10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
E lyse
It’s hard to believe we’ve been on Rhoid a week. Rhoid, what a fitting name. Why abbreviate? They should just call it hemorrhoid.
I’ve tried to plan an escape, wracking my brain to figure a way out. There are guards on both ends of the cellblock, and other guards all over the property. Even if we were lucky enough to escape from the shaft, then what would we do?
Between the blowing sand and the desolation, I don’t know where we’d go or how we’d hide on this planet. If we got that far, we’d have to find a vessel, and even then, neither Wrage nor I have a clue about how to pilot one.
I’ve wondered about somehow getting back into the mansion. But we’d have to kill Ryone and his contingent of bodyguards. Then where would we be? In a fortified mansion with nowhere to go.
I guess that would be the best option, though.
“It’s your lucky day, drackface . You get to fight,” the guard laughs dryly.
“I love you Elyse,” Wrage swipes a swift kiss across my cheek as he bounds out of bed before they can wallop him with a rifle butt.
The fight isn’t a surprise. Frankly it was surprising how long it’s been since the last fight. He pulls off his pants and lets them lie in a pile on the floor.
I take a deep breath and keep my cool. The last thing he needs is a sad mate. We’ve tried to keep our spirits up over the last few days. Frankly, conversation has been hard. We avoid any mention of the future, we both know we don’t have one. The trackers in our brands are dead and no one knows we’re here. That puts our chances of being rescued at zero.
Obviously, we don’t talk about the present, what’s there to say? We’ve spoken about the past, though. There were some good times in my life before my abduction—I told him about those. He told me about his adopted religion, the Indira Sect that celebrates Blessed Peace Day. I like those words—blessed peace.
Last night, though, we sang. It was . . . surreal. We were in a cell, filthy and tired and hungry to our marrow, but when we were singing we were lifted out of our horrible lives. When our voices soared, so did our spirits.
We actually laughed, more than once. The raucous calls from the males in the other cells faded, then stopped. After a few songs, we started receiving praise and applause. Even animals like these males wanted a respite from their misery.
“You too, cunt,” one of the guards calls to me.
I’m ready. Is he waiting for me to don my bejewelled gala outfit? I’ll leave the cell when he tells me to.
Right before they open our cell, the rock beneath us rumbles and the bed shakes. It stops after a moment, but is replaced by another before the guards can open the lock. The second was worse than the first.
No one says a thing about the quake, just “C’mon assholes, quit dawdling.”
We walk down the hall, I have to scurry to keep up with the males’ long strides. I can’t think too far into the future, I can only hope that Wrage’s winning streak changes from 1-0 to 2-0 today. How can I contemplate anything else?
The room is full to the brim this time, and the excitement in the air is different, almost hushed. I have no idea what’s coming, but my shit detector is blaring, warning me that something especially awful is about to happen.
We know we only have seconds before we’re separated. Wrage snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me close. I vaguely hear catcalls from the males around us, making fun of us for our affection.
“Elyse, you know you’re my heart. You’re more than that, you’re my soul. I don’t think I even had one until I met you.” His fingers tangle in my hair as if by the sheer power of our touch he could keep us together longer. “I love you. If I die today, do whatever you need to do. Whatever,” he says as the guards call him names and pull him away from me.
He didn’t say it outright, but I think he was releasing me from my vows. Not the bullshit vows that were said over us during the branding ceremony back on Paragon. I don’t remember them, my arm hurt like hell.
No, he was releasing me from the bond we’ve forged since then. I think he’s telling me to do what I have to do to tolerate Sooma Ryone’s reptilian touch. By the look in his eyes, I think he was giving me permission, when it becomes intolerable, to 'leave' in the only other way I can.
Not that I need his permission, but somehow as maudlin and dramatic as it is, I’m comforted by it.
“I love you Elyse,” he shouts over his shoulder, making sure I hear it over the roar of the crowd.
He and I are on one side of the cage. His opponent is walked to the doorway on the opposite side. My eyes round in my head as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
What is walking toward the opening across from me is not a humanoid. I’m not even certain it’s sentient. It’s pulled by two huge guards with chains attached to its collar. There are six other guards with laser rifles pointed at its head.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
I think back and remember overhearing two businessmen talking a year ago on Aeon II. They were discussing planet Primitiff. The way they described it, it was teeming with animals that would be at home in Jurassic Park.
They’d said the animals’ brains were implanted with some kind of tech that could stop them in their tracks if they started attacking the parks’ patrons. Sooma Ryone must have called in some big favors to get this bad boy to show up on Rhoid.
This is a different species than the Earth reptile, because he doesn’t approach the forty-foot height of a full grown T-Rex on planet Earth. Too bad, because if he was that tall he couldn’t fit into the cage.
He’s mottled green and blue, his teeth are six inches long, and the stone beneath our feet literally rumbles as he walks. He balks when he’s prodded into the cage by the handlers at his back.
The animal shrieks. The sound is so loud and piercing I slap my hands over my ears. The smell of his breath is like rotting garbage.
