by Maia Tanith
The kit is sprawled out on top of me, her head pillowed on my chest. Her hair spreads over me in a waterfall of soft brown. I stroke it gently. It is softer than it looks, and as fine as the silk from a spider web.
She is attractive enough, in her half-grown way, though I still find it hard to accept that she is considered a mature adult on her planet. I am glad of it though. I do not need to add molesting a youngster to the tally of my guilt.
Her skin is soft and smooth. Far too smooth. She has no talons. No claws. No barbs. Nothing to defend herself with.
Marfin was an elite soldier, a warrior, and it did not save her life when the Emperor’s lackeys came calling. This defenseless kit is worse than useless to me.
It would be kinder to kill her now. A quick slash across her throat while she is asleep, and it will all be over for her. She will feel no pain.
I would be severely punished for it, no doubt. But what else can they do to me? I am already condemned to death with no hope of a reprieve. Even were I to win the fight fairly, I doubt I would make it out of the arena alive. The Emperor wants me dead—and he does not know the meaning of the word mercy.
I have nothing left to lose.
Slowly I extend the claws on one hand as I look down at her peaceful face. Truly, it would be the merciful thing to do.
With the side of one claw, I caress the skin on the side of her throat. If I am fast, she will not feel a thing. She will sink into a dreamless sleep and never wake.
Just then, she opens her eyes and looks into mine. Smokey blue eyes, with a hint of grey, like the edges of the evening sky on a sullen afternoon. They look at me with trust.
My claws retract. I cannot do it. Not yet.
The explosive sex we have just shared has nothing to do with my decision, I tell myself. Nothing at all.
Hannah
I wake to the feel of his finger caressing the side of my neck. He is touching me with not with his finger, but with the razor-sharp edge of his claw, and his touch is not really a caress. It feels like he is gently searching my neck for the pulsing of the blood in my veins.
It takes everything I have in me not to stiffen and show my fear. I cannot believe that he means to harm me. Not now, after the amazing sexual encounter we have just shared.
Okay, so maybe a lot of it was to do with those drugs they put in the water. Amazing drugs, by the way. If I could get my hands on those and take a few back to Earth with me, I would be a millionaire in no time. Forget about Viagra. These are the real deal.
If I am to be truly honest with myself, not all of it was the drugs. He has a seriously buff body that turns me on just looking at it. He’s not all muscles and no feelings, though. Even though he was half crazy with lust, like I was, he still took care of my needs as well as his own. Twice.
My last boyfriend should have taken a few notes from someone like Taark. Hayden was a bit of a douche when it came to sex. As long as he was satisfied, he never cared if I was left hanging. He’d just roll over and start snoring, leaving me annoyed and frustrated.
I open my eyes and look into his, those deep golden eyes with just a hint of green. His pupils are slightly elongated, just like those of a cat.
He avoids my eyes and quietly retracts his claw.
I turn over and roll off him, grabbing a cover from the bed and wrapping it around my shoulders. My nakedness hasn’t bothered me before, but his sudden self-consciousness rubs off on me. I huddle into the rough wool. The blanket prickles against my shoulders, but the weight of it gives me a sense of protection. And some much-needed warmth, too. Now that the heat of my drug-induced euphoria has worn off, I am feeling the cold.
He sits up and lounges against the wall, watching me with grim amusement. At least I think it’s amusement. My cellmate isn’t one for laughing. “Shy?”
I shake my head. “Cold.” It’s half the truth.
He runs one hand through his hair. His amusement has faded, and he is back to being just grim. “This changes nothing between us.”
“I didn’t expect it to.” I can’t see him getting down on one knee and offering me roses and a ring just because we had some hot, sweaty sex. We were forced into it. Drugged into it. Neither one of us would have chosen it.
Well, I think to myself in a moment of raw honesty, he wouldn’t have chosen it. I’m not so sure that I wouldn’t have.
