by Jaide Fox
Navarre watched the women come inside, drenched from the rain that pummeled the ceiling of the coliseum. He hadn’t paid it much attention before, but appreciated the sight of the women barely clad and soaked to the skin.
He looked up briefly, distracted from the medic applying a laser to his back to seal the wound from his wing being ripped from his body. The heated beam stung, but not so much as the fury that impaled him at the sight on the stage.
Instantly, the rage that had fueled him during the fight returned. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think of anything but running across the field and taking vengeance. He fought the feeling down, swallowing it down like a black rock of despair to settle deep in his gut. His gut clenched, jerking with spasms in reaction.
There. There in the center stood the bane of his existence. The one woman he’d thought never to see again. The one woman he hated above every other lifeforce he’d encountered.
He smelled burning flesh, felt the salve go on, but he ignored the medic tending his wounds. All he could do was focus on the petite, pale redhead that seemed to cower in the crowd, as if she hoped that none of the ShadeShifters would notice her presence on the stage.
But Navarre noticed. He would never forget the face of the woman he’d once loved to the detriment of himself. The woman he’d trusted with everything, including his life. The woman who had cared nothing for him, who’d only been out to take the inheritance of his father from his accounts and leave him with nothing to fall back on, forcing him to become a gladiator in the games.
Kittana Minx.
Navarre Viseus knew at once which woman he would select to claim as mate. And she would rue the day she ever crossed his path and took him as her lover.
***
Kittana Minx choked back the fear that threatened to swallow her whole. A chill that seemed to come from the grave assailed her, and it was not caused by the dousing rain she and the other women had been driven into before coming inside the Coliseum of Thunder.
Drenched and shivering, Kittana tried to move to the back of the row, hoping against hope that he did not see her standing in the mix, but one glance at the field told her that no matter how much she might try to avoid her fate, that she would not be so fortunate.
Navarre Viseus stared straight at her. Ignoring everyone and everything, she could feel his gaze like a drill boring deep inside her soul.
Quickly, she averted her eyes, hope dying inside her.
He knew she was here. She had only to hope that he was not a victor of the games and able to select a woman as a mate.
“Our second place winner, come and select your prize,” the Master of the Games announced through the mouthpiece hovering beyond his lips.
Kittana felt the words echo hollowly through her, knew that what small hope she had was dashed as Navarre, summoned, moved from the field and up to the stage. She could practically feel his footsteps reverberating through the stage as he moved up the stairs and onto the platform.
She knew it was only her imagination that heightened her senses. In reality, she could barely feel anything but the pummeling vibrations from the wild crowds, but in her mind, she attributed it all to the doom coming her way.
Navarre.
His name and image moved through her like a heart attack. Her pulsed pounded through her veins, driven by intense guilt and fear. Her heart clenched in her throat, choking the breath from her lungs, palpating in her as if she would expire at any moment. Fear threatened to overwhelm her, making her ache, making her want to bolt off the stage and run for her life.
But there was no escape. Not this time. Not now. She’d chosen this fate for herself, been driven into it by her own actions.
Kittana hadn’t thought she would ever see him again, however, least of all here, in this place.
What twist of fate had brought them back together?
Navarre moved across the stage, ignoring the other women cowering before him, headed straight for her as if no other person existed in the world.
He looked harder than he had before. No longer a young man. Etchings of blue and black scrawled down his arms, across his chest and stomach and around his legs.
Legend told that the more markings a ShadeShifter carried, the closer they were to losing their grasp on sanity. If that were to be believed, Navarre did not have much flesh left to hold the berserker from overwhelming his mind.
He hadn’t been that way, so many years ago.
He’d cut off his long hair in favor of a shorter cut. Spikes of dark blond rose from his head, some spots matted with the blood of his enemies. If he’d been wounded, she could not tell it, but then the medics had tended to them all, she was certain. The points of his ears drew her eyes, and she remembered nibbling on them once upon a time, earning a rare chuckle from him at her fascination with his race’s pointed ears.
Lines etched his face, the corners of his eyes and across his forehead, drawn into a hard mask of anger. There was no smile for her. She knew there wouldn’t be, and yet the fury, the hurt and betrayal she saw in his eyes struck her like a blow. She flinched when he met her, face to face, separated from touching her by mere inches.
Navarre met her eyes. Every ounce of pain and sense of betrayal was clearly etched into his beautiful dark blue gaze.
He looked from her face down her body, raking her with his gaze. The thin gown she wore plastered to her body like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. He brought up his hands, and for a minute, she thought he would strike her, though he’d never done anything of the sort in their previous encounters.
