Page 43 of Gladiator's Captive
The woman, or Doc, like they seemed to call her, looked away from the owner of the strange accent and to another figure.
“Rager.” Her tone was still tense, but there was no more bite in it. “Serena’s going to be okay. She’s still in pain, but it’s the side effects of the nano-fungus. I took them off, so she’ll be able to sit and talk in a few minutes. After that, she’ll have to take things easy for a few days, but she’s out of danger.” The woman gave me a warm, sympathetic look. “She’s a fighter, this one.”
The woman moved away and another face replaced her. A face that set my guts in a twist and my heart in a flutter. The feline features were pulled tight across his bones and for the first time since I met him, he looked tired. No, not tired. Scared. Rager looked like a man who’d had the fright of his life.
“Little girl.” He petted my hair gently and I smiled at his touch. “I thought I lost you.”
His feline eyes lost their shine for a moment as the words hung between us. He had been scared of losing me.
“I’m not so easily broken.” I chuckled again and pain rose, but this time, I didn’t care. All I cared about was that Rager was there, whole and healthy. And that he had been worried about me. “And I’m not going to leave you, ever.”
Feelings bubbled between us, so strong they were almost tangible in the air, but we were not alone. The woman whose name I still didn’t know came back and I saw Rager looking up at her, his eyes hard, full of frustration.
“Don’t you dare look at me that way,” she began. “I’m not finished with your mate yet. You’re both lucky Sayk found you when he did. A few more hours of this kind of dehydration and we’d be having a whole different conversation.”
Rager grunted, but he didn’t protest when the woman shooed him aside. She appeared again, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining. I didn’t know what had made such a big change in her countenance in such a short time, but the arrival of Rager and the other man seemed too big of a coincidence.
“We’re going to try and sit you up now. Are you okay with that?” the woman asked.
I nodded, gritting my teeth against a blinding shot of pain as Rager and the woman helped me to sit in the narrow bed. As I sat, I came face to face with the other man in the room. He was from a species I had never seen before, his skin a pale gray, smooth, but clearly not human. His features were sharp and angular and his piercing blue eyes set on me were nothing short of hostile.
I had no idea what I had done to piss off the huge alien, but I wanted to apologize for whatever offense I gave him.
“Now that you are strong enough, I need to ask you some questions.” The alien spoke without looking away. At his side, Rager became tense and a low growl slipped from his lips.
“Step away from my mate, Sayk.” Rager moved, pushing his body between me and the huge alien. “She doesn’t have to answer anything.”
“Yes, she does. A servant human woman running away for a love affair with a gladiator, I could have believed.” Sayk spoke without taking his eyes off me. Behind him, Doc stared, her eyes wide and her face pale. “But she’s not just any human woman and she certainly was no lover of yours before you ran away together.”
Sayk looked at Rager with a pointed focus.
“You are Rager, former general of the Muharib armies, defeated at the great battle of Muhar.” Sayk spoke with no joy at the mention of Rager’s defeat. “Not much is known about you before the Muharib wars, but plenty is known since you were forced into the gladiators’ arena. You fought for a decade, surviving against all odds. You are a legend.”
Sayk’s cold, cold blue eyes came to rest on me.
“You, on the other hand, are quite the mystery, Serena Alania Horacius, if you are who you say you are.”
I swallowed through a suddenly parched throat. How could this man, living so far away from civilization, know about me?
Has he betrayed us? Why would he not believe me?
At my side, Rager tensed, his irises reflecting the light, the marking on his skin becoming darker.
“I have eyes far away from this city and they told me everything they knew about you.” Sayk paused, his cold eyes going from Rager to me in slow, measured succession. “But they do not know a lot, except that you are the only daughter of Arenius Celcum Horacius and that you did not meet Rager before two weeks ago, when your father recalled you from the boarding school in Lagarra, where you lived since you were barely five years old.” Danger hovered in the air as Sayk stared at me, cold as the stones. “I don’t need to ask why Rager escaped. The arena is nothing but a waiting chamber for the underworld. He knew it was running or dying. But you? What are you getting out of this?”
Rager growled, the sound like a whip in the tense air, but Sayk didn’t seem fazed by it. He looked away from Rager and focused all his attention on me.
“I need to know you’re who Rager says you are and not a spy not working for the Galactic Empire. They’ve been trying to find us for years and once they find us, they’ll exterminate us to the last one.”
Doc’s hands fidgeted with the fabric of her blouse and she frowned, but she didn’t say anything. I didn’t know her much, but I knew that keeping silent wasn’t like her.
“Serena is no spy. I kidnapped her to insure my safe passage away from her father. She had no choice.”
Sayk tore his gaze from me and looked at Rager. “With the intent to either kill her or leave her behind, I guess, but you obviously did neither. Why?”
The two men faced each other and as I watched, I understood that violence was going to follow. Rager had nothing to answer to Sayk and he would not let the other man question me further.
“It’s all true.” I spoke loudly, ignoring the gnawing pain behind my eyebrows as I gave every ounce of strength that I had to speak up. “Rager did kidnap me, but what he didn’t know at the time was that I was planning to run away that night. I wanted to escape the marriage my father arranged for me. It was fate that brought us together, nothing else.”
