Page 30 of Hooded (Gladiators of the Gryn #5)

KLYNN

My error was not to trust anyone. My sweet mate is always to be trusted, even while I’m consuming huge amounts of meat and making a spectacle of myself. She found out useful information while I was roaring at the crowd.

Because there is always a crowd when there is a gladiator.

I want to mate Fern with the power of a thousand suns and stars, but if this Narlix is to be believed, we don’t have that much time. Instead, I leave her panting in my nest while I attempt to remove as much gunk as possible from my person before returning to her side.

“Why is it dark in here?” she asks in a whisper.

“It hurt my eyes when I was returned,” I say, searching for an explanation. “Sometimes things…hurt. I’m not sure why.”

I hate my body for being what it is. My weaknesses, my desire for violence, for blood, for the win. My inability to form a thoughtbond with my sweet mate who deserves so much more. My pain, striking at the wrong moments.

The idea I might never be able to change.

“How do you feel now?”

“Better.” I put my head into her hair and inhale her scent. It’s the only thing which can strip me back to who I was.

Fern slides her hands into my feathers, and I instantly forget who I am altogether. It has to be some sort of power she has over me.

I’m not complaining. Not here, in the dark, with her scent in my nostrils and her fingers in my feathers. I’d stay here forever…

The lights flicker.

“This must be it,” Fern says.

“Follow me and stay close.” I get to my feet, lamenting internally at the loss of her touch.

I tuck her behind me as we approach the forcefield. It’s flickering but staying relatively even. I close my eyes and visualize the energy ahead of me. It runs in rivulets like water, and like water, I can part it, opening up the way to allow my mate to pass, and then me.

Behind us, the thing sizzles as I change the wavelength. By the time the Tormelek realize we’re not in the cell, they’ll have some difficulty getting out of it.

“This way,” Fern says, pulling me to the left. “We need to find Narlix.”

“We need weapons first,” I respond, taking the turn to the right.

The armory is where I’ve seen it on the many occasions I’ve been dragged this way. Open, ready, and waiting for us.

“Are they expecting some sort of small war?” Fern queries as she picks up a pulsar and checks it over before putting it into her pocket.

My cocks rise in my pants at the sight of her lifting a pulsar rifle and doing the same. My little mate can handle her weaponry, and it makes me want to do things to her sweet cunt while she calls my name.

“No war, only pirates,” I grunt because if I don’t stop thinking about mating, we’re never getting out of here.

I grab a handful of psi grenades and set the timers before putting them behind the rest of the weapons racking.

“What are you doing?” Fern hisses.

“I’m not letting them start a war either.”

“What if we don’t get out of here?”

I pull her soft, tiny body against mine.

“We will be getting off this ship today, little fury, no matter what,” I growl. “You have my word as a Gryn warrior.”

I’d like to pick her up, carry her away, but I sense she won’t be impressed, so instead, having resisted kissing her, mostly because I don’t want to be around when the armory goes up, I link my hand in hers and we head out into the ship.

The lights dim again, and this time they don’t come back on straight away. Ahead in the passage, I hear a shout of alarm and see a set of boots rising slowly into the air, attached to a pair of legs, I pull Fern back into an alcove as the rest of the Tormelek appears, hollering for assistance as he flails his arms at the walls for purchase.

“Vrex!” I growl. “The nebula is affecting the gravity systems.”

“It must have inconsistent electrical fields,” Fern muses. “But why go into it at all?”

“Presumably to avoid another route which either takes them into danger or into contact with someone they don’t want to meet.”

She nods curtly, as if I have given her the perfect answer. My heart starts its strange drumming in my chest yet again. The illness which will kill me. But not before we get away from this place because I gave Fern my word.

“My ship, if they still have it, should be small enough not to be affected,” Fern murmurs.

“They’ll still have it.” We take the opposite direction to the one with the Tormelek. “They’ll want to sell it, and we haven’t stopped anywhere long enough for them to discharge their loot.”

Fern gives me a smile which lights up my chest as if someone has placed an overheated pulsar there. It makes my feathers prick and want to rouse.

“Then we have a way off this shithole,” she says with glee. “But first we need to get to Narlix.”

We need a guide on this ship, both of us having only seen a small amount of it. Which is the only reason I’m going along with Fern’s desire to find this other.

Quietly, we make our way back past the dark cell and follow the passage until the end, turning left, then right, and down another, wider route, until we reach a set of doors identical to all the others. Fern looks at me, then she raises her hand, taps on the metal, and pushes me to one side as she flattens herself against the wall.

After a short time, the doors slide open, and a large beak sticks through.

“Slowly,” Fern hisses. “We’re armed, and you don’t want to attract attention.”

Thoughtbond or no, I will die for this beautiful, dangerous female holding the pulsar.