Grasping the neck of her gown, he gave a tug and ripped it off her body, leaving her naked before one and all. She gasped as he grabbed her and pulled her in front of the line of women, allowing everyone to see what she had to offer if they hadn’t already noticed.
He groped her breasts with a coldness that made her shudder, grabbed her buttocks as if examining a calf for the slaughter. Seeming satisfied, he stopped.
“I claim this woman as my prize!” Navarre announced to the approval of the crowd.
Kittana shuddered at the look in his eyes, felt her throat close up as he moved to take a slave collar from one of the attendants. The binding on her hands seemed not enough to satisfy him.
He took the collar and leash and closed it around her neck, locking away her freedom forever.
He leaned close so that only she could hear his words. His breath was hot and harsh against her ear, eliciting a shiver to course down her spine. She shuddered, unable to resist the impulse and show weakness. “You are mine now. Do not think you will escape me this time.”
Chapter Two
Navarre knew not what insane impulse possessed him. Perhaps it was a fever from the games, perhaps it was having her within his grasp, so close to vengeance meted that he could not resist.
He wanted to shame her in front of everyone, to hurt her in some small measure to payback the hurt she caused him, even if everyone knew it and saw it. No one would surmise that she was his only weak spot, and in truth, it did not matter if they did. There were none here capable of stopping him from doing exactly as he wished.
Her dark red hair looked nearly black from the water soaking her long tresses. It twined around her face and neck, making the paleness of her skin that much starker. Her thin gown was little barrier for his eyes, but he wanted it gone, immediately.
Grasping the edges, he ripped it off her body. Power and rage surged through his body, kept in check only by the sight of her naked flesh before his eyes.
She was everything he remembered and more. Tracery of fine, blue veins moved over her breasts like the network of a river, meeting at the light pink areolas of her breasts. Her small nipples puckered from the sudden rush of air conditioning that whispered against her skin.
Seeing the buds made his mouth water. Were it not for the crowd, he would have laid her down on the stage and fucked the rage out of his body right then and there. As it was, he felt the blood surge to
his groin, fought back the hardness that made his balls ache and tighten.
The weight of her breasts had always enticed him to cup and grope the round globes. He’d enjoyed burying his face in them and suckling the tips, grabbing and holding them as she rode his cock.
All lies. The desire she’d displayed for him had been nothing but a front to lull his sense of distrust until she’d been like a spider, ready to strike. He was lucky she hadn’t slaughtered him in his sleep, given the length of her greed.
The dip of her waist called to his hands. He found himself wanting to grasp the curve of her generous hips, and the triangle of red hair covering her sex only served to heighten the lustful rage burning inside him.
It was with a great sense of victory that he saw the shame and guilt in her eyes as she stood there before them all, naked as the day she was born. His victory increased to see the collar lock around her throat.
“Come with me,” he said.
He pulled on the leash, making her flinch as she reluctantly followed him out of the arena. Her feet dragged and she tried to cover herself with her arms.
“Cease your movement or I will be forced to punish you,” Navarre ground out. “You will not cover yourself from me or anyone else unless I wish it. You are my slave now. You will obey my every command, every desire. Understood?”
He tugged the collar for emphasis.
Kittana dropped her hands but clenched them into fists at her sides, un-obstructing his view of her luscious body. “Clearly,” she muttered, obviously defiant but willing to obey now for fear of the consequences.
Pity, he thought, expecting more of a challenge from her. But that would come. He relished the thought of breaking her, once and for all.
Navarre led her down through the arena to the ShadeShifters quarters. The labyrinthine corridors snaked under the coliseum like the web of a spider. They’d been given the area underneath the arena, kept away from quarters close to the citizens for fears that at any time, any one of them could lose their grip on sanity.
It mattered not to him. He found Antarians distasteful at best. His race preferred to keep company amongst themselves, and no doubt the other victors would soon be returning to their own rooms with their trophies to bed and break in their women.
He knew many of his brethren had prepared for victory, buying all manner of pleasurable devices from the city’s market to use on their mates. He’d not wanted to jinx himself by putting the cart before the horse.
In any case, with his skills and desires, he had no need of other implements to exact justice on her body. All he needed were his hands, his cock, and her willing or unwilling body.
He preferred unwilling.
Punching the key code to gain entrance into his suite, he opened the door and led Kittana inside. The urge to take her right then was extreme, but he curbed the impulse and merely tied her leash to the bed, going instead to wash the blood and sweat of battle off his body.
She looked afraid, if the wide-eyed glance and quick ducking of her head were any indication. She stood as far from the bed as she could, and as he left the room, he saw from the corner of his eye that she snatched the sheet off the bed.
He’d deal with her when he returned.
He smiled at the thought, turning on the water of the shower and stepping inside. The hot water was a balm to his soul, quenching the fire in his blood, and strengthening his resilience and resolve to carry through with his plan to make her suffer the wrongs she’d done him.
Navarre had come into his current life because of her. He cursed himself a thousand times for being a fool, but he’d genuinely thought by the reaction she had to him that she cared for him. It was rare for his people to find willing women outside their own race. They were known far and wide for having aberrant sexual appetites and few women could contend with that.
The bounty of their land had driven other races to slaughter them and scatter his people to the far corners of the galaxy, only to rape his home planet of valuable minerals and ores. He’d been one of the few to remain, clinging viciously to what was his.
When Kittana had deliberately sought him out and seemed to enjoy succumbing to his desires, he’d thought he’d finally found the happiness so few of his kind ever did. He thought he’d found a woman who could keep up with him and give him what he most wanted in the world—a family.
But she’d stabbed him in the back. She’d only used sex to get close to him. She’d taken everything from him. Every credit in his accounts had been drained, leaving him with nothing to live on.
Given that he had no other skills that could earn him a living besides killing, he’d been forced to accept the life of a gladiator. It wasn’t a difficult decision, because killing came to him like a second nature, but it wasn’t a life he would have chosen had he any other option.
Navarre took his time cleansing himself and allowing his tired muscles to relax. His wounds, while sealed, nevertheless still gave him pain. He wanted to be able to enjoy breaking her at his leisure, without causing himself undo exhaustion.
His mind wandered, thinking about the ways he would use her.
***
Kittana wasn’t the kind of person to sit meekly and mildly and accept her fate. She’d been in the habit of protecting herself, her younger brother, and her mother since her bastard father had abandoned them all to go seek his fortune deep space mining when she hadn’t even reached fourteen.
She couldn’t do anything about the collar locked around her throat, but he’d tied the leash to the bed and left her in the room without a care in the world, as if she’d just stay there without trying to escape.
Kittana wrapped the sheet around herself and untied the leash. She didn’t have much time. Men never seemed to take very long showers, at least in her experience, and given the look in his eyes, she didn’t expect he wanted to hold himself back from punishing her for very long.
She looped the leash around her shoulders once untied and stepped to the door. Stooping, she examined the keypad, trying to see where his fingerprints had smudged the pad.
Four numbers stood out, and she began punching them, hoping that she’d be able to figure out the code before he could come back. She didn’t think the possible combinations were too high that she wouldn’t be able to get somewhere with the limited numbers.
Her luck held. He probably hadn’t really expected her to attempt an escape, given that she didn’t have any clothes, but she wasn’t interested in being anyone’s slave. She’d chosen the option of coming as a willing mate for the ShadeShifters rather than face life in prison for stealing an inordinate amount of ransom money to save her little brother and mother from space pirates.
To her, it’d been worth it to see them free, even if she had to pay for her crimes and never got to see them again.
She was just sorry she’d had to involve Navarre.
It didn’t matter. What was done was done, and she wasn’t sticking around any longer than she had to. The door clicked open when she successfully entered the simple code, and she strode into the hall, looking up and down the corridor before deciding to return the way they’d come.
She just had to count on her luck holding out until she reached the surface. She had no clear plan in mind, but she’d become a pro at winging it.
Kittana scooped up the trailing end of the long sheet and dashed down the hall. The corridor was lined with doors leading into the suites of the other residents. Through some, she could hear cries of pain or ecstasy—both were so similar.
She shivered, moving faster. She took the corner at full speed, running smack into a wall of human flesh. Hands locked around her biceps, making her grip slip on the sheet.
Her feet tangled and her heart jumped into her throat. Stumbling, she felt the stranger pull her back up.
“What are you doing out here?” the man demanded. “Someone has lost their little prize, I see. So careless. To whom do you belong?”
Instead of answering, Kittana came down with all
her weight on top of the man’s instep. The move stunned him for a split second. He yelled and released her, giving her a chance to bolt.
He snatched her sheet, trying to keep hold of her, but the sheet unraveled from her body as she ran. She didn’t give a damn if she was buck ass naked if she could get out of there. Air kissed her skin as she ran, her still damp hair making her shiver in the conditioned underground space.
Dimly, she heard another yell and realized Navarre had discovered her flight.
“She ran this way!” a man called behind her.
Kittana refused to give up hope. She ducked down another passage, hoping the crisscrossing pattern would give her enough of a head start she could get out of there even though she was unfamiliar with the area. She didn’t have any other choice but to try.
