Vega almost just let it happen.
It was the night before the games. He shouldn’t have been wasting his energy on this kind of bullshit, whatever was really going on, because it was definitely bullshit. How the donara had gotten down here, what Lohar might do to her, and what the domina might to do them all when she discovered it. Vega knew he should’ve just gone right back to his room and pretended he’d never seen any of it. But in the end, he was not that heartless. Perhaps he tried to be in his worse moments, but he wasn’t. So he just sighed and then went after Lohar.
The donara screamed when Lohar got to her. He grabbed her, lifting her right off her feet, and slammed her into the nearest wall.
Vega caught his shoulder and yanked him back from her, driving his fist into Lohar’s face. Lohar bellowed in pain and tackled Vega, and the two of them went rolling across the corridor floor, grappling, until Vega could get the bigger cursu in a choke hold. He wrapped his legs around Lohar’s waist and his arms around his neck, squeezing tight, using enough force to slowly cut off his breath without killing him outright. It was not a personal mercy, but he knew if he killed him he’d have to pay the price of Lohar's contract himself. And that contract must have been high enough that Lohar had no hope of paying it off any time soon, or he would not have been so reckless himself.
He felt Lohar start to slump in his arms, and made the mistake of loosening his grip just by the tiniest fraction.
Lohar pulled a small knife from the sole of his shoe and reached up, slashing, and managed to slice into Vega’s arm.
Vega hissed, his hold tightening again until Lohar was thrashing about but unable to land a second blow with the knife. This time, Vega did not relent until he could feel the big cursu’s pulse begin to slow in his throat, against Vega’s forearm. He only relented when Lohar’s head bowed forward and all the fight went out of his limbs. With a furious roar, Vega released him. Lohar hit the floor, unconscious. Vega slid back, climbing to his feet, and winced when he checked the cut on his arm. It was deep —blood streaming down, dripping off his fingertips— and it hurt. It would have to be tended to before the games, and it might slow him down.
“Stupid bitch,” he growled at the donara, who was huddled against the wall by the stairs. “What the hell is wrong with you? What are you doing down here?”
In a matter of minutes, he knew, the guards would come.
Her scream, the sound of their fight, and the simple opening and closing of the gate at the top of the stars would have alerted them to inappropriate movement in the house.
The girl cringed further against the wall when he approached.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he barked. “But you’ve put us all in danger!”
“I was trying to escape,” she said shakily, lifting her head to look at him. There were tears staining her cheeks. “I was trying to get out of the palace.”
“Through the barracks?” Vega stared at her. “There’s no way to get out of the palace through here. Only the tunnel to the Arena.”
“Fuck,” the donara cried. “Fuck. Fuck. The girl lied to me. The cleaner. She said this way led to the sanitation bays.”
Vega rolled his eyes. “You are as stupid as you look.” Then he bent down and just grabbed her by the arms, pulling her to her feet. “Get up.”
She tried to shake him off. “Let go of me. I’m not stupid.”
“When they find you down here,” Vega snapped. “The domina will have us all whipped for your disobedience. Do you understand that? She owns you. And me. And every other slave in this palace. And the fault of one is the fault of all.”
She looked at him, surprise plain on her face. And he was startled to find that she was even prettier up close than he’d thought when he’d seen her from the training yard. In an uncommon, alien way, she was gorgeous. Peach skinned with pale freckles dotting her face and soft gray eyes, the color of a morning mist at home or a spring rain cloud. Her face was framed by pale hair soft as the sunwheat his father’s farm had harvested every year. He let go of her, discomfited by finding so many shades of his home world in an alien, startled by finding her so appealing.
“I didn’t know,” she stammered.
“No, it’s clear you know practically nothing,” he muttered. He looked down at Lohar, trying to figure out a way to spin this that didn’t land them all on the blocks in the market, or worse.
“You’re hurt,” the donara said quietly. “You’re bleeding.”
