“No.” The cold voice was clear and final.
Mave broke.
No, no, no, no. not them. Anyone but them. Don’t make me hurt them. I can’t. Don’t leave them alone. Don’t hurt them. Don’t take this from me, please. Please.
She began to beg as the Empress just stood on the other side of the bars, staring through her. “Please, Empress. PLEASE!” she screamed, hoping against all things. Praying and hoping. Maybe once her gods would do something. Maybe the Elvasi gods would hear her. She didn’t care. “ANYTHING! I’ll do anything!”
When Mave opened her mouth with nearly no voice left to say anything, much less scream, the Empress turned and walked away.
“No,” she forced out. “No…”
“Mave?” Rainev whispered, trying to move closer. He was also chained, unable to get further than she had been able to. Maybe a foot of loose chain was all they had. “Mave…”
“Are you okay?” she asked, her throat raw. It barely came out, too soft. She wondered if he heard it. She looked over his face. He was rough, but obviously was already healing. His nose was a little crooked. No one had set it for him like he had done for her. It would always be that way. A visual marker of what had happened to him.
I failed him.
He’d given her family and she failed him in the worst way.
“I’m sore, but I’m okay. What was…what was that about?”
“We’re to fight again on the last day of the games,” she answered, or tried to.
“Okay…that’s good, Mave. We’ll fight, we’ll win, we’ll be released back into-”
“Against each other,” she corrected, her chest hollow.
“What?” He fell back, stunned. “We’re…”
“We’re going to have to kill each other,” Matesh whispered. She met those green eyes and all she could do was nod. He took a deep breath. “Damn.”
They sat in silence for a long time. She had no idea the time of day, but eventually, a group of guards came by, holding trays. The door to their cell opened and they walked in, a unit. Three broke off and undid the chains. None of them fought back, since there were fifteen guards and three of them. Mave was too weak to even consider a plan of action.
The food was dropped in front of them.
“Slide these under the bars when you are done,” a guard ordered. “The chains were for the Empress’ visit. You are blessed to have seen her on your final days.”
Blessed? Is this the blessing my gods would give me? The Skies would bless me with this?
No, they cursed me before I was even old enough to understand why. They threw me away and now I’ve taken down two wonderful males with me.
With that, the guards left. Mave ignored the food as Rainev and Matesh moved closer to her. It was Mat who picked up her bowl of slop and shoved it under her nose.
“Eat. You need the strength.”
“No,” she said plainly. She didn’t. “No.”
“Damn it, Mave.” Matesh growled at her. “Eat or I’ll force-feed you. You will not waste away on me now. Not on Rain.”
She looked at her illi bodyr. He was so worried. Such a good man, such a brave one with an easy smile. She was going to lose it soon, that easy happiness. Nothing she could do would change that. Even if he lived, what happened to him would cast a darkness over him. Even now, she could see it.
“Eat, illo amyr,” he whispered.
She took the bowl and forced a spoonful of slop into her mouth. She swallowed and it hurt. When she never took a second bite, Matesh growled, taking her spoon and shoving another bite into her mouth.
She tried to spit it out, but he grabbed her jaw and held it closed.
“I fucking meant it,” he snarled. “You have not fought for a thousand years to fucking quit now, do you understand? I can’t have you give up on me. Please.”
She grabbed his throat and shoved. He fell back, releasing her jaw. She swallowed the slop in her mouth and snarled.
“There she is. There’s the Champion,” he said, a dark smile taking over his face.
“Damn you,” she hoarsely cursed him and the very air he breathed.
“We need a plan,” Rainev cut in.
“There’s nothing to plan for,” she retorted. She already had her plan. She didn’t need food for it, but she ate anyway, hoping Matesh wouldn’t get on her again. She didn’t need that either. The slop was the lesser of the two evils.
He’s only doing it because he cares for me. I should remember that.
They sat in silence until the guards came back and opened the door.
“Slave. You have lost the privileges as Champion of the Colosseum. It’s been decided that you three will not be a waste of resources, staying in a cell until the seventh day of the games. You are being released back into the general population until your fights.” The guard speaking stepped out of the doorway. “You will report to every meal. You will not fight with the other gladiators, on pain of being tortured, until the last day of the games. Go on.”
Mave stood up slowly, with Rainev and Matesh beside her. Together, they walked out of the cell into hell. Mave knew this could get ugly.
All of her protections. Her room. Her weapons. Her respect from the guards.
Gone.
For some reason, as she stepped out of the cell, none of it mattered. Those were things she could earn back, things she had never needed to begin with. They had just made her survival a little easier.
“Let’s find a place to hide out. Rain needs some attention to his injuries,” Matesh whispered as they moved away from the cell. She recognized where she was, deep in the bowels of the pits. The Empress had come here to see her, a surprise.
“I know where we can go,” she said softly, leading them down the dark tunnel. It was a long and winding path before she found the room she once hid in, during her first, very formative years in the pits. It was just big enough for all of them. There were no cots to sleep on, and only a tiny grate at the top gave them any idea of the time. “We ate breakfast,” she whispered. “We were out all night.”
