Chapter 7 #2
“Really, Marco?” René’s looking at me like I’m mad. And maybe I am. But would anyone blame me for that after five long years of this?
“This season’s going to be bigger than ever,” I throw out as some sort of excuse.
“From what I’ve heard about the rigs for the games this year, a two-meter drop and steel pipes are the least of your worries.
You’ll be jumping, climbing, balancing, falling.
You’ve all got to be on your best game for this. ”
René drops his head, then wanders off to get the pipes for Robin and Cas, who have clambered up the fake roots of the enormous felled tree and onto the trunk.
“Don’t show any weakness,” I call up. “Be fast. Be brutal. Intimidate. Annihilate. Survive.”
A heavy breath, far too close to me, makes me shudder. Jason. His heat and proximity are unwelcome reminders of the times I let him fuck me. Back before I saw his true colors.
He’s just like all the rest of them.
He’s only after a ticket to my bed, my villa, my wine. An easy introduction to the sponsors, the Emperor. He’d knife me in the back given half the chance. And I learned that the hard way.
“Marco—”
“Fuck off, Jason.”
“That’s not very nice.” I hate his quiet, insinuating tone. Like he has any right to talk to me with that sort of familiarity. Like he’s anything but filth to me. He glances up at the men, makes his voice even lower, and says, “I can help you.”
The metal bars echo through the forest, Robin fighting Cas fiercely, admirably.
“What do you imagine you could help me with?”
“You seem tense.”
“I’m always tense.”
“More than usual.”
Cas lets out a sharp cry as the bar smashes down into his thigh. Robin could throw him now, but he doesn’t. He’s being weak. “Don’t give him an opening!” I shout up.
“Listen, if you wanted some way to release that tension—”
“What?” I say it louder than I’d meant to, snap, and a few heads turn our way. I catch the flicker of Robin’s eyes on me, then brace as Cas’s bar slams into his hip.
“Fuck!” Robin shouts.
“Eyes on your opponent,” I yell at him. “Do you want to die in your first match?”
Robin’s face flushes with anger, and he moves on Cas with twice the speed. He’s launched into a pattern I recognize. Fast and unerring, he has Cas retreating as blow after blow lands on him or the metal bar he’s barely able to defend himself with.
There’s a fire in Robin’s eyes. The spark of a warrior. He’s skilled, bold, drawing on the strength and knowledge of his ancestors, a proud race of fighters as far back as Atrea’s founding.
Golden hair, bronze skin, dappled forest sunlight. It’s a vicious beauty.
“Unless there’s someone else coming over tonight…”
I’d forgotten Jason was even there. My blood curdles at the realization—the way he’s watching me watch Robin.
Can they all see that?
They’re all going to know.
“No one’s coming over,” I tell him. “I’m going back with the team tonight. We’re having dinner together in team quarters.”
Jason hisses out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re gracing us with your presence?”
“Team spirit is paramount.” But that excuse isn’t even a bit true, and it sounds as weak as it is.
I have a date with the Emperor tonight. He’ll want me to do things. Things I can’t stomach anymore. Things I’ve been doing for the last five years. It’s the unwritten, unspoken contract.
But tonight, for the first time, I’m not going to be there when he arrives.
Maybe it’s madness, now I’m so close to being made a free citizen. He promised me, at the end of this season, he’ll finally set me free. Now more than ever, I should be doing everything I can to please him.
But since Robin arrived…
Seeing him has brought everything back—those early days, what I used to be… what I’ve sunk to. Robin’s spirit, the way he talked to me, what he accused me of wanting to do to him.
It’s stuck a seething pit of shame so deep inside me it feels like I’ll never scrape it out. Like it will grow and grow and swallow me whole.
I had no choice.
I need to get back to Atrea.
I need to find my family.
“If you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
“You should.” He leans in so close it makes me ill. “He could never fuck you as good as I did, Marco.” A sick chuckle sounds in Jason’s throat before he slouches off back to Max and René, where he whispers something that would no doubt piss me off even more if I could hear it.
What do I care, anyway?
They’ll all be dead soon enough.
Cas lands on the ground, freshly bruised but steady on his feet. Maybe too steady. Did he jump? I wasn’t paying enough attention.
I can’t let them know that. “Good game. Next pair, Max and Andreas, up on the log.”
They both groan, Cas lets out a long sigh, but it’s Robin who catches my attention.
He hasn’t moved from standing on the tree, and his eyes are on me. It’s like he’s… waiting for me?
“Good work, baby bird. You’re a natural.”
It’s fleeting—the slightest curve of his lips. But it’s there.
An almost-smile.
And it’s one inch from fatal.
So I bark at them, “Cas, baby bird, the rest of you, you’re going to pick a tree and climb it, no tools. First to the top gets a drink of water.”