“Yes, I know. Shut up. I’m thinking.”
“Here.”
Vega looked at her again, watching with no small amount of bafflement as she reached down and gathered up the skirt of her gown, then proceeded to tear it to shreds. He had no idea why she was rending her dress until she came close and looped the fabric around his bicep where Lohar had sliced it, tying it tightly, and staunching the blood flow. Vega blinked, watching her use yet more torn fabric to continue wrapping the wound.
“Are you some kind of healer?”
“Something like that.”
“And this works on your planet?” He frowned.
She frowned right back at him. “Well, it’ll stop you bleeding, and you didn’t seem to be able to do that on your own.”
“Of course not,” Vega scoffed. “By the grace of the domina I would be brought a med droid.”
“Your only doctors on this thing are robots?”
“Certainly. Living hands can’t be trusted to save anything.”
“Wow.” She shook her head, and Vega thought he saw frustration in her face, but she finished dressing his wound and then stepped back from him.
He eyeballed the dressing and had to admit it was almost as good as a droid’s. Of course, a med droid would not have used pieces of a slave’s skirt, but he supposed he had to admire her ingenuity if nothing else. Wait. Admire?
They didn’t have time for this.
He focused on her eyes. “Any minute now, the guards will burst in. When they do, don’t move and don’t speak. Just agree to everything I say.”
“What are you going to say?” the donara asked.
“I’m working on that.”
“But what if they don’t believe you?”
Vega glared at her. “I’m respected in this house, even by the domina. They’ll believe me, but only if you corroborate the story. And if you fight, or protest, if you say anything at all, they’ll think you're guilty.”
“But—”
“Because you are guilty,” he said firmly. “And I am not. So let me do the talking.”
That seemed to silence her, finally. She closed her mouth and looked down, nodding, and Vega found himself frustrated because he didn’t want to upset her, but he had to take control of the situation while there was still any small part of it he could control.
And not a moment too soon.
Seconds later, the lights in the corridor flickered on, bright and blinding, and he heard the gate at the top of the stairs open once more. He pushed the donara back against the wall, putting himself between her and the guards, and Lohar’s prone figure on the floor. Guards streamed down the stairs in their red and gold armor, surrounding them, plasma rifles drawn. Vega put his hands up, head bowed low in supplication. He was relieved to see the donara do the same, and when he sank to his knees, she followed him, until they were both on their knees and bowing before the circle of guards.
Then, as Vega had both expected and hoped, he heard the more delicate footfalls of the domina herself as she came down the stairs, walking through a gauntlet of guards. Behind her, the yellow-scaled cleaning slave Nyssa. Vega knew the slave was ambitious, and he was unsurprised to see her. She must have been the one who told the donara that she could escape through the barracks gate, hoping she would get caught, killed. Anything to get her out of the way so that perhaps Nyssa could take her place. It was clever, but it hadn’t worked. This would gain the donara no favors with Nyssa, but at least she was still alive
.
Vega risked lifting his gaze when Domina Lennai stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She was looking right at him, and there was fury in her eyes. But when she looked at him, some of that fury ebbed, and Vega thought there was a chance. He was the favorite. He knew he was the favorite, and he could use that.
“And just what troublesome madness is going on down here?” the domina demanded.
Chapter Eight
Alaina knelt with her head bowed, watching Lennai’s feet come to a stop in front of her and the violet-eyed gladiator who’d saved her. Her mind whirled with thoughts, not the least of which having to do with him. It was the same gladiator, or, she supposed, cursu, that had been staring at her when she stood on the balcony with their domina. The only one who had not seemed interested in winning her through the games.
Her hands shook.
It wasn’t every day two aliens fought over her, after all. She spared a glance towards the other alien’s unconscious figure sprawled across the corridor floor, and then she risked lifting her eyes just enough so she could see the yellow-scaled girl’s toes. Nyssa. She must have sent her the wrong way on purpose, and Alaina wasn’t going to fall for that again. Assuming she made it out of this episode alive. It also just reinforced all of her previously conceived notions about people, any people, on any planet, in any part of the universe: they all sucked. Nobody was just naturally kind. Everybody was in it for themselves.