This reminds me that I know nothing of this alien culture. Do claw-men even do roses and rings? With my luck, they probably do matching full facial tattoos or cutting off of fingers to proclaim their commitment to the world. “I’m a big girl. I don’t need any promises. You don’t need to tell me that a relationship between us doesn’t have any future.”
His laugh echoes around the cell. “Promises? Future? I wasn’t talking about such silly dreams. There is no future for us. The only thing that I can promise you is that the both of us will die.”
Taark
A screen crackles to life on the wall beside me. A close-up of one of the Galgog race fills the screen. His scaled face sneers at the camera, and his teeth are sharpened to points. So, the guard was right. That is what I will be facing in the arena.
My post-sex high abruptly evaporates.
The kit gasps and clutches at my arm. Her little fingers have a surprisingly strong grip. “What is that?”
I peel her hands off me and shrug her away. We had sex. That is all. I do not want her thinking that she is my mate. That is a complication I do not need. “Listen and learn.”
“Mereek,” the face on the screen snarls. “Mereek. Hear my name and fear me.”
The camera zooms out and the whole of his body comes into view. Even for a Galgog, he is huge. His legs are as thick as tree trunks, their color a muted dull grey-green where they should be iridescent and sparkling with bright blues and greens. Clearly personal hygiene is not at the top of his list.
His powerful tail sweeps across the view, a spiked poison tip at the end of it. I grimace. Those poison tips are nasty. Even a small prick from them causes crippling pain. A slash from those and I will be easy prey.
I suspect the Emperor himself has had a hand in choosing my opponents.
“Mereek,” the Galgog roars again, and he beats his chest with his clenched fists. “I am a fighter. A champion. I will kill you until you are all dead. I will take your women as my slaves and they will fear me. I will be the champion of champions. Fear me.” He ends his speech with a mighty roar that rattles the cars of the cage and showcases his truly impressive arsenal of teeth.
He may be huge, but he doesn’t seem to be the brightest star in the galaxy. I don’t think much of his speech-making.
Stupid he may be, but I must not underestimate him. He is deadly, nonetheless. I was so sure that I had resigned myself to die, but my resignation is not as complete as I had hoped. I find myself looking for weaknesses. He is huge but ponderous. If I can dart inside his guard and strike quickly, I stand a chance of moving beyond his range before he has time to react.
The kit is still staring at him, goggle-eyed. “You have to fight that...that thing? That big lizard?”
“He’s a Galgog.”
“What are they?”
I gesture at the screen. “See for yourself. Scales, legs, poison spike. Nasty temper. That’s about the extent of them.”
Her face is pale, and she is shivering under her blanket. “He looks like a dinosaur. Like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Like he could rip my head off with his teeth.”
As a race, Galgogs are notorious for their brutality. This one must be too disgusting even for his fellow Galgogs to tolerate. I wonder idly what crimes he has committed to end up in the prison cells of my people.
There is no wonder, though, that he has chosen a battle to the death with three other prisoners in the hope of winning his life and his freedom. His sheer bulk makes him a formidable opponent. “He probably could.”
She elbows me in the ribs. “That isn’t helping.”
“I wasn’t trying to help
you. I am simply telling the truth.”
She strides over to the wall and peers closely at the screen. “There is someone in the cell with him.”
The pile of rags in the corner of Mereek’s cell moves slightly. Yes, I can see her now.
A female crawls out from under the coverings, her every move hesitant and cautious. Not a Galgog, but a closely allied species. Her head is covered with scales in place of hair, and her grey-brown skin is thick and leathery.
She cradles one of her shoulders in her other hand and she favors one of her legs. When she comes into focus, I see that her face is puffy with bruises and one eye is swollen shut.
As she makes her way across the room, she stumbles a little and a spasm of pain crosses her face.
Beside me, I hear the kit take a sharp, in-drawn breath. “She’s hurt. She needs a doctor.”
Her naivete irritates me, and I snort loudly. “She’s a slave. Disposable. Why bother treating her when her life is worth nothing.”
