Page 57 of They Call Me Blue

My brows furrow. I’ve seen the way our fighters live inside the city—in cramped, bedless slums that harbor disease. The Bracers I’ve met are more likely to scrap their pets’ bodies for parts than pay a Stitcher to mend anything. Complaining about an injury is as good as asking to be cooked.

“By the time they earn their way here, they think they’re invincible,” Ryla explains.

“The crowds love them and pay a fortune to see them fight, so we can’t exactly threaten them with being eaten.

We’re left with positive reinforcement. ” She spits the words like they’re a slur.

“That means expensive lodging. Round-the-clock Stitchers. Half of them have their own pleasure slaves—fucking gag me. Ungrateful animals, the lot of them.”

We stop in front of an ornate door carved from wrought iron. Golden swirls and frosted glass panels decorate the front, and a purple-skinned Butcher guards the entryway, gripping a cleaver in his fist. He inclines his head to Ryla but glares at me .

“Has there been any trouble?” Ryla asks him, glancing down the corridors.

The Butcher drops his cleaver into a black apron pocket. He runs his mangled fingers through his wispy lavender hair. “No, ma’am. Everything is on schedule.”

The corners of her lips twitch into a smug smirk. “And Brawler?”

“Inside with the Stitcher. As requested, a Trainer stopped by earlier this morning and delivered her outfit.” The Butcher returns her smile, although his cleft lip dulls the effect.

Droopy, lumpy skin covers the space where his left eye should be.

A hunchback prevents him from standing straight.

Still, he tries. Shambling, the elgrew opens the door for us, and sweet purple smoke rushes into the hallway.

Coughing, I fan the air in front of me.

Hazy golden light burns my eyes as Ryla pulls me through the entryway into debauchery.

Everywhere, elves grunt and moan. Skin slaps against skin as dozens of animals straddle and mount each other, totally ambivalent about who’s watching.

It’s exactly how I imagined Colette’s training house would be—a large, opulent room filled with pillows, rugs, and expensive bedding, sectioned off by diaphanous curtains that offer little in the form of privacy.

Floral incense fills the air. Purple smoke pours from bronze burners that hang from the ceiling, the scent mixing with sweat and sex and arousal. At the room’s center, water trickles from a bathing pool where two female elves giggle, splashing about as Stitchers check them over for injuries.

“What is this place?” I ask, my nose burning from the stench.

“The Room of Champions,” Ryla says. “It’s where our pets go to wind down and where we store our pleasure slaves. We have to restrict access or else nothing would ever get done.”

That’s when I notice it.

Underneath the sloppy sex noises come muffled sobs and jingling chains. Behind a sheer golden curtain, a male elf pins a female to the floor and drives his cock into her ass. Hands cuffed, she can’t do anything but lie there and let him. Her choked pleas come out in ragged gasps.

“Stop, it hurts!”

“Slow down.”

“ Please. ”

A dozen similar scenes play out all throughout the chamber—a male elf force-feeding another male his cock, a chained female being passed around a large group. I turn away.

It’s not my business.

Not my problem.

But my stomach knots all the same.

“Your uncle believed elves were these stupid, innocent creatures that deserved to be handled with compassion.” Ryla chuckles, but it’s dry and humorless.

“I’m sure when you were apprenticing under Talin, he filled your head with all sorts of silly thoughts.

Allow me to correct the record. When given the opportunity, elves are every bit as sadistic as we are. ”

She offers me her arm, which I begrudgingly accept.

As we step deeper into the chamber—over blankets and around furniture—my gaze returns unbidden to the golden curtain.

To the male elf pounding into the female’s ass, her body prone beneath him.

Silver slicks her thighs and stains the pillows. Tears leak from her now closed eyes.

“As Karesai, it’s our job to put them in their place,” Ryla says. “The strong rule over the weak, Lyrick; if we don’t break and tame them, this is the result—except it would be us underneath them. It’s our species or theirs, and there’s no room for niceness.”

The male elf quickens his thrusts, grunting as he spills himself inside her. Then he leaves her bloody and broken on the floor while he trots off to the bathing area, whistling an upbeat jig.

Maybe some elves do deserve to be tortured and bred. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing these ones in the mess hall. Fuck, I’d take a cleaver to them myself. And if my father selected a myrie who had raped others, well . . . it’s hard to pity them.

“Does Brawler have pleasure slaves?” I ask, looking to ease my conscience.

Ryla shakes her head. “No. She and Big Arms are— were— together. I knew she’d free him today, which is . . . annoying . But it was the easiest way to rig the match in her favor. He always pulls his punches in their practice matches. They think I don’t notice, but I do.”

“Does she know what’s going to happen tonight?”

I can already guess the answer.

Ryla snorts. “Of course not. That would have affected her performance in the ring. Speaking of which . . .”

We come to a stop in front of a sheer red curtain.

Behind it, Brawler lies naked on a mountain of silk pillows, sipping ya’esen from a golden chalice. At her feet, a Stitcher gingerly, slowly, rubs ossi dust into her cracked and bleeding soles. Her eyelids flutter shut, and she moans as if enjoying his touch.

Beside her, a red chaise is littered with piles of folded silk and pieces of leather armor.

A chain-mail corset hangs off the armrest—the laces little more than delicate crisscrossing chains down the front, designed to expose everything.

Ryla’s crown—the victor’s crown on Ring Day—glitters atop a velvety red cushion.

Ryla brushes the curtain aside, and we duck beneath it. “Are you mending her or giving her a foot massage?” she asks the Stitcher.

His cheeks flush dark gray. He stops rubbing and wipes his hands on his white apron, staining it black with ossi dust. “Sorry, ma’am. All finished.” Standing, he retrieves his medical bag from beneath a pile of orange and red pillows. “Do you need help dressing her?”

Ryla rolls her eyes. “I think we’ve got it covered. You’re dismissed.”

As the Stitcher passes us, I can’t help but notice the dilation in his pupils—they’re more black than amethyst. Brawler’s pupils are blown too.

Her head lolls, a sleepy smile spreading across her cheeks; I doubt she has the energy to move, let alone speak.

She certainly isn’t listening to our conversation.

My gaze darts toward the ceiling, where smoke continuously pours down on us, bathing everything in a purple haze. The floral fumes are so thick now, I almost choke on them. My lungs and eyes burn with each breath I take.

“Did you bring me here to get me high?” I hiss, my nose crinkling.

“Don’t be angry, Lyrick,” Ryla says. “It isn’t anything like Colette’s potions. Lavender relaxes your muscles and makes sensations stronger. It’s meant to loosen you up, not get you hard—although the two often go hand in hand.”

My jaw clenches.

I’m surrounded by bitches and assholes who think they know how to manage me. Frankly, it’s insulting.

“Gossiping busybodies,” I spit. My boots squeak on the marble floor as I spin on my heels to leave.

Ryla grasps my shoulder before I can, staring up at me with glowing amethyst eyes.

“I took lavender before my inauguration party. It’s overwhelming the first time—being fawned over by so many people—and I didn’t have the added pressure of taking a myrie either.

Tonight doesn’t have to be miserable for you. It certainly won’t be for her.”

She cocks her head, gesturing to Brawler, who rolls onto her stomach, giggling. Ya’esin sloshes from her chalice, spilling everywhere as she goes to drink it and misses her mouth by a full inch.

“Let me alleviate some of the guilt you’ve been feeling,” Ryla says, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Between the ya’esen, rowan berries, and lavender, Brawler won’t remember a damn thing you do to her tonight.”

She’ll remember a year of pregnancy, though—a cesarean section, dietary restrictions, being milked until her nipples crack, and dragged around as my pet. I wish she were a monster like the other elves in this room; it would be so much easier to live with myself then.

Disgust and regret form a tight constriction around my chest, but it’s too late to retract my decision, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s my duty to rein my people in—to control them as Yaklan does. Brawler is just collateral damage. So is my soul.

I inhale long and deep, letting the smoke fill my lungs, banishing with it the last of my inhibitions.