Page 38 of Chained

“Well then.” I work my fingers deeper, luxuriating in the feel of his silky down under my touch.

“You are my mate, Cleo. I want to sheathe my cocks in your heat, make you come on my tongue. I want to feel your belly riding me as you grow round with young,” he says happily. “I want to fill your fertile womb over and over again with younglings,” he continues, eyes closed. “You are mine.”

It looks like I have the unabridged version of Maxym today—fewer growls and more truth.

“Is that so?” I lean my head against his chest.

“Never leave me again,” he says, his voice filled with sorrow. “I cannot survive without you, little Cleo.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily, Maxym,” I respond. “Who’s going to supply you with weapons?”

I feel the laugh rumbling in his chest before he sighs deeply. When I look up at his face, he’s clearly asleep, his strong jaw slack and his breathing even.

With some difficultly, I extract myself from his embrace, even if he is warm and comfortable. My muscles scream at me as Maxym shifts but doesn’t wake.

I find the Cirmos in a side alcove which appears to be a makeshift food prep area.

“Your mate is fine. He needs rest. All gladiators need rest,” he says without looking up at me.

“Maxym doesn’t strike me as the sort of male who rests.” I fold my arms over my chest.

“Which is why he should take it when he can.” Pryax replies.

“He was drugged enough in the dome. He’s free now.”

“And how do you figure that?” Pryax fixes his dark green gaze on me, his pupils slits.

“Because everything’s gone to shit and…” I hesitate as information I don’t recall receiving comes to the forefront of my brain. “He doesn’t have his tracker.”

“You have a thoughtbond with this Gryn?” Pryax is suddenly in front of me, looking me up and down as if he can see something different about me.

“What the hell is a thoughtbond?” I say, moving away from the Cirmos and instead pouring myself a cup of what looks like joh.

I need the alien equivalent of caffeine right now.

“It’s a mind link between fated mates.” Maxym’s sinful deep voice rumbles from behind me. “It’s the reason you knew about the tracker being removed without witnessing it.”

I turn and hand him the cup of joh, figuring he could use it more than I could, although potentially more stimulants might not necessarily be a good thing depending on what the Cirmos has given him.

He downs it in one and grimaces. “Cold.”

“I’ll put on a fresh pot.” Pryax makes a move, but Maxym already has him by the scruff of his neck.

“Why am I not free?”

Pryax shakes himself loose with a grunt and a grumble, pressing his thumb on a vid screen hung on the wall.

It fires into life, and there is a head of one of the horrible Bogarok large in the frame.

“All fighters are to give themselves up. All warriors and all gladiators.” The words drop into my head like a length of chain.“Anyone found harboring a gladiator, especially a Gryn, will be put to death.”

Pryax turns the screen off.

“So, no one is free, Maxym. Least of all you.”

MAXYM

My head feels clearer than it has been in a long while, even if waking without myeregriin my arms was a jarring experience.

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