Page 36 of Baited

“Joh,” Blayn growls.

Still nothing. I’m about to come to his rescue when he slams his fist through it.

“No!” I cry out, rushing over. “That’s not…”

It’s too late, the damage is already done, the machine fizzes and spits as Blayn withdraws his hand and looks at his empty palm.

“That usually works in the dome. There’s no Habosu in there though,” Blayn grumbles at me.

“Because it’s a machine which makes drinks and snacks. There’s no one inside.” I stare at the shattered piece of tech.

So far, the whole “keep the violence to a minimum promise” I made the madame is not going well. Blayn is inspecting the broken item intensely.

“No, no one inside,” he announces. “And no joh either.”

“You’ve really never seen a food dispenser, have you?” I query.

Blayn shifts from foot to foot, his wings flaring slightly. “No.”

“You had all your meals made for you in the dome?” I’m beginning to suspect the gladiators had everything done for them, even if it wasn’t for their own benefit.

“Yes,” Blayn says. “Rations three times a day.” He makes a sour face. “Never enough.”

Which explains why he gorged himself every time he came to the pleasure house.

“You were rationed?”

“A gladiator needs careful management,” Blayn says, as if repeating something he’s been told over and over. “Training, sleep, food—it’s all under the control of the captain,” he adds.

My stomach dips. I hadn’t even considered this aspect of who Blayn is. All the stats on the vids I watched, all the slaughter. Blayn isn’t free, he’s a pawn. He belongs to the dome.

“Have you decided?” Blayn is suddenly hard up against me, his hands in my hair, nostrils flaring.

“Decided what?” I’m completely disarmed by having a huge, warm, muscular gladiator body against mine.

Especially when I’m wearing a thin shift dress, the only other piece of clothing I have in the cubicle since Blayn destroyed the rest.

I’m not complaining, but it certainly makes things interesting.

“What you want?” Blayn breathes, his dark pools of eyes boring into me.

“What I want?” His gaze is robbing me of any brain power.

“What you want to do?”

I have a few ideas, but they’re all very, very bad ideas.

His lips get closer to mine. If he kisses me, I know I’m gone. I know this will no longer be what it was before, whatever it was before.

No matter what else we’ve done, I can’t let him kiss me. I can’t push myself up on tiptoes to get closer to him. I can’t possibly let this happen.

Blayn’s lips graze mine and his eyes widen. His wings flare wider than before and the feathers within rattle and shake.

I curl my hand around the back of his neck and this time I press my mouth to his. He doesn’t kiss back.

I let him go, my guts contracting.

Blayn hates touch. I just touched him without asking permission and he didn’t like it.

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