Page 6 of Fifth
She searched his face, eyes sharp with questions she refused to voice. He sensed the gnaw of her hunger—sharp, reluctant, pride warring with need. In her gaze he read resentment at being ordered, shame at scraps, fear she would never show the guards. Still, beneath all of it pulsed her stubborn refusal to yield. Evennow, with food in her hands, she wanted to resist him, to prove she wasn’t broken.
“What about you?” Flint sparked in her eyes, but it was more than anger. She was testinghim.
“My body does not require it now. Among my kind, the Vettians, food is needed far less often than for humans. Our bodies endure longer without sustenance.” It was truth, but costly. He disliked exposing weakness, especially under her scrutiny. To admit it was like lowering armor. Still, her distrust pressed like a spearpoint to his ribs. For a warrior raised on silence, the words were heavier than blows.
“Everyone requires it eventually.” She leaned forward, defiance bright, astorm of anger, exhaustion, and unbrokenwill.
“I am not everyone.” His voice stayed calm though his thoughts roared. He wanted her to see the vow beneath the words. He would starve before he let her weaken. He held her gaze, steady as a drumbeat. “Eat.”
She stared too long. Then she ate. He watched tension ease as heat filled her. He noted how she guarded the bowl though no one pressed her. When she finished, she nudged the tray toward him. He refused. She pushed it again. He refused again.
“Fine,” she muttered, breaking bread and leaving the larger half forhim.
He didn’t reach for it. She muttered again and set the crumb at his knee like an offering. He didn’t take it, but his throat ached with the gesture. His hunger coiled inside him, controlled but present.
Outside, the yard swelled with noise. The headman strutted with a loudspeaker. More men arrived. Mercenaries with hardeyes. Drunkards with slack grins. Awoman with a ledger wrote names and wagers without once looking at them. Her numbers meant blood.
Engines rattled. Motorcycles coughed up dust. Hunters dismounted and weapons gleamed. They swapped cartridges with easy camaraderie, preparing for sport. Locus’s gaze narrowed. Live rounds meant death inside the preserve. Even the weapons were part of the spectacle, stacking odds againstthem.
The ledger woman added more columns. He traced the rhythm of the wagers, odds stacked highest on Hannah’s death, as if the crowd couldn’t imagine her lasting. He vowed to break their predictions bone by bone. He envisioned each gambler watching their credits burn as she outlasted everytrap.
Hannah pressed into the back bars so new arrivals couldn’t mark her body. Chin high. Shoulders square. Her hands trembled and she swiftly laced them to hide the weakness. Yet he saw it, as clearly as he saw her pulse hammer at her throat.
“What did you do before this?” she asked, voice low. “Before you walked into a slaver camp and asked for a wife.”
“I fought.”
The word carried years. He was an Intergalactic Warrior, sworn to guard the Nine Galaxies. When war rose, he fought. Battles carved discipline into his bones and stole softness from him. But most often he kept peace, the line between chaos and fragile order.
Each conflict cost him—blood, brothers, fragments of memory. Even stripped of all else, duty left him standing. That was what she deserved to know. He thought of Alpha Unit—First who tackled all issues before everyone else, Second with hiswarrior strength, Third with his cold scientific expertise, Fourth, the unit assassin—and knew he carried their legacy here. The memory of their oaths burned with him now, binding him to this fragile human.
“Who did you fight for?”
“For my Alpha Unit. For the Nine Galaxies.”
“Which is?”
He hesitated, then spoke truth. “An alliance of worlds bound by fragile treaties. Peace must be guarded as fiercely as war. It means oaths, comrades fallen, duty that never relents.” His voice deepened, and for an instant the cage faded. He was back on a battlefield, stars burning overhead, the hum of comms in his ear and the burden of orders on his shoulders.
She studied him, steady, collecting data with stubborn precision. Not stars. Not ships. She asked about the things that mattered for tomorrow. He admiredthat.
“Have you run into anything like this before? Traps. Predators. Hunters who don’t fight fair.”
He leaned back against the bars of their cage. “Affirmative.”
“Did you win?”
“I live.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Her frustration was sharp. She wanted clarity, not evasions.
“It is the only answer they allowed me. Victory was survival. Ihate the measure, but it is definitive.”
She slid him the smaller half of the bread in silent correction. He took it and ate. She looked away, clearly unsettled by the sight of him accepting. Her mouth pressed tight, but hershoulders eased, as though some part of her trusted him more forit.
The yard reshaped into a stage. More cameras rose. Atall arch of scrap metal framed the preserve path. The head slaver rehearsed his lines for the cameras, muttering like an actor. Then he handed them to a man with a headset who broadcast to gamblers afar. Screens lit with faces, bars glowing neon, windowless rooms, afew wrong for Earth. The feed cut before recognition could settle.
Hannah’s stomach twisted, and she pressed closer to Locus, whispering, “They are selling us.”
