Unexpected Prize

by Stone, Layla

  The Chancellor blocked the punch. The old gladiator’s eyes blazed with fire as his pupils shrank to pinpricks. He returned his own one-two-three set. Jarr-o took a hit to his already-bruised ribs. His shoulder was wrapped with an ice compress, making his movements jerky. Jarr-o worried, his muscles were tight from his last battle. He needed to make calculated hits to win the fight and get out of the room. If he didn’t, who knew what the Chancellor would do to him.

  Setting his feet, he jabbed the Chancellor’s left eye and then kicked his knee, dislocating it.

  The Chancellor fell to the floor with a roar that shook the window. With the old male down, Jarr-o’s mind whirled. All he could think about was exiting the room and the arena as quickly as possible before the Chancellor called in reinforcements. Jarr-o quickly walked to the side of his bed, grabbed his boots, a shirt, and his pack full of supplies. Backtracking towards the door, he leaned down, grabbed the heavy chain—ignoring the evident surprise from the woman—and drew her away from the Chancellor and any attempt he might make to claim punishment for a slave attacking someone. Jarr-o’s heart was heavy, knowing he was leaving his future behind.

  He was officially retired, and he already hated every second of it because he was, once more, responsible for a woman who didn’t have the self-preserving sense to show respect.

  The Chancellor was a formidable opponent, and Jarr-o was unsure what he would do when recovered. He wondered if the Chancellor would send another gladiator to challenge Jarr-o, or if he would attempt to steal Cara and make her pay for the slight. He didn’t know the Chancellor personally, but he did know that he was ruthless with anyone who crossed him. And if Jarr-o were honest with himself, he was in danger of the Chancellor’s retribution.

  Chapter Three

  Outside the City

  Jarr-o navigated out of the arena and city with ease. It wasn’t until he’d exited the city and began on the dirt path that led to his family home that his mood soured, changing from his earlier confusion to furious regret. The sun was setting on the horizon. In his periphery, he could see the illusion of a lake on the desert plain. He was less than halfway home, and mountains that marked the end of the desert were another five score away. His patience had come to an end. The hum of the city was gone; he was left to his own thoughts, and ignoring Cara’s comments spoken in a language he didn’t understand. This day had been a total bust from the moment he woke up from his uneasy sleep.

  The chain he held jerked back, but his grip was tight enough that he didn’t lose the tension in their connection. He had foolishly allowed her to demand a slower pace. He’d thought he was being respectful to the woman, attempting to win her over with kindness. But she’d proven to be just as strong-willed as his sister. She was oblivious to the fact that her ignorance had consequences—specifically that they weren’t going to make it home in the light. He had lost count of how many times she had jerked the line. When she did it again, he decided to pull back hard, causing her to fall forward.

  Feeling ashamed when he noticed that Cara had scraped her hands when she fell, he held out his hand to help her back up.

  Slapping at his palm, she yelled, “Fass mich night an!”

  He may not have understood what she said, but her words didn’t matter, her tone was universal, sharp, and heavy with derision. “Complain all you want, it’s not like you’re the only one getting ripped off here.”

  Angry, Cara tried to use her weight to draw the chain taut when he started walking again. A feeble attempt. His strength far outmatched that of the Terran. It would take more than her tantrums to break the chain from his hold.

  “Tú no perdiste nada, fue a mi a la que Raptaron, perfecto Idiota.”

  Her last sentence sounded totally different from the first. Jarr-o wondered for a moment if she were speaking different alien languages. Instead of asking, he said, “Does it make you feel better to yell at me in words I don’t understand? It seems childish to me.”

  “Yes, it makes me feel better because you’re walking a million miles an hour and I’m barefoot!”

  Jarr-o looked back at her and noticed how timidly she was walking on the front pads of her feet. He slowed to ask, “Why are you walking like that?”

  “I don’t want to step on any stickers. The ground isn’t soft, and it hurts.” Cara hissed and pulled on the chain. “Hold on, I stepped on something.” Brushing the bottom of her foot, he noticed that she had stepped on small bits of sand. Something that shouldn’t have bothered her at all. Jarr-o didn’t begin walking again until she started first.