“Nobody’s life is worthless. I wouldn’t let a dog suffer like that,” she mutters, her eyes fixed on the screen as she watches the woman limp her way over to the far corner. “Her shoulder looks like it is dislocated. It must hurt like a bitch. Why doesn’t that overgrown lizard do something to help her.”
I gesture to the screen, where Mereek has given up talking in favor of striking poses to show off his muscles and strike fear into the heart of his opponents. “Do you think he really cares about anything or anyone other than himself? Besides, who do you think hurt her in the first place? The Galgogs are reputed to be just as savage in their lovemaking as they are in their fighting.”
She stares at me, horror written all over her face. “You mean he raped and beat her?”
“Do you really think we are the only ones whose water was tampered with? Where would be the entertainment value in that?”
She stalks up and down the cage, fury evident in every line of her body as the screen gradually fades to black. “He is a disgusting pig. No, worse than a pig. Worse than a claw-man. He is a disgusting lizard.” She spits out the last word as if it is the worst insult she can think of.
Looking at Mereek and his beaten mate, I have to agree with her. Lizard is the worst insult she can fling at anyone.
Hannah
I am so furious, I can’t sit still. I pace up and down the cell imaging what I would do to the giant lizard if I had him in my power. I would give him a taste of his own medicine. I would like to rip out his scales one by one, break a few of his ribs and then dislocate both his shoulders just to see how he likes it.
I don’t notice the screen has turned on again until a vicious hiss catches my ear. There’s another lizard man on the screen. This one isn’t as big as the first, but he looks meaner. Smarter, too. If the first lizard man reminded me of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, this one is a velociraptor. Like the ones in Jurassic Park, tapping their toenails consideringly on the floor as their brains plot and plan how they will catch a tasty dinner of defenseless human children. That movie gave me nightmares when I was a kid. This lizard man is my nightmare come to life.
“Look at my face,” he hisses. “Remember it well. It is the face of Sharb, and it will be the last face you ever see. You will look into my eyes as I disembowel you and scatter your intestines on the sand of the arena for the birds to feast upon. Only then, when you are begging me to end it, will I deign to kill you.”
I cannot suppress a shiver. He sounds like he means every word.
“Do not live in hope that your woman will live more than a few moments after you are dead. I have no desire for slaves. I will not keep her. Her blood will dye the sands by your side as she shares your fate.” His smile was so evil it made me want to vomit. “And I will enjoy every cut I make on her body. I will drink every scream of her pain and terror as if it is the finest vintage. I will rejoice as she lies dead beside you and my only regret will be that she is beyond pain and suffering and I cannot enjoy the kill all over again.”
I wrap the blanket tightly around myself as I look at the screen. This lizard guy is a complete fucking psychopath. He enjoys killing things. Has he killed the woman who was put in his cell with him already? Surely a victim like that at his mercy would prove an irresistible temptation.
No, there she is. I can see her squatting in one corner. Her head is covered in scales like the last woman’s, and her thick skin is cross hatched with a series of shallow cuts that are still weeping blood. She turns to face the camera and I see her face.
Oh, god, her face.
I swallow hard and fight the nausea.
He’s slashed her face everywhere. Her cheeks, lips, eyebrows, are all marked with the sign of his talons. What was clearly once a thing of beauty is now a mangled mess. Some of the cuts ooze pus where they have become infected.
At least it’s a lizard woman and not Faye or Delia, I catch myself thinking before I can help it.
I feel sick to the stomach at my awful thoughts. She is still a woman. A woman in desperate pain. She is not worth less than one of my friends. I would not wish such pain and suffering on anyone.
As penance, I force myself to look at her ruin of a face until the screen blacks out again.
I mentally prepare myself for more horrors when the screen flickers and starts up again. It’s a third lizard man, his polished scales iridescent yellow and poisonous green.
He is young and fit and is wearing a sly expression. “My name is Grud,” he says with a hint of cruel amusement in his smile. “Don’t bother remembering it. You won’t need to use it because you will never even see me coming. I am stealthy and lithe and limber. I will steal victory from under your noses and laugh as I walk away from your bodies. You will die with a look of surprise on your face, but believe me, you will die.”
Then, from nothing, he springs into a series of backflips, almost too fast for my eyes to follow him.
He lands lightly on his feet again, not even breathing heavily. “I’m fast on my feet. I’m a fighter. Whatever it takes, I will win. I will live, and you will die. As for your women, they have value only for what my friends will give me to use them, or for what they can bring me in the slave market. I will take them and use them and then sell them when I weary of them. If they displease me, I will take pains to ensure that their next master is well set to punish them. The bed slave of a sadist, maybe. Or, if they are too ugly for my taste, I will sell them straight to the mines where they can die coughing their insides up with radiation poisoning. They mean nothing to me.” He spat on the ground next to his feet. “Less than nothing. They are scum.”
I ignore his posturing and look for the woman in his cell. Yes, there she is, the brown scales on her head and her leathery skin blending into the shadows of the wall so that she is almost invisible. It is the trembling of her body that gives her away, that slight movement that catches my eye. Though she appears to be physically unharmed, she looks terrified to death.
Her abject terror makes me hate this lizard man, this thief, most of all.
A brute, a psychopath and a thief.
And Taark has to fight them all.
I can see why he has reconciled himself to death. Hoping to survive when faced with those three strikes me as pretty futile.
Nevertheless, I am still alive. And while I am alive, I have to hope.
Chapter Three
Taark
I am prepared for them when they come to my cell.
They want entertainment from me. I refuse to give it to them. It is enough that I will die. I will not willingly turn my death into a spectacle for people to laugh and cheer and clap at.
Six guards with stun guns accompany two well-groomed males. One of them has his beard in braids and the other carries a recording device.
I have never been ashamed of my nakedness, but I am ashamed of my filth. A low growl builds in my throat and I turn my face away.
The man with his beard in braids prods me through the bars with his walking stick. “Are you rea
dy to go? Introduce yourself to the fans. This is your chance to shine, and to strike fear into the hearts of your opponents.”
I move out of range of his stick and stay stubbornly silent. There is no honor in this. I want no part of it.
He clucks at me like I am a disobedient child. “Come on, now. Tell us who you are. Show us what you can do. We’re waiting.”
The kit is in the corner, keeping out of the way, but I can sense the fury rolling off her in waves. Mr. Braided-beard is lucky she has no knife on her or, despite the bars and the guards, he might find himself on the pointy end of it.
If there is a single consolation here, it is that she is angry on my behalf. Her empathy warms me from the inside and stiffens my resolve.
“Tell your fans why you deserve to have their support. Show them how you will win.” I can hear the frustration in his voice, and it gives me a small measure of satisfaction that I am ruining his carefully choreographed moment and spoiling the fun for his audience of degenerates.
Out in the corridor, the guards shuffle their feet restlessly. “What a wash,” I hear one mutter to the others.
“He’s not gonna do anything.”
“Probably can’t do anything. He’s a weakling.”
“I won’t be betting on him.”
“Pathetic.”
“Coward.”
“Too afraid to fight.”
Their quiet taunts do not bother me. Take away their weapons and put them in with me in the arena, unarmed, and we would see who would win in a fair fight. They are the cowards – they will never give up their stun guns and their whips and their nerve detonators. Their weapons are the only things that make them powerful. It is a transitory strength.
Braided-beard is losing his patience. “You do not want to make me angry.”
He is wrong there. It amuses me to see him angry, and helpless in his anger. Though I am locked in a cage and he is not, I hold the power here. I will not do as he wants, no matter what he says or does.
“Bastard,” I hear the kit murmur as she stares daggers at him. Her voice is thick with loathing. I hope she does not suffer for my stubbornness, but I will not back down.
