Page 88 of Stealing the Dragon's Heart (Dragon Lords 3)

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Phase 8

Tarth space station.

“I will break this fucking door down!” Aidan banged on the hatch with the butt of his meaty fist. It was locked from the inside.

“Go ahead!” Onnika challenged from the other side, her voice muffled by the thick metal. “We’re not leaving.”

“You sure as shit are.” Only minutes ago, they’d landed at Tarth for the last leg of the race...in seventh place! Behind him, the crew was unusually subdued. He could tell they were disappointed and, like him, berating themselves for giving these two an inkling of their trust.

“Maybe I’ll keep you locked in there forever!” he threatened. “How about that? Take you out for my pleasure.”

“Go ahead and try it!” she shot back in an equally ruthless tone.

He growled though his teeth. “You can’t stay in there forever.”

“Watch me.”

Caryn’s voice filtered through the heavy metal hatch. “Hi. Aidan?” Both Lear and Asher shifted in their stance, listening more intently. “Yeah…so…she’s not going to change her mind on this.”

“Caryn, you’re the reasonable one. If you come out, we promise no harm will come to you. You can both leave peacefully.”

“Yeah, well, the thing is, I’m not changing my mind, either.”

Even through the ship’s hull and the hangar where they’d docked, cracks of lightning could be heard from the outside world as Aidan once again banged on the hatch. “Goddammit!” The storm that raged on Tarth seemed to match his mood. Luckily the weather here wasn’t deadly, like on Nazzu.

We’re wasting time,” Priya gently reminded Aidan. “We need vouchers more than ever now.”

“We can’t leave them on the ship alone. The gods only know what they’ll get up to.”

“I’ll stay behind and watch the door,” Zeek offered. “The contests are bound to be more physically challenging, and I’m a lover, not a fighter. If they come out, I’ll escort them off the ship.”

Priya discreetly cleared her throat. “No offense, Zeek, but Onnika could probably take you.”

Onnika’s obscured voice squeezed through the hatch. “I wouldn’t hurt Zeek! He’s the only one of you I like right now.”

“Aww, thanks, doll.”

“Priya,” Aidan said. “Lend him a gun.” His tone turned harsher as he yelled at the closed hatch while addressing Zeek, “If they come out, shoot them!”

Zeek stared at Aidan in shock as Priya grudgingly handed over one of her blasters.

Aidan lightly shook his head to convey,no, not really. Then he turned to leave the ship. The others trailed behind him. Outside, their footsteps echoed on the hard pavement that covered the floor of the oversized hangar. At the moment there were only six other ships docked, with plenty of room for more. Hopefully they’d be out of here—sans two crew, of course—before it filled up.

Asher balled his fist and then bashed it into his other palm. “They had better have someone for me to whale on.”

“For once,” Lear replied, “we are of a similar mind.”

They stepped through an open archway into a single large chamber that made up the arena. Aidan stopped at the edge of a half-moon viewing platform five stories up, glanced down…and gaped.

“What the hell is that?” Priya asked.

Aidan replied morosely, “The Gauntlet.”

Once during every Phase Nine event, a challenge was offered in the form of a deadly obstacle course so formidable that few managed to conquer it. The only one he’d ever encountered had been during Phase Seven of his last race, and it was the only phase where he and his previous crew had been unable to win a single voucher, not for a lack of trying. He’d walked away with more than one broken bone that day.

This one appeared every bit as menacing. And this being the next to last phase, it was likely even more impossible to win.

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