Page 14 of Aria's Ascension

Kix swiped the screen, going down to where there were labeled sections. First was a series of numbers.

“What is that?” she asked Kix.

“Date of acquisition,” he answered grimly.

“How long has he been here?”

“According to this, it is this planet’s 4593.34th sol. He was acquired in 4587.48.”

“So, he’s been here almost six years.”

Farther down were tabs for species, gender, and tournament statistics. After that were nutritional needs, skills, strengths, weaknesses, and mating habits. The useful information, for them at least, was near the bottom in a section labeled, Assessment and Placement.

This being was apparently a soldier on his planet but was prone to compassion and empathy. Tocorrectthat, they’d done something to his clone body. Aria didn’t understand all of the medical terminologies, but she got the gist.

They’d fucked with his hormones a little more than they normally did to counteract his natural compassion and make him more aggressive. They’d also zapped his brain to turn off the part that felt empathy, in addition to the usual inhibitors to suppress his conscious mind.

Physiological tweaks were listed—what they’d done tofixhis body’s defects and make his system more efficient. They made him stronger, sped something they called azgalish—what she assumed was his species version of a metabolism—so he healed faster, and did something to his DNA so his original body lived longer. They changed his internal systems so he no longer needed to void waste, required as much sleep, or… molt?

Scrolling further down, she found a note that said his people apparently went through some kind of mating frenzy. They’d turned that off, but only recently. This being had apparently been used in the Mating Games until only a few years ago. They realized they’d turned up his aggression a little too much, and he was killing the females as often as he fucked them. Sometimeswhilehe fucked them. It disturbed the viewers.

“Sick bastards,” Aria growled, her stomach twisting.

As much as it pained her to deny someone freedom, she couldn’t wake this one up, not until they figured out how to undo the damage Zhrovni had done to him.

“Go to the next one. This one needs to stay… asleep for a while longer.”

They went down the list, looking through a couple dozen files, including Skaa’s, and had already found eighteen promising ones. The rest were either too aggressive after Zhrovni’s modifications, or they were violent criminals on their homeworlds. That was a pattern she’d noticed. Almost all the gladiators were either criminals, warriors, or fighters—people with combat skills or those who already had heightened aggression. There were a few, however, that were catches of opportunity, like Skaa.

On her world, the trees apparently gave off a frequency that disrupted locking beams. She’d only been captured because she wasn’t under their protection.

There was a note in her file suggesting they acquire more of her kind because of how well she’d done in the arena.

Not fucking happening.

Aria spotted a file labeled Human, but past that was a name she didn’t recognize. Still, something about it caught her eye. Following her gut, she clicked on it and found herself staring at a picture of an alien male, one she didn’t remember ever facing in the arena. He had jet-black skin, like a starless-night sky, patterned with purplish-gold scales along his arms, chest, and legs.

His facial features were the closest to human of anyone she’d seen here, but still alien enough to be strikingly exotic. His full lips and wide, square jawline were humanoid, but his pointed ears, lack of hair anywhere on his body, and sharp, inverted, V-shaped nostrils were distinctly other.

Aria took the screen out of Kix’s hands and brought it closer to her face. There was something about his eyes, something familiar. They were solid white with the exception of two black, vertical, slitted pupils bisecting them.

“The dragon,” she whispered, shocked. “He’s a man?”

Chapter 9

Aria’s heart skipped a beat, and her stomach went weightless as she stared at the picture ofhim, an echo of the recognition she’d experienced in the valley fluttering through her.

Darting a shocked look up at Kix, she asked, “Did you know he could… transform?”

He shook his head, appearing just as surprised as she felt. Tirox came up behind her, his chest pressing against her back, and peered over her head.

“Another bald male. Poor bastard,” Tirox sighed, sounding genuinely upset.

Aria bit back a smile and leaned her head against his chest to gaze up at him. “Babe, some people are just naturally hairless. It’s not considered a defect if they’re supposed to be that way.”

He snorted quietly and gave her a soft look like he thought she was just trying to be kind for Kix’s sake.

Letting it go, she focused back on the screen and scanned the male’s body. He was impressively built with bulky, defined muscles. His fingers and toes were tipped with white claws, a bold contrast to his onyx skin, that both drew the eye and emphasized their deadliness.

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