“Would explain how much we’ve healed,” Matesh commented, looking down at his bare chest. It had bruising still, but nothing serious or lasting. Mave checked her own wound, the hole in her side. It wasn’t closed up fully, but it was on its way. The fighting from the evening before had done it no favors, probably setting it back by another day.
“We need to find a way to secure this,” Rainev mumbled, looking around.
“There’s nothing to use,” Mave said. “But we can rotate on sleep. We only need to make it to meals and our fight. Today is…day five of the games. So we have to make it through today and tomorrow.”
“Mave, we’ll find a way through this,” Rainev whispered, reaching out to her. “I mean, it’s not like it can get any worse, right?”
“We’re required to go to the meals so we get into trouble. They want us in trouble so they can have some fun torturing us before the fight,” she retorted, turning to glare at him. “Don’t you get it? One or two of us will be dead in two days. There are no other plans. Escapes don’t work. The Empress has no mercy, and we no longer have anything.”
She turned away from him and leaned against the wall. She sank slowly, covering her face. They ignored her and talked to each other, and she heard groaning. Probably tending Rain’s injuries. It sounded like he was having a wing reset.
She needed Rainev and Matesh to understand that they had to do anything they could to survive. Not escape, not save everyone, just survive. This was not a world for heroes. She was not a hero. They didn’t have the ability or resources to be heroes, not in the pits.
I tried to be a hero to them, and all I’ve done is sentence them to a worse hell.
“We can hide her,” Rainev whispered. She rolled her eyes. “Damn it. Why couldn’t they just leave us alone? Why?”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Matesh growled. Mave looked up. What question was he referring to?
&nbs
p; “No, they didn’t rape me,” Rain snapped back. Oh. Mave’s heart dropped again. Her stomach did flips. They had been planning on it. She’d been so wrapped up in what was about to happen she hadn’t asked about what had happened. She felt again like she failed him. Her first family in a thousand years and she failed him repeatedly. “Okay? They didn’t get that far. Forgive me if I don’t exactly want to think about yesterday. For a solid moment there before you showed up, I seriously thought it was going to happen. I was fucking terrified. I’ll admit it. But it didn’t happen. I’m fine. It’s all fucking fine!” Rain ended in a loud, growling yell. “I’m fine.”
Mave didn’t miss the way his voice broke at that. The way fine was snapped in half by his emotion. His pain. Matesh didn’t miss it either.
“Sit down and rest,” he ordered softly. “Sleep. Rain, it’s not fine.”
“I’m fine,” Rainev mumbled.
“No, you’re not,” Mave said for Matesh, looking at the smaller male and his beautiful blue tatua, and his delicate horns going up and back. “But you will be, illi bodyr. Come sit down and rest.” She patted the earth next to her. “Come.”
He did as she asked and she wrapped her arms around him. She rocked softly, like she had always wanted someone to do for her when it was at its worst. There was a pain, a fear that settled when something terrible became real. They might not have done the deed, but they instilled the fear. She could feel it in how stiff Rainev was, how angry he was.
They’ve shaken him. Yes, I know where he’s at right now. I know exactly where he is, what’s going through his mind.
He slowly began to relax. She looked up at Matesh’s green eyes as Rain slowly fell asleep. Right as she knew he was slipping deep into another healing sleep, she began to sing, but she kept her eyes on Matesh.
She sang that lullaby to her little brother, that first real and precious gift he had given her. A memory of parents and safety, love and kindness. It didn’t matter anymore if Andena was banned in the Empire or a beatable offense in the pits. It sounded terrible; it could barely be understood. Her Elliar accent butchered it, and her raw throat made getting any sound out difficult.
“Are you okay?” Mat asked her softly, staying near the door to keep lookout.
“No, Mat. Nothing can make this okay.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he said, looking defeated for a moment.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t blame you,” she replied. Slowly, she let go of Rainev and laid him on the floor. “He’s so young.”
“He is. Sure, he’s a good adult, but he’s never had life this hard. He’s not weak, but…this is hard. I feel it, how hard it is. I see why the others…I see why they break and why there’s no mutts here, not ones that last long.”
“I’ve seen bigger, more dominant men, purebreds, break under the weight of what they tried to do to him.” She stood up slowly, sighing. “It will happen to them and they will go off into a dark tunnel and no one will be able to find them. The guards will drag them to the training fields when they are found. They will have lost their fight, their will. The other males will taunt them, calling them all sorts of things. They normally don’t last long after that.” She looked down at her only family. “Not weak. No, he’s not weak. He needs time and protection to regain his courage, that’s all.” She swallowed on the well of emotion in her throat. Her throat burned from screaming it raw. She could barely talk over a hoarse whisper. She shouldn’t have tried to sing. “We should have protected him better.”
Mat, you need to protect him after all of this. You can’t let him get hurt anymore.
“We should have,” Matesh agreed softly, looking away from her. “Gods, we fucked up.”
“No, we were caught in a bad situation, and this…this is what I get for caring. Before I met you both...It was different. I had wishes, sure, but I gave up on acting on them years ago. I didn’t let people close to me. I had given up hope, in a sense. I would have thought of my own survival.” Mave walked to him and leaned on the doorway as well. This had been a wish. A wish for community, for family, to be accepted. It had been granted. “I’m okay with it. I just wish I had gotten to you both sooner.”
