a look. “Even if the humans fight, a dozen trained men and fifty untrained humans are no match for six Arena Dogs.”

There was a swell of noise from the green aliens. Creek waved a hand at them to quiet them down. “And eight Dreat.”

Mercury looked at him with raised eyebrows and Creek wondered if his input was unwelcome. Mercury was alpha, and Creek was not pack. But his was the only voice the Dreat had, so he spoke.

“Just telling you what they said. They want to help.”

Seneca barked respectfully to regain everyone’s attention. “There’s also a small team of mercenaries, sent by Roma, planting enough explosives around the ship to destroy it. We must have less than thirty minutes now.”

“Way to bury the lead,” Knock mumbled.

Was Roma so determined to end them? Something surprising twisted in his gut. He might be ready to be done with this life, but these powerful males were not done fighting for a better one.

Mercury growled in disgust and concern. “Then we warn the ship’s occupants and leave now.”

The Dreat grunted and muttered. Creek spoke over them. “There are more Dreat in the slave hold.” He rolled his shoulders. “And some humans.”

Mercury hesitated a moment. “Can we stop the explosions?”

Seneca nodded. “Yes. With Fee’s help.”

Mercury chuffed a pleased noise in the back of his throat. “The ship will be a good asset in the fight to free our people.”

To free our people. Mercury was speaking of more than just freeing those on the ship.

He was speaking of using the ship to free all of the Arena Dogs.

Was that even possible? Creek had never even heard the resistance propose such a monumental task.

His throat tightened, making it hard to get a deep breath.

His hollow belly hungered for the possibility of freeing his brothers.

The spark of a dream settled somewhere deep in his chest to be examined later.

He forced out a shuttering breath. For now, they had to focus on the task of taking the ship.

Jupiter and Seneca helped Fee to a sitting position as she forced her eyes open. “I need to get to the security station. I can control things much better from there.”

“I can help,” Knock chimed in.

Feeona blinked her eyes several times. “Great. With two of us we should be able to use the ship’s sensors and intercoms to help our strikers as we go.” She managed a smile with those words. “Sen,” she said. “You’ll have to go after the mercenaries with the explosives. You know where—”

“Mercury is faster.”

Their leader nodded. “I’ll go. What else must be done?”

“I’m interfering with the bridge crew’s actions as well as I can,” said Feeona, “but we need someone up there to stop the pilots from engaging the skipdrive.” The skipdrive was the engine that allowed ships to travel vast distances like a stone skipping across water.

Seneca raised a hand. “I’m familiar with piloting controls.”

“Excellent,” said Mercury. “You and Carn go to the pilot station then.”

Carn, the biggest of the pack, nodded.

Jupiter spoke before the alpha could assign him a task. “I’ll stay with my mate and the human to make sure they are safe while they work. You can see this work leaves her vulnerable.”

“I can take the Dreat and we can retrieve the slaves,” Creek volunteered. “They could be a help in securing the ship.”

Mercury studied him then dipped his head in a nod. The other Arena Dogs left Creek with the Dreat, and he rallied them around. They all looked to him now.

His life on Roma had never given him any experience leading others. He’d been a cage fighter, battling alone. Jupiter and their rescuers had been a pack in the gladiator arena—a team united that cared for and looked out for one another. Creek had learned to rely on no one.