Page 95 of Shielded Heart

Arcanthus shook his head slowly. “I wish I was. Sedhi have a very high tolerance…another tretin thing.”

Sam brushed her thumbs over his sharp cheekbones. This…wasn’t Arc. This wasn’t the male she’d come to know, and seeing him like this tore her up inside.

“Arcanthus, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Samantha. I was just thirsty.” He shifted his leg, and his foot hit another empty bottle with a clink. “Quitethirsty.”

She stared into his eyes a moment longer and pressed a light kiss to his lips. His eyelids drifted shut while their lips were together, remaining so for a few seconds after she broke the kiss.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

A crease formed between his eyebrows as he looked up at her, and a troubled frown tugged down the corners of his mouth.

“My past has come back to kill me,” he finally said.

Samantha sat on the sofa beside him. Reaching up, she caught one of his long braids and gave it a gentle tug. He didn’t resist, following her lead and lying sideways on the cushion, twisting his torso to settle the back of his head atop her lap.

She brushed the stray strands of hair from his face and traced a finger along his brow, soothing the tension there. “No one is going to kill you.”

“He’s going to try. He’s already tried. And he’ll keep trying, on and on, until either he succeeds or I killhim.”

“Who, Arc?”

“Vaund.”

“Who is Vaund?”

His eyes shifted to focus on the dark ceiling high above. “Did I leave out the part of my story regarding why we left Caldorius?”

Sam settled one of her hands on his chest while she combed the other through his hair between his horns. “You were a bit vague, but you can tell me now.”

He drew in a deep breath and slowly released it. “We were doing good on Caldorius. The fighters who’d signed on with me were skilled, and we were able to pick and choose the fights we wanted. That meant we didn’t have to fight in death matches if we didn’t want to. It just became a matter of risk versus reward; would the potential payout be worth the danger?

“Drakkal was with me, and a hacker, Zakarae. She’s the one who taught me how do all this”—he gestured at the nearby platform and all its screens—“and we used her talents to keep ahead of the Syndicate. They were upset because we were cutting into their profits. They were used to controlling all of it, used to taking a big cut ofeverything. They didn’t like that our fighters were collecting their own winnings. Didn’t like that we were bypassing their system. I kept an eye out for talented gladiators who were already free or close to becoming free, and I discovered one called Vaund. He was good. Had a lot of potential. And he was already free, so it should’ve been easy.

“I made him an offer. He knew who I was, and had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. A lot of fighters were like that, especially the ones who’d survived long enough to be freed. He thought that me being a champion was some sort of fluke, that I hadn’t earned it, and said he’d think about my offer. Next thing I know, I get contacted by a promoter. Vaund was challenging me to a match. To the death. There was a massive purse on the line, big enough to upgrade our facilities and keep us operating for a long time.

“I went and talked to him before I gave an answer, tried to talk him out of it. He was dead set on fighting. Didn’t care that there was a chance of him losing, didn’t care that he had a chance to earn just as much fighting on our crew without putting his life on the line. To him, it was a guaranteed thing. An easy victory.”

Arc’s tail thumped softly against the couch’s back cushions as he settled his hand atop hers, holding it tighter against his chest. “It was a lot of credits, and I didn’t care for his attitude…so I accepted. A death match just means lethal weaponry is used. It doesn’t have to end in death, even though they often do. I planned to toy with him enough to break his spirit and get him to walk away. I wanted him on my crew. He could’ve done well.

“But he didn’t give up. I had him beat, and he knew it, but he kept fighting. And he wasvicious. He wasn’t just trying to win, he was trying to kill me outright. I couldn’t let it go on like that, and he didn’t give me a choice. So, I stopped toying with him. And my final blow sliced off most of his face.”

Samantha inhaled sharply, her hand stilling in his hair. She could almost imagine the brutality and horror of Caldorius, could almost see the gladiatorial fights in her mind’s eye, could almost understand the struggles those people had gone through to win their freedom, but what he’d just said… Even without a vivid description, her stomach twisted in knots at the things he must’ve been forced to do in those arenas.

“The bout was called, but…he wasn’t dead. He was tough. His sponsors didn’t care—he’d failed them already, and there were countless healthy fighters they could hire, so they left him. I made a choice, then, and even after everything that’s happened…I’m not sure if it was right or wrong. I paid for him to be fixed. They had to use cybernetics due to the extent of the damage, but he lived. And while he recovered, I made my offer again. I guess I should’ve seen the signs, but I didn’t. I just saw his potential. I was too blind, too stupid to understand that hehatedme, especially after that fight.

“But he joined me, all the same. He was part of our crew for two years. And when it all came crashing down, when the Inner Reach Syndicate had finally had enough of me and my enterprise, who do you think they made an offer to?”

“Vaund,” Samantha replied.

“Vaund,” he echoed with a humorless chuckle. “Our security was tight, even then. Between Drakkal and Zakarae, we’d kept pretty well out of reach. But I thought Vaund had come around. I thought I could trust him. He led them right to us, and they…they were eager to make an example.

“They caught us off guard and killed almost everyone. It was a fight that actually meant something, a fight that hadrealstakes, and I couldn’t do anything to turn it around. I couldn’t help any of them. There were so many of those bastards, like a damned army had been dropped on our doorstep, and I fought and fought, but I kept getting pushed back.

“I ended up in an alley behind our base of operations. It was raining. I’ll always remember that, because the rain on Caldorius is sometimes a bit acidic, and there was a slight sting to it that night. They swarmed me, finally disarmed me, beat me down to my knees…and I looked up, and there he was. Vaund. I hadn’t known he was there until that moment. I thought he’d died with the others, fighting alongside us. But he’d been paid off by the Syndicate.

“He was there to finish what had been started a couple years before. Told me it was the Syndicate who’d hired him to fight me in the first place, that they would’ve paid him enough credits for him to never have to fight again. And I ruined that chance for him.” Arcanthus laughed again, even more bitterly. “He took my arms and legs one at a time, pausing between each cut to make sure I felt it. And while I writhed in pain, he saidit’s just business.”

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