  “Thank you…for stopping,” Cara said quickly as if it were an afterthought.

  Surprised by her reaction, he smiled, slightly. “You’re welcome.” And then after thinking about it, he added, “I will probably end up carrying you anyways. Especially if your feet already hurt. We are not even halfway home.”

  Openmouthed, she looked at him in mock horror. “How far away do you live? We’ve been at this forever.”

  Jarr-o was learning that the Terran was overdramatic, something he didn’t find amusing. He noticed that the sun was sinking farther into the horizon. “We need to hurry,” Jarr-o said, contemplating throwing her over his one good shoulder to pick up the pace.

  “Why?”

  He lowered his eyes to her, annoyed by her question. Holding back a sardonic remark, he remembered that she had been living in a cage; she didn’t know about life on his planet. “This stretch of desert has several packs of wild beasts that would see you as an easy meal. It’s not safe for you out here.”

  Slowly, she turned her eyes up to him and squinted. “And you’re not an easy target because…you’re what? Bigger?”

  Jarr-o added, “And stronger, and faster, and smarter.”

  He found particular enjoyment in seeing Cara’s nostrils flare when he mentioned that he was smarter. The Terran was getting more interesting by the second.

  Shaking her head, Cara opened her mouth several times before she responded, “I’m smart.”

  Jarr-o had been hoping for more. By the look on her face, she was having some kind of internal battle. The war lasted for about two seconds, then she whirled on him as she pulled the chain down and stomped her foot. “You know what? No, I’m not going to let some muscle-headed, boar-faced juggernaut talk down to me.”

  Jarr-o knew he should have kept walking, but for some reason, the small woman was fired up… It was delightful to watch. So, he allowed her to rant.

  “I may not be able to bench press a house, but I am not a pushover. I learned to read and speak three different languages before I was six years old. Then, I taught myself another two after I was paid to spy on two gangs in my neighborhood. And then, after my parents sold me to a mob boss to settle their debts, I had to teach myself how to cook my own food, clean my own clothes, and execute self-defense against the creepy older men who liked to grab my butt.”

  Jarr-o was no longer amused. He was furious. Her parents had sold her to pay off debts? It was dishonorable. It looked as if he and the Terran had something in common. When she’d mentioned the old men who sought her out, he wished they lived on his planet. He would take delight in tearing off each of their extremities, one by one.

  “Don’t you dare stand there like you’re better than me because you have quick footwork.” Abruptly, Cara turned and started walking again.

  Jarr-o wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. When he decided on a general apology, he noticed that her eyes were watery, which contradicted her angry steps and pinched lips.

  Walking beside his Terran, he noted that while she may be dramatic, she was also sensitive and smart. Qualities, he admitted to himself, that were endearing. Movement in his periphery turned his attention to the rocks a few yards out. Conkesepies skittered past in a glimpse of black scales and spikes.

  Great.

  A pack of scavengers that would follow them until they reached his home. With mercy, they wouldn’t att
ract bigger predators.

  Another hour had passed. The sky was darker, and his vision was best in the light, but his senses had been honed for years to see with the sounds around him. He narrowed his eyes to slits and focused on the surrounding air, it was quiet, and his gut told him to move now—a Tamin pounced from behind a large boulder that littered the dirt road. Twice his size, it pushed past Jarr-o, knocking him backwards and pinning his slave to the ground under its large claws. She would be an easy meal for the large, four-legged beast.

  Jarr-o made to jerk the chain, to prevent the creature from delivering a killing strike. Before he could move, Cara belted out a ferocious battle cry as she used the tension in the line to propel herself forward, nailing the beast in the groin. It screeched and stumbled aside, creating enough distraction for her to roll out of its reach. Jarr-o stood there, dumbfounded and amazed by her courage. He had never seen such a display, and would never have thought a Terran, of all creatures, capable of it.

