Page 12 of Hooded (Gladiators of the Gryn #5)

KLYNN

I’m not sure why the little female scuttled away, her face as red as some of the blood I spill in the arena. The guards at the dome have no issue with my body, and like many of my fellow gladiators, when I’m not fighting, I don’t bother with clothing. It makes bathing easier, and given how much grooming feathers take, sometimes I wear nothing for nova-days.

Plus many females pay to be taken through the gladiator quarters and seem very interested in our bodies, spending a long time watching. It never bothered me in the slightest.

And yet, getting undressed with her nearby has my cocks standing proudly, aching at the thought of being close to her. This entire sanitary facility smells of her.

I order water, and it falls from the ceiling in one corner. It’s not as good as a hot bath, but it will have to do if I don’t want to continue stinking of Bogarok. I step under the water and lift my head to it as it rolls over my body.

It’s good. Although the little female is wrong about having baths on a star flyer. Most Gryn ships were equipped with at least one, if not more.

The water runs through my wings. I shake them multiple times in order to get them soaked. I’d rather not be so wet, especially if I have to fight, but unless my wings are completely clean, I’m storing up problems for later.

The cleansing foam smells like my female. Which means this has to be her sanitary facility. My cocks jerk involuntarily at me, and I take them in hand, using the scented foam as a lubricant.

I slam my hand against the wall, my breath coming in ragged waves as I thrust into my fist. Is this how it will feel to be inside her, sheathed in her soft heat? Will she moan my name? Will…

I come in a way I’ve never come before, my cocks, both of them, including my second cock, fountaining cum until I have to be empty.

Only emptiness is what I feel. The mere thought of her makes me hard again, but unless I am with my Fern, it isn’t what I want.

I want her.

I need her.

Fern is mine. She will not be leaving me on any space station. She will not be leaving me anywhere. I will have her, no matter what.

Once I get my breathing under control and I’m sure I’ve sluiced all of the Bogarok out of my feathers, I spin them hard, covering the sanitary facility with water. I give my pants a cursory sluicing. The fabric dries quickly, as it is designed to, although a faint scent of Bogarok remains. I guess I can’t have everything.

The door opens ahead of me. I am certainly not still a prisoner on Fern’s vessel, and I stride in the direction of the bridge, a place it was easy enough to find earlier.

She is sat at a console like before, only this time she turns as I approach.

So much for the element of surprise.

“Oh!” she says. “You’re very wet.”

I give my feathers another twirl and a few things on the bridge spark.

“There was a lot of Bogarok innards,” I respond. “I killed many,” I add with a satisfied snarl.

“I thought no one had survived the onslaught at the dome,” Fern says, looking around at where I’ve sprayed her bridge with water.

Quite a lot of water.

“I wouldn’t know. I went unconscious and was dropped down into a pit on my head,” I growl, before considering that was too much information.

“I saw some of the guards holding their heads,” Fern says, and she then deliberately looks at her viewing screen at the stars outside. “I think there was something affecting the comms as well as the sentient species.”

“But not you.” I take a step closer because I want to get even more of her scent in my nostrils.

It means she’s hard up against her console. Her hands, on either side of her, press into the metal. Her head is bowed.

She smells like starfire. I never want this moment to end.

I cup her chin and lift her face until it’s tilted to mine.

“Not me,” she says quietly. “I just had to watch as they slaughtered thousands and then took the bodies away.”

There is no water in her eyes as she relays this information to me. Only a cold hardness, her jaw muscle clenched so tight I can feel it.

“The slaughter is the worst,” I say.

She barks a laugh, pulling her chin from my hand.

“Rich, from a gladiator. Your job was to kill.”

“My job was to put on a show. The killing was part of the show.” I move away from her, even though my body is screaming at me to stay where I am.

I flick out a wing and start combing through it with my claws.

“And if I didn’t put on a show, I was disposable,” I say as the bliss which comes from a preen slowly spreads through me. “But I won’t deny I liked it.”

Fern says nothing. She hasn’t moved from the spot at the console. It really makes me want to mate her. The preen isn’t having its usual effect of calming my flaming nature.

“But slaughter for slaughter’s sake is not what being a gladiator is all about. The Bogarok on the other hand…it is their stock in trade. I left the other gladiators at the dome with those creatures.”

Her face is impassive.

“Do you think your friends defeated them?” she asks.

“I expect so.” I work at a particularly difficult knot at the base of one wing. “Once Maxym sets his mind to something, he usually succeeds.”

“I can take you back to Trefa if you want,” Fern says, although it’s quite clear it’s the last place she ever wants to see again. “Make things right, for them.”

Feeling is mutual.

“No,” I growl. “I want to see how you are going to make it up to me.”