Page 72 of Bound

“The procurator has been withholding rations since our last break out.” Maxym sighs.

“With any luck, the resistance will also be having words with the procurator,” I say. “Given what he seems to have got himself tangled up with.”

“He’ll wheedle his way out of it. Oykig always do.” Maxym pulls himself up to his full height. “And as Klynn says, we have games tomorrow, and there are too many credits riding on it for any further punishment of us, or him. The council will turn a blind eye, regardless of the resistance.”

“Nothing changes overnight.” Chrissie curls her hand in my feathers and my eyes roll in my head. “But getting these brave Gryn something to eat is possible.”

“‘These brave Gryn?’” I growl at my fellow gladiators.

“I meant you too. After all, you took a hit for me.”

Maxym inhales and grins. “A hit of paraxio,” he barks.

“It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it,” I retort, stalking to the ruined doors, with my gorgeous mate on my arm. “Now I’m going to feed my mate and I’m going to nest for her. You can join in with the first one, but come anywhere near me for the second, and you will lose your wings.”

I hear a chorus of laughs behind me, but I have my Chrissie, and I simply do not care for anything other than having her,alive and next to me. Our fledgling thoughtbond wraps like tendrils around my mind. I can feel the buzz within her as she talks to the tech in a language I can’t understand, and she does so subconsciously. I feel her deep desire for me, her anxiety about what happens next, and her need for an explanation.

“If there’s one thing I know, little spark, it’s that explanations are not always what will make you the most happy.”

“I know,” she says as we make our way up and out of the Drahon base. “I’m not sure I want an explanation. I just wish…”

She’s trying to hide something from me. I stop dead in the street outside and grasp her shoulders.

“You wish you had your father here.” I study her face, but she won’t meet my eyes. “You feel bad because you want to be with me and he isn’t here.”

“Yes,” she says quietly. “I love you, Rych. I don’t ever want that to change, but my dad…” A sob hitches in her chest. “He’ll never know what happened, and I miss him.”

I pull her to me, kissing the wetness on her face.

“I can’t remember my parents, but I know I’d miss them too. If there was any way to get you home, to get you to him, I would do it.”

“But then I’d lose you.” Chrissie stares up at me. “And I can’t lose you, not now, not ever. I want to think my dad would understand. Bringing a big bad alien gladiator home probably wasn’t in his life plan for me, but I know he’d want me to be happy.”

“And are you happy?” I ask, my heart pounding at the words.

My head is flooded by the best feelings in the galaxy.

“Does that answer your question?” she says with a shy smile. “I am so happy, Rych. Happy to be rid of the virus, even if it’s now part of me, happy to be here with you. Happy we’ve maybe made a difference for those two.” She nods over my shoulder asMaxym and Klynn emerge from the smoke billowing out of the Drahon base.

“They can take care of themselves,” I growl. “But”—I shrug—“it doesn’t mean life should be so hard.”

“Then we’d better feed them. Before there’s more explosions.”

As the words leave my mouth, the Drahon base blows, sending us all up into the sky. I row my wings, spinning in the searing heat of the blast, catching my mate and then beating hard to get us away from the danger.

Below me I see Klynn. He swoops in to grab Maxym who seems unresponsive.

“What the vrex was that?”

CHRISSIE

“The tech.” I stumble over the words as we land amongst the falling debris. “It’s…gone?”

Rych checks me over, cupping my chin with his huge hand. “Gone?”

“I can’t…feel it, like I feel you.”

The song of the lab, of the Drahon base, has been replaced by something more general, larger, more like a city. But what was down there in the lab is no more.

---