  His fighting instincts against the beast were muddled by her actions. He couldn’t place where he needed to be. With another flick of her wrist, Cara caught the chain around the animal’s antlers and pulled.

  Jarr-o admired the move, but she was too weak to throw off the beast. He charged from behind to draw the Tamin’s attention to him.

  ***

  Cara was unequivocally pissed. A massive beast that looked like a malformed orange and black tiger with deer antlers kept lunging at her, eyeing her as if she were dinner.

  Jarr-o wrapped his arms around the animal’s neck and yelled out, “Down volt.” She wasn’t sure if he was talking to the beast or her. He repeated his command, and again she stood there frozen, unsure.

  The deformed tiger’s claw swiped out, catching Jarr-o in the side. She heard him and felt him roar. Unable to let him fight alone, she folded up some of the loose chain and swung it at the beast’s face, particularly close to its eyes.

  The movement shocked Jarr-o, causing him to lose his hold on the monster with antlers. It screeched as it lunged at her with arms wide, and its thick claws bared. Backing up in horror, the beast clamped its large mouth on her shoulder and sank nails into her upper arms, sending spikes of agony up her nerves, closing off her reality to everything but the pain. Cara screamed out so loud and long, it burned her throat.

  Seconds later, the blazing pressure around her was gone, and the pain detonated as Cara flew through air and landed on her chest, effectively knocking the breath out of her lungs and escalating her panic. When her lungs finally expanded to take in air, it was full of dust and fine sand.

  Lifting her head, she turned to face Jarr-o and the beast. Cara watched in awe as Jarr-o wrestled the mutant by the antlers to bring it to the ground, then pressed his knee into the back of its neck. She watched as his knee broke through the bone. She cringed at the monster’s death cry.

  Cara would have felt relief, but the pain in her shoulder, radiating heat from the bite, was digging further into her body and spreading.

  Jarr-o quickly moved over her, put his massive-sized hand on her neck, and pushed her head in the opposite direction. “I need to see it so I can stop the bleeding, Cara.” His voice was firm but tender.

  A sudden pressure stabbed at the heart of the pain, and fresh tears burst from her eyes. “NO! Stop.” She grappled at his wrist, trying to claw his grip off. “PLEASE, STOP.”

  In a blur of movement, Jarr-o removed his shirt and began ripping it into pieces. Then, with one strip balled up, he pressed it to her shoulder, quickly adding, “If I don’t bind it, the blood loss will kill you.” She felt every jerk and tear as he wrapped layers of his shirt around her wounds. Each time he jostled her to slide under her upper body, she growled in pain through her teeth.

  Cara felt Jarr-o pull the fabric too tightly around the wound on her arm, and she cried out.

  “Accept the pain and move past it, Cara. Pain does not kill, giving in to the pain will.” He sounded slightly put out, and that pissed her off.

  Cara cursed him in every way she knew how. In every language she could think of. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get up. At this point, she wondered if he would leave her. With the pain, she even contemplated death being a better alternative.

  Reaching under her good shoulder, Jarr-o slowly pulled her up into a sitting position. “All right. That should hold until we get to my home. Once there, I can sew it up.” He stood up with a wince, and she watched as he ran his fingertips over the gashes on his ribs. The wounds looked deep, and blood leaked freely down his dark grey abs, soaking into his black leather pants.

  Cara knew it was petty, but she was glad that she wasn’t the only one in pain. Their situation crested into madness when Jarr-o reached down and deadlifted her up like she was a toddler, tossing her over his shoulder.

  Her pain was shadowed by her awe at Jarr-o’s gladiator strength and his internal willpower. She tried to let her body relax against his, knowing for the first time in her life, that she was safe. Jarr-o was one indomitable gladiator.

  ***

  Jarr-o was thankful for the silence. It lasted for all of ten minutes.

  Cara hissed, and he felt her small, cold hand press against the middle of his back. He was glad it was night, and she couldn’t see the scars she was touching. She would be appalled. In a nervous voice, Cara asked, “Do you think you could walk with less of a bounce? It hurts.”

  He wanted to tell her, no. He was grinding his teeth, pushing through the vibrating pain in his side. At that point, he was able to move forward by sheer will alone. He kept putting one foot in front of the other. He’d suffered worse injuries, but that didn’t lessen the current difficult situation.

  Sometime later, Cara said, “I’m surprised you can even carry me after all the fights you’ve been in tonight. Counting the monster, that makes three, right?”

  There was something sensitive in her tone. Possibly admiration, or maybe that was just hopeful thinking.

  When he didn’t answer, she added, “Thank you for not leaving me out there.”

  Her words were softer, and there was a slur to them. Jarr-o concluded that she was becoming delirious from blood loss.

  “How can you carry me with the cuts on your sides?” Cara’s words were softer, and he felt her silky-soft hands brush over his scarred skin as if she were trying to brush out the bumps.

  It took too long to answer, and he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t respond to him after he whispered, “Because I have to.”

  When he veered off the dirt path, the sound of crunching pebbles changed to footfalls on soft sand. His mind rejoiced at finally stepping onto his own property. Jarr-o’s breath got shorter and harsher as he walked down the walkway to his front door.

  When he got inside, he laid Cara down on the tall, polished, metal bench in the house’s infirmary. She curled up into a ball on her good side. The platform was easy to sanitize and keep clean, a necessity for cleaning wounds. There was a drain at the end for any excess blood. He slowly pushed her flat onto her back. Her body was tense at his touch, and she bit down on her lip, holding her breath. If she kept doing that, she would pass out. He was okay with that, less pain for her.

  He grabbed the metal cutter from the bench drawer and removed the chain around her neck. Next, he took a boning knife from the kitchen and cut the blood-drenched shirt and wraps from her upper body. Quickly, he poured soap and water over her wounded areas and lightly scrubbed them clean. Even though he was being gentle, he could tell it still hurt her. She started to shake.

  “I can’t do this,” Cara said with tears silently dripping down the sides of her face in a steady stream. “It hurts too much. Can’t you just wrap it back up and do that later?”

  A part of his chest squeezed at her desperate plea.

  Quickly picking up the needle, he threaded it and held out his hand. “Hold on to my arm and squeeze if it hurts.” He almost lied to her and said he would stop, but he didn’t hav
e the mental capacity to lie.

  “Okay,” she whispered, and both hands grasped his large forearms. Her cold palms on his warm skin gave him the focus he needed. Looking over the four large puncture wounds on her shoulder, and the two on her right arm, he knew it would test her endurance. Taking in a deep breath, he pushed the needle into her thin skin and pulled it through.

  Despite her cries and tears, he kept going. Her small nails dug into his flesh but didn’t break the skin. When she stopped, he paused only to see that she had fainted. A mercy. He returned to his objective because he was sure that if she lost any more blood, she wouldn’t wake up.

  After caring for her wounds, he rinsed off the blood from her upper torso and realized that the scrap of fabric concealing her breasts was soaked. With the knife, he cut the dark purple contraption off and peered at her very female form.

  Closing his eyes for a moment, he took note of the soft skin that he had felt against him all night. Her small hands curled slightly at her sides had rubbed his back, and with that memory, a shiver ran over his skin. The brown jumpsuit was ruined, so he slowly cut it from her lower body, exposing the fair skin underneath. He fought with himself not to skim his hand over her hip and thigh. Instead, he picked up the washcloth near the sink and cleaned the scrapes on her knees and feet.

  Eyeing another waterlogged scrap of cloth covering the junction of her thighs, he cut that off, too.

  A small, reddish-brown patch of hair stood out against her light-colored flesh. Curiously, he lifted her knees slightly and pulled her thighs apart, wondering if their species shared similar sex organs. Jarr-o didn’t know why, but he inwardly felt relief when he realized her shape was similar to his own species’ females.

  He cast his eyes over her again, concluding that she wasn’t hideous and didn’t have any strange appendages or oddities. Except the obvious…her skin was soft and fair, and her face devoid of tusks.