Page 90 of Silver Elite

Laughter ripples through the crowd. My gaze flicks to Cross again.

He has some company now.

A petite young woman with shiny dark waves streaming down hershoulders, long eyelashes batting up at the captain. She’s midsentence when he shifts his gaze away from her. Toward me.

I lift the whiskey bottle and take a sip. When a drop of liquid clings to my bottom lip, I drag my tongue over it, and his eyes narrow.

“I got this!” shouts a female voice.

The crowd sways and then parts for a woman in ripped jeans and a high ponytail. Although she’s lacking in height, she’s so muscular I can’t help but stare. Damn.

Her opponent is a tall girl as thin as the sweetgrass on my ranch.

“Five credits says Mel takes this,” I hear someone declare.

“You’re on,” his comrade chortles. “Collie will snap her arm like a twig.”

“Are they going to be breaking bones?” Lyddie sounds alarmed.

“I doubt it,” I assure her. Then again, they might well be.

The guy with the shaved head shouts over the music. “Remember the rules—everyone leaves the pit alive. Good luck, girlies.”

Rules, plural? Sounds like only one rule to me, but I’m relieved to hear that nobody is allowed to murder each other down there. I suppose the COs would never allow pit night to exist if soldiers were getting killed. The General needs his minions, after all.

The air crackles with anticipation. When the fight starts, I instantly comprehend why everyone waits with bated breath for a pit night.

These soldiers aren’t here merely to spar. They’re here for blood.

The women charge toward each other like frenzied beasts, fists swinging. I flinch as the sound of bone meeting flesh echoes throughout the pit. Before long, blood drips from split eyebrows and broken noses, yet neither woman shows any sign of backing down.

The entire time, I’m aware of Cross. His green-eyed companion is all over him, her fingers gliding over his bare arm. He doesn’t seem overly interested in returning her advances.

It’s odd to experience him in a social setting. To see him laugh. To see him make other people laugh. When he leans over to whisper something in Struck’s ear, she throws her head back in delight. Is he funny? He’s never struck me as funny.

In the pit, the skinny woman finally taps out when Ms. Muscles locks her in a submission hold that threatens to shatter every bone in her arm.

As a new match starts, Kaine and Lash push their way through the crowd and join us. Appreciation darkens Kaine’s gaze when he notices what I’m wearing. It lingers on the swell of my cleavage.

“Staring is impolite,” I chide.

Lips curving, he sidles closer to me. “Nobody ever said I was polite, cowgirl.”

Kaine swipes the whiskey from Betima, then proceeds to shamelessly flirt with me until I don’t know whether to throw him into the pit or kiss him senseless. I’m sort of leaning toward the latter when we’re interrupted by more of our fellows. Someone drags Kaine away, and I’m left on my own as the next fight gets under way.

“You shine up nice.”

I jerk when Roe comes up beside me. His dark eyes skim my bare stomach, and I feel it like the scrape of a jagged fingernail.

I don’t respond to the compliment. I keep my gaze straight ahead. Unfortunately, straight ahead happens to be directly where Cross is standing, still talking to the girl with the shiny hair.

Roe follows my gaze and chuckles. “Don’t bother. You’re not his type.”

I give him a sidelong look. “Oh no. I’m devastated.”

“He likes them fragile,” Cross’s half brother continues, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “That way he can take care of them, hold them close so they don’t break. Be the hero.” Roe laughs again. I think he’s inebriated. Or high on stims. Probably the latter. “That’s the irony, isn’t it? Because he’s the one who ends up breaking them.”

Roe’s view of his brother doesn’t reconcile with the one I’ve slowly been forming. I can’t picture Cross with a breakable woman. I suspect it would irritate him.

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