“I’m sorry, domina,” the gladiator was saying. “Lohar attacked me, hoping for a better spot in the games if I was wounded. The donara was at the top of the stairs and I begged her to come help me. She’s a healer.”
“A healer?” Lennai stopped in front of Alaina, and she looked instinctively up at her. “What kind of healer?”
Alaina blinked. “An EMT.”
“What does that mean?”
Alaina glanced at the gladiator’s profile, but his eyes were still low. She looked back at Lennai. “I’m an emergency medical professional. Not a healer. Not exactly a healer. More like a...patcher…”
She had no idea how to explain what she did for a living to people who used robots for doctors.
Lennai looked at the gladiator again. “And she did this, Vega?” She indicated the makeshift bandage Alaina had made out of the pieces of her dress.
Vega nodded, and now at least Alaina knew his name. “Yes, domina. She seems very resourceful.”
“It was so lucky,” Nyssa piped up, “that I was here to let her into the barracks, domina.”
Alaina glared at her in spite of herself. Nyssa looked calmly back at her, the corner of her mouth turning slightly up. The expression was at once pleading and threatening, and Alaina was struck by the girl’s ability to convey both in a single look.
“It was,” she finally said, through clenched teeth. “Very lucky.”
Lennai looked at Lohar on the floor. “And is he dead?”
“No, domina,” Vega said quickly. “I would never kill another cursu. Certainly not one of House Chara in these halls. I only defended myself.”
“Small miracles,” Lennai sighed. She gestured at two of the guards who went to the fallen gladiator and started dragging him down the hall. Then the domina looked at Alaina again. “So not just a pretty face, it seems.”
“No, domina,” Alaina muttered. “Not just.”
“Well, get up. Both of you.”
Alaina got to her feet and Vega did the same beside her. She knew she was supposed to keep her eyes low, but instead she watched Lennai look around and take it all in, watched how her expression remained so empty and neutral but her eyes darted all over, until they finally settled on Alaina herself. They looked at each other and Alaina felt a spark of defiance in her heart.
“I can do more than just stand around like a trophy,” she told the domina, before she could think better of it.
She heard Nyssa try to swallow a gasp.
Lennai arched her eyebrows dubiously, but didn’t reply immediately. Instead she just gazed back at Alaina, looking her over. And then she smiled, but there was nothing kind in it that Alaina could see.
“Well,” she finally said. “We’ll see about that. Since you are apparently so skilled, why don’t you work in the barracks in the morning? You can tend to the cursii after their games. Tend their wounds.”
“Fine,” Alaina said. “I will.”
Lennai’s eyes hardened. “And if any of them die, so do you.” Before Alaina could say anything about how ridiculous that was, Lennai clapped her hands and went on. “Return her to her quarters.”
Guards grabbed Alaina by the arms, removing the security bracelet Nyssa had given her, and started dragging her back up the stairs. She looked over her shoulder, watching as Vega bowed to the domina and then turned to go back down the corridor and deeper into the barracks.
Nyssa looked up, meeting Alaina’s eyes behind Lennai’s back, and her expression was fierce. And furious. Alaina knew that they weren’t done with each other, but she’d be damned if she was going to let some petty, jealous girl get her killed in this place. Freedom might have been temporarily off the table, but her plan remained the same. Make herself useful, make herself trusted, and then get the hell away from this place.
Of course, she had no idea what the morning would bring. She wasn’t a trauma surgeon, and it was an Arena, which conjured up images of carnage she wasn’t sure she could handle. But she was good at her job, and the physiology of most of these aliens seemed to be close enough to humans she could do basic medical assessments on them. Right? She let the guards haul her along, back to her room, mind spiraling wildly from confidence towards panic as she thought about what awaited her in the morning.
And underneath all of that, quite without her bidding, she kept thinking about Vega. There had been in something in the way he looked at her, when he’d had her back to the wall, for just that brief moment before he told her how stupid she was.
But Alaina wasn’t stupid. She didn’t know much about this world and these creatures, but she knew she’d seen something in the cursu’s eyes as they’d looked into hers. Something fierce, but not cruel. Powerful, but with a gentleness underneath it. Could a professional killer, a warrior, possibly hold onto those softer qualities and still win in the Arena? She got the impression, at least, that Vega won a lot. But for all his strength and intimidating demeanor, she got the sense that there was ever so much more than just a fighter beneath the surface. And she found herself wanting to discover it all.
Chapter Nine
Once the domina left the barracks, Vega went to his room and sat down on his cot, unwrapping the bandage on his arm a little so he could peek at the donara’s work. It was not as clean or precise as one of the droids might have done, but then, the domina would not have spared Vega a droid for such a wound. As such, it might have festered and continued to bleed. Now he thought he could still fight without it causing him much trouble. Lohar was another matter. He would no doubt wake in time for the games in the morning, and be more determined than ever to see Vega fall. Vega would have to be watching his own back as well as his front, which wasn’t unusual but it could be exhausting all the same, having to be ever vigilant even when it came to supposed allies. At least the domina seemed more annoyed than anything else. He could survive her annoyance, but few survived her rage.
He sprawled back on the cot, an arm tucked beneath his head, and stared up at the ceiling. Even when he closed his eyes, however, all he saw were flashing glances of the donara’s face. Such a strange, fragile-looking creature. So...plain. No qamalai, the word for the scales that decorated his flesh, and no antlers like the Jiayi. Not even the natural slickness of an Ankaa’s skin, hard to hold onto and glossy with moisture.
The donara’s people had no natural defenses, it seemed, nor any natural way of indicating their rank or beauty. No way to judge from the outside what sort of heart and mind might reside within. Vega found this confounding, but also distracting. He’d
already been surprised by her, already had his hands on her, and he wanted more. But he had to put those thoughts from his mind, because the games would bring the morning around with a swiftness, and he couldn’t let himself be distracted. That way led to a short fall onto bloody sands.
He managed to sleep, eventually —fitfully— and only for a short time, for the donara still haunted his mind’s eye. In those dreams, she ran across the sands of the Arena. She broke the chains binding his wrists to the Arena itself. And he chased her all the while, trying desperately to catch her but always missing, always catching handfuls of air instead. He’d had dreams like that before, but the things he’d been chasing through the Arena had never been person-shaped. He’d chased the image of his home planet or keys to unlock the chains that held him, never a single individual. And when he woke, hearing the tone that rang through the barracks calling the cursu to rise for the games, he couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow things had changed. Just that quickly, something was different. But he couldn’t have said what.
Vega tried to shake off that feeling in the baths with the other cursii, as they scrubbed down and cleaned themselves for the games. Bathari chattered endlessly about his anticipated glory, but Vega noticed that Lohar was not in the baths. He wondered if he would even participate in the games after what had happened the night before. The other cursii glanced at Vega askance, so the events of the night must have spread already. It was a testament to Bathari’s loyalty that he didn’t bring it up, didn’t press Vega for details, especially on a day of games. But Vega felt the curiosity and suspicion fogging up the room around him all the same.
Then, as they filed into line at the gate that led from the Chara Palace to the Arena itself, Vega saw Lohar. As the highest ranking of House Chara’s cursii, Vega himself stood last in line. To his surprise, he spotted the red scales, and saw Lohar first in line. Not the best and certainly not the worst, Lohar should have been somewhere in the middle, not the fore. This was further punishment, it seemed, and Vega was surprised that the domina would so shame him. He’d gotten his ass kicked and Vega would have thought that would be enough. Apparently not.
Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance Page 5
