Page 35 of Chained

When I’m done, I attempt to straighten, whimpering pathetically at the pain which wracks my body. I can’t move, I can’t think, and I’m not sure if I can continue breathing. Maxym’s concerned face looks down at me.

“Don’t leave me, little scrap,” he says as my vision dims. “Don’t ever leave me.”

“I’m not…” I whisper as everything goes dark.

MAXYM

Cleo goes limp in my arms. Not like Klynn, this is different. She is pale in a way I dislike, her lips having a blue tinge.

She needs a medic, but the best medics I know are in the dome, which is the one place I can’t return to. Shouts and screams fill the streets around us as the invasion becomes something the inhabitants of Tatatunga respond to. These Bogarok are creatures I don’t believe I’ve encountered, but my visceral reaction to them tells me everything I need to know.

That Klynn knew of them is not a surprise. Nothing he does is ever so. If I know of the foul things, then it is one more thing lost to the reptilians who held me before selling me to my master.

But my lost memory is nothing compared to the sick mate in my arms. She needs assistance, and she needs somewhere safe.

“Gryn!” a voice hisses from a doorway.

I spot a pair of gimlet eyes shining out at me.

“Come here,” the voice demands.

“Vrex off.” I open my wings.

“I have a cure for the poison infecting your female,” the voice says. “She needs it quick before it is too late.”

The voice isn’t quick enough to avoid my arm and claws. I drag the Cirmos into the light. His tail lashes, and he digs hisclaws back into me, but the needle sharp things are nothing compared to what I’ve experienced in the dome. I ignore them.

“You will give her the cure, or you will die,” I snarl.

“Hey,” he growls. “No need to be like that. All I want is some protection from the Bogarok, and who better than a gladiator?”

“Yeah? What if I tell you the Bogarok want gladiators?”

He stops squirming. “They do?”

“How do you feel about my protection now?”

“You have a mate. You will protect her to your dying breath. I’ll stand behind her,” he says with a shrug.

Vrexing Cirmos.

Except most of the medics in the dome are Cirmos. If I trust anyone with my Cleo’s life, it would be a Cirmos.

“Show me the cure,” I growl, dropping him to the ground. He gives me a hurt look, but my blood is up and my desperation to make Cleo well is too great for me to care.

“This way,” he says, pushing open the door. “But you’ll need to take your tracker off.”

Vrex! I’d forgotten about the thing. “I can’t. I don’t have the key.”

“Let me.” The creature drops down to my leg, pulling at my pants to reveal the device, and in a matter of nova-seconds, it clicks and falls to the ground.

I stare at it. “How?”

“Not done yet,” the Cirmos says, pulling a small drone from his back pocket. He places the tracker inside and releases the bot. It soars into the sky. “If anything comes looking for you, they have that to chase instead,” he says, standing and dusting himself off. “I’m Pryax” he adds, heading through the door as I follow.

“Maxym,” I grunt.

“I know.” He laughs. “Everyone knows.”

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