Page 46 of Bound

And the one place Rych calls home.

We swing away from the dome and drop between the buildings into a dusty courtyard. Rych gently puts me on my feet, his face streaked with dirt, giving him the ultimate bad boy mechanic vibe.

The one my dad always warned me against. Only I like to think he would have approved of Rych. All seven foot plus of winged gladiator.

“I thought we were going to the dome?”

“Too crowded,” he says. “We’ll get the dome to come to us.” He grins wildly, hand closing around mine. I’m towed behindhim as he makes his way from the courtyard down a number of columned passages until we dive through a dark doorway and out into a hidden garden filled with lush plants, some of which I saw in the forest we recently left.

“Rych.” A deep booming voice growls his name.

A large red-green leaf is pushed to one side, and a tank of a Gryn gladiator looms out at us.

“Thought I could scent you, you vrexer,” the new gladiator says, eyeing Rych like he wants to eat him.

Rych tucks me behind a wing, but I hear the noise of metal on stone, and as I turn, there is another Gryn gladiator behind us. This one is a similar size to Rych, only his torso and arms look like they’ve been wound with barb wire, muscles upon muscles. He flashes me his fangs. It isn’t a smile by any stretch of the imagination, as he tosses a lethal blade in the air and catches it without even looking.

“We’d never miss Rych’s scent, would we, Maxym?” the second gladiator says, his voice rasping like sand over metal.

“And I knew I’d always find you pair of vrexers here when the games are finished,” Rych growls.

Maxym’s brooding features rearrange themselves into something which is slightly less terrifying as he claps a huge clawed hand on Rych’s shoulder. “Come drink with us, brother.”

“He has someone with him.” The second gladiator is glaring right at me as he balances a dagger tip first on the end of his finger and inhales, nostrils flaring. “A female.”

Maxym looks around Rych who releases a growl which he has to have dragged up from the depths of whatever hells this planet has.

“Mate,” he says, the word only just formed. “MINE.”

RYCH

This was a mistake. I haven’t nested for my Chrissie properly. I haven’t claimed her. She is mine, but with other Gryn around, it sets every feather on edge.

“A mate!” Klynn exclaims. “This vrexer found a mate!”

Both of them take a pace back from me.

“Vrex!” Maxym shuffles his primaries. “Rych a mated male. Who’d have thought it?”

As much as I hate it, I drop my wing to reveal Chrissie.

“This is Chrissie.” I look down at her, and she smiles up at me. “Chrissie, this is Maxym and Klynn. Maxym is the big vrexer, and Klynn is the one with an unhealthy attachment to all things sharp.”

“Hi,” Chrissie says with a little wave.

“Bold,” Klynn says.

“As I would expect any mate of Rych’s to be.” Maxym’s brows draw down. “But if you are mated and free, why the vrex are you in Tatatunga? If it was me, I’d be far from here.”

“My mate is being hunted by a Loxzian. Her employer seems to have vrexed off the wrong people.”

“Her employer?”

Klynn has returned to his seat and is downing a tankard of mead-ale.

“I sing for Fenek. He’s on the council,” Chrissie says.

Maxym gestures to their table, and I sit, pulling her onto my lap. She only squeaks slightly but doesn’t protest.

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