I would do it all over again, to know them. To have just a few days of this.
“You did what you could, and it was enough. More than enough,” he whispered. He reached for her and she let him pull her closer. Her head fell where his neck and shoulder met and she leaned on him. He placed his lips on her head between her horns. “Thank you for caring. We’d have been dead long before now without you.”
“Yes, you would have been.” A weak smile came over her face. She remembered the day Rainev sat at her table. Little had she known it would have been the best thing that happened to any of them. Even with her looming fight against them, she would not go back to her lonely life before them.
I have that choice. I will not go back to that. It’s what the Empress wants, and she can’t have it. If she has no mercy to spare for me, I have no obedience to give her.
“I like that vote of confidence,” he murmured. She looked back up at him and a gentle kiss happened. Then he growled, low in his chest, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I guess none of it really matters anymore, huh?”
“I guess not,” she whispered on his lips. She ran her hands up his solid arms, then his shoulder. She took his cheeks and pulled him in for another kiss, one that didn’t care anymore. She growled this time, biting down on his lip again.
He didn’t pull away, yanking her against his hard body. Oh, she could have him now. Now that there was no need to hide and pretend. The hard body, the arrogant smirks, the brilliant emerald eyes set in black.
He was so Andinna and she loved it. She wanted it. She wanted him.
His hands were rough on her hips, spinning them so she was to the wall. It wasn’t that she was willing to be submissive to him, as his left hand traveled down to part her legs. It was that she had wanted his strength, and now he was giving it to her. Finally.
A strong male who didn’t fear her or distrust her, or just want her body. A male that didn’t spit on her. They butted heads, but they respected each other.
And he wants me.
Nothing the Empress said would change how much she trusted this male, how much she wanted him.
She gasped as he sank a finger into her. He reclaimed her mouth to silence it. She moaned against his lips as he pumped the finger quickly, his thumb against her pearl, bringing her to a fast peak and then…
He removed it. She snarled, biting down hard enough on his lip to draw blood, making him chuckle. That just pissed her off more.
“Wait for it,” he growled, that arrogant smirk on his face. He kissed her neck, his horns scratching her skin deliciously, and moved downward, his right hand still holding her hip, keeping her against the wall. She didn’t know what he was up to.
Then he yanked down her breeches enough for his mouth to take his hand’s place over her core. He shoved his tongue in and her head went back to hit the wall. Her horns bounced against it. She grabbed his horns, holding on as he devoured her. His tail caressed hers, and her wings, sending shivers up her spine.
He didn’t stop when she was ready to finish this time. With a growl from him that vibrated through her entire body, she came, panting his name while his tongue stayed deep inside her.
He was chuckling when he pulled away. “That is how an Andinna male pleases a female,” he murmured to her, rising back up.
“No one has ever…” She couldn’t breathe. It all came shallow and quick. She felt slightly lightheaded.
“Given you an orgasm or eaten you like a fine meal?” he asked, a purr in his voice as he pressed his chest up to hers. She was pinned still, by his body and his eyes.
“Either?” she answered, unsure if it was the truth. She thought she had achieved pleasure before, in a rushed and hurried away. It had been all she had ever gotten for herself, but what he had just done was so different an
d so much better than what she had ever gotten.
“Well, later tonight and tomorrow night, we’ll continue,” he promised. He reached down and pulled her breeches back and tied them quickly for her. “I think now isn’t the time for the rest.”
She looked down to the loincloth they had him in. It was what they forced him to fight in, sometimes a pteruges over it, and now, he probably would have no other clothing. They needed to find him some pants, but for the moment, she enjoyed the hard length waiting there for her. For later.
She grazed the tips of her fingers over it, the bulge that was well defined in what little he wore.
“You can stop staring,” he teased, his lips making a soft trail across her jaw.
“Arrogant male,” she groaned, pushing him away. “For that, maybe we won’t continue.”
“You say that now,” he retorted, chuckling.
Somehow, on the worst day of her life, she smiled back at him. A stolen moment, since it no longer mattered what the others thought. She had lost everything except these two.
For now.
When lunch was called, Matesh woke up Rainev. Mave waited for them at the door, ignoring the heavy tension between her and Matesh. Later, his eyes said when he looked at her. He would show her more of how strong he was later.
Too bad later was also a moment closer to when she didn’t have them anymore.
They walked in a tight group to the chow hall. Other gladiators, both of the pits and the outsiders, watched them, whispered. They knew she had fallen from grace. The deaths she had wrought the night before should have brought her an execution date, but instead, they knew the Empress was more cruel than that.
When I’m gone, they’ll be left to that whore’s cruelty - and they deserve it. The only reason I regret anything is because Mat and Rain will be left with all of them too.
When they had their food, they moved to their table. Which was claimed.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” an outsider gladiator taunted, leaning back in her seat.
“Oh, how much I don’t care about punishment anymore,” she retorted, glaring down her nose at him.
The Gladiator's Downfall Page 22
