Page 8 of Tempting Jupiter
Seeing the bigger Dog unable to stand, dragged along as his blood spilled, had terrified Seneca. The woman’s eyes had promised aid, but she’d been human. When had a human ever aided a Dog?
What if she tortured Jupiter instead of tending him? Seneca’s pack brother was strong, he’d survive. Jup could surely take whatever one small woman might do. And if she did tend his wounds, Jupiter might not thank him for urging the human to save his life, but he’d have a life and that was all that mattered. Jupiter had taught him that and proven it true many times over.
“Go on,” said the man poking a weapon between his shoulder blades.
Seneca looked up to see a short hallway leading into a large, round room with low, uncomfortably familiar lighting. His heart raced like a mouse running from a clee-cat. They couldn’t have taken him back to the pleasure house. The lighting, so much like a patron’s luxury suite, brought back memories he rarely allowed. His muscles quivered with remembered shame. Inside those rooms, he’d learned to loathe himself as much as he loathed the humans that took him there. Light had glinted from hidden nooks near the ceiling. It had oozed from beneath furniture and from behind the decorations on the walls. The dim, glowing lights had done nothing to hide the avarice and cruelty in the faces of the many patrons he’d served.
“Move.” His guard poked him again.
Seneca shook off the memories. He wasn’t in the past. He would never go back and this place was nothing like that one. He stepped across the threshold. His eyes adjusted to the lower lighting, bringing the details into focus. Here the soft lights came from readouts and displays and other things he couldn’t identify. People were bent over the colorfully lit panels. Many stopped to watch as he was led to the center of the room.
He’d learned to ignore the arena crowds that watched them fight, but those damn memories of quiet rooms and thoughtless humiliation never seemed to fade.They look at you and see a warrior.Those were the words Jupiter had whispered countless times as the roar of the arena crowds had threatened to send Seneca cowering in the dirt.They look at you and see a warrior.Seneca repeated the words in his head over and over as the hushed men around him slapped at him with their eyes. His spine remained straight. He held his chin up. They couldn’t undo the man Jup had made him. Seneca wouldn’t let them.
The leader of the armed men, the one the woman had called Fitz, stood in front of him. Foolishly close. He jabbed a finger into Seneca’s ribs, digging into a bloody wound. It was easier to ignore the jab than it had been to ignore the watchful eyes.
Fitz whistled. “That looks painful.” He held up his fingers as if Seneca needed to see the blood to be convinced.
There hadn’t been a question, so Seneca said nothing. No need to explain that the claw marks on his chest were too shallow to trouble him. They’d been inflicted for show, for the crowds. The cracked ribs beneath were more serious. When he decided it was time to fight he’d risk a break that could puncture a lung. The life-threatening gash across his wrist had been sealed somewhere between his losing consciousness in the arena and being hauled from a bed by Fitz’s men. Nothing was making sense.
Fitz wiped his bloody fingers across Seneca’s abdominal muscles. Seneca’s insides crawled with loathing at the touch, but his stony defenses held. This man wasn’t a threat to the most dangerous cracks in his barricades. His digging fingers wouldn’t find the place where Seneca was most vulnerable. He’d learned to read men’s eyes. This one saw him through the cold filter of greed. Greed didn’t frighten him. It could make a man do unthinkable things, and there were some types of greed that could dip into the vile and perverse, but that wasn’t the case here. This man’s greed was for the most ordinary of things: simple profit. It made a commodity of Seneca, but he had been that since birth. It wasn’t even close to the worst thing he’d been.
Fitz narrowed his eyes and frowned. “What’s going on in that head? Nothing stupid I hope.”
A sarcastic reply tripped over the tip of his tongue and he swallowed it back and bowed his head. He needed more information before he could act. He needed this man to ramble out something useful. “I only wish to understand. Where are the whip-masters? Why have I not been taken to the kennel?”
Fitz laughed. “Could it be you don’t know?” The grin stretched across his face was as cold as his eyes. He slapped Seneca’s shoulder. “You missed your brief bout of freedom. Some do-gooders busted you out of Roma’s tender care and now you’re in mine. Captain Walter Fitzhew, that’s me.” He thumped his chest. “And you’ll find that, if you mind your manners, you’ll be treated well. At least so long as you’re here.”
Seneca understood what Fitzhew wasn’t saying. That he wouldn’t be there long. Since he still didn’t know where hewas, that didn’t mean much.
Fitzhew turned away, as if taking Seneca’s silence as compliance, and for the moment, he’d be right. “Tommy, get Owens on the com channel.”
The mention of Owens helped fill in some of the missing pieces. The man who’d been in on the creation of the arena and the Arena Dogs had owned Seneca from birth. If Seneca truly had been free, Fitzhew must intend to sell him back. And Owens would pay, if only to ensure his death.
“Com coming up, Captain.” The voice came from one of the men leaning over the colorful consoles.
A subtle hush swept across the room as a large screen flickered to life. Grand Owens filled the screen. The silver-haired man sat behind his desk with the arena filling up the skyline over his shoulder. His glance settled on Seneca, and a slow smile plumped Owens’ too-smooth face. “Seneca, good to see you alive, pup.” He didn’t wait for a response. He’d know better than to expect one. His gaze shifted to Fitzhew. “Captain. It looks as if we have a bargain to strike.”
“Indeed we do.” The captain sat in a throne-like chair and propped one booted foot across the opposite knee then settled his hands along the armrests. Seneca had seen the stance before and knew the captain was trying to make himself look larger, more imposing, to the older man on screen. He could have told the captain not to bother. It wasn’t possible to intimidate a man who owned nearly a hundred fighters and a quarter-interest in hundreds more.
Owens’ smile didn’t waver. “How many did you recover, Captain?”
“There’s another one, but he isn’t likely to live more than a few hours. I’m afraid getting them was a nasty job. I lost two of my men.”
Owens shook his head. “Was that you, our sinful Seneca, putting up such a fight? Or was it Jupiter?”
Seneca counted his breaths to keep them even and held his body still. If the captain didn’t want to provide specifics to Owens, maybe he had other plans for Jupiter. Something that might give him better odds at escape than returning to the arena.
Owens’ smile snapped into a straight line, but he dropped the question. “Fitzhew, have you been able to download the data from the ship’s navigation system?”
The captain shook his head. “Afraid it’s scrambled. Might be recoverable, but it will take an expert. I don’t keep someone like that onboard.”
Owens tapped his fingers rhythmically on the desk. “I need to know where that ship was headed, Captain. Someone is stealing my property and I can’t let that stand. I need the location of their base of operations. I need to know where they’re hiding my Dogs.” His tapping had stopped and he slammed his fist on his desk. “I’ll want the remains of any dead, the ship, and the crew.”
“About the crew.” The captain leaned forward. “Some of them were human. They all fought hard—none survived.”
“Disappointing.”
Fitzhew nodded. His scent changed and small beads of sweat broke out across his forehead, but his smile stayed in place. “We can bring back the ship, but it’s too big for our cargo hold. We’ll have to tow her and that will take time, fuel, and extra personnel for security. I’m sure whoever is behind that ship won’t want her getting to you.” He leaned back in his chair. “Now that you’ve seen the proof, take some time to consider what you might be willing to pay for, and give me a call in an hour. I don’t want to be sitting here, dead in the black, so to speak, any longer than that.” With a wave of his hand, the screen winked off. “Good job, Tommy. Let the pompous old ass stew for a bit.”