I scold myself and turn my emotions off as if they were controlled by a switch. If I can think, I might be able to help.
Although it wasn’t fashionable for girls to go through the same fascination with all things dinosaur as boys did, when I was in fifth through seventh grade, I considered myself a dinophile—dinosaur lover. I made up the Greek name because it seemed so much more sophisticated than describing myself as ‘obsessed with dinosaurs’ like my male classmates. It amused my friends and family, too.
I try to remember everything I ever learned about T-Rex, although I disdained that species. I thought it was too pedestrian since it had been popularized by the Jurassic franchise. I was more interested in the lesser-known species like the Carnotaurus.
I stand, still as a statue, as I completely tune out the noise of the crowd, the shouting guards trying to bully the five-thousand pound beast into the cage, or the terrified emotions swirling through me.
Closing my eyes, I breathe and try to go back in time. I am the ten-year-old girl who sat at her computer hour after hour learning about her favorite giant reptiles. I never thought I had a photographic memory before, but maybe necessity really is the mother of invention, because I try to re-watch the YouTube video of a silly scientist telling random viewers how to kill a T-Rex as if it’s the funniest proposition ever. Well, it’s serious as a heart attack now.
Someone pushes me in a direction and I allow myself to walk where I’m directed without opening my eyes or stopping my train of thought. I’m watching fifteen-year-old YouTube.
Holy shit! I remember everything he said. He had many hilarious suggestions that would never work, but one will.
“Wrage!” I scream to be heard over the beast. “Cut the Achilles tendon!”
He shakes his head and lifts his shoulders. Right. How could he know what an Achilles tendon is? Somehow I manage to lift my leg high enough to show him where it is on my own ankle. He nods as he looks at his empty hands.
Now I need to find him a sword.
I could sit back and hope, after the match against Ormek, that all these nice males will offer up their weapons out of the goodness of their hearts. That’s a laugh.
I stand on tiptoe, jumping occasionally, to scan the crowd and see what weapons the males are holding. There are a couple nail-studded bats that were so useful last time, and the mace that Ormek wielded at the last match. I see no swords, but I see a male with the scythe. It’s maybe five feet long with a metal sickle-shaped blade at the end. It will be perfect.
I hear scuffling and the audience calling. Looking over, I see the animal is now in the cage. The fight will start any second.
Shit. When I get close enough, I see the scythe might be up to the task of separating a male’s head from his shoulders, but it’s far too flimsy to go up against a small blue-green T-Rex.
Twenty paces away, though, there’s a male brandishing a sickle over his head. It’s the exact same configuration as the scythe, but doesn’t have the reach; its handle is much shorter. I press my way toward it, receiving more than my fair share of gropes along the way.
When I arrive next to the owner of the sickle I assess it for sturdiness. Although Wrage will have to fight up close and personal, this tool is sturdy enough to do the job.
“Price for the sickle?” I ask. Prepared to pay whatever he asks.
The old male is reptilian. I wonder if he’s going to be rooting for his reptilian cousin in the cage as opposed to my mate. I’ve never liked reptilian species. Mrzz, my third owner, didn’t make me any fonder of them, either. And, of course, Sooma Ryone tops the list of odious reptiles.
“He’s your mate?” he asks.
Shit, he’s re-calculating his price even as we speak. I can’t lie, though. “Yes.”
He almost hands it to me, then snatches it back. “Is he a good male?”
Even here in this crowd with the noise and the stench of a giant reptile added to the smell of all these unwashed bodies. Even now, seconds away from watching the guards throw my male into the cage, my face lights as my love for Wrage shines out. “Yes, he’s a good male. The best in the galaxy.”
My eyes are bright with unshed tears as I spear him with my request. “Price?” I demand.
“Here,” he says as he hands it to me.
“Thank you,” I say with shocked sincerity. He could have asked me anything and I would have given it. “Thank you.”
Somehow I force my way through the crowd until I’m at the edge of the cage. Sooma Ryone’s voice interrupts from overhead.
“I’m pleased so many of you chose to attend today even with the increased price of attendance. I notice that you’ve already seen what’s on the agenda for tonight’s bout. I’ve had this Prandenour brought in from Primitiff just for tonight’s festivities.
“These beasts all have a small chip implanted that can incapacitate them should the need arise. I will not be using that tonight. We’ll . . . let nature take its course.” His smooth, insincere voice makes my skin crawl.
“Since our out-of-town guest can’t follow directions well, we’ll skip the two minima preliminaries and go straight to the bout. Let the game begin.”
Wrage doesn’t allow the guards to prod him into the cage—he has too much honor for that. He strides in when they open his door. A shiver races through my body as I think of the amount of courage he possesses to walk to his certain death.
The little T-Rex’s head almost touches the top of the cage; it has to be at least twenty feet tall. The disparity in their size is ridiculous. This is nothing even resembling a fair fight.
The animal doesn’t need to hear the starting bell, his oversized head lunges at Wrage, snap, snap, snