Page 16 of Hooded

“There was a lot of Bogarok innards,” I respond. “I killed many,” I add with a satisfied snarl.

“I thought no one had survived the onslaught at the dome,” Fern says, looking around at where I’ve sprayed her bridge with water.

Quite a lot of water.

“I wouldn’t know. I went unconscious and was dropped down into a pit on my head,” I growl, before considering that was too much information.

“I saw some of the guards holding their heads,” Fern says, and she then deliberately looks at her viewing screen at the stars outside. “I think there was something affecting the comms as well as the sentient species.”

“But not you.” I take a step closer because I want to get even more of her scent in my nostrils.

It means she’s hard up against her console. Her hands, on either side of her, press into the metal. Her head is bowed.

She smells like starfire. I never want this moment to end.

I cup her chin and lift her face until it’s tilted to mine.

“Not me,” she says quietly. “I just had to watch as they slaughtered thousands and then took the bodies away.”

There is no water in her eyes as she relays this information to me. Only a cold hardness, her jaw muscle clenched so tight I can feel it.

“The slaughter is the worst,” I say.

She barks a laugh, pulling her chin from my hand.

“Rich, from a gladiator. Your job was to kill.”

“My job was to put on a show. The killing was part of the show.” I move away from her, even though my body is screaming at me to stay where I am.

I flick out a wing and start combing through it with my claws.

“And if I didn’t put on a show, I was disposable,” I say as the bliss which comes from a preen slowly spreads through me. “But I won’t deny I liked it.”

Fern says nothing. She hasn’t moved from the spot at the console. It really makes me want to mate her. The preen isn’t having its usual effect of calming my flaming nature.

“But slaughter for slaughter’s sake is not what being a gladiator is all about. The Bogarok on the other hand…it is their stock in trade. I left the other gladiators at the dome with those creatures.”

Her face is impassive.

“Do you think your friends defeated them?” she asks.

“I expect so.” I work at a particularly difficult knot at the base of one wing. “Once Maxym sets his mind to something, he usually succeeds.”

“I can take you back to Trefa if you want,” Fern says, although it’s quite clear it’s the last place she ever wants to see again. “Make things right, for them.”

Feeling is mutual.

“No,” I growl. “I want to see how you are going to make it up to me.”

FERN

This Gryn is arrogant, full of self-importance, and has no compunction about what he did in the dome for entertainment.

He is a killer, pure and simple.

He also smells of spice, and when he backed me against the console, his enormous, clean body pressing up against me, my chin in his hand, I virtually couldn’t remember my name, yet all I could think of was his.

I do not need to be reacting to the big lump of feather and muscle in this way. It is severely compromising my ability to think straight and work out what the hell happened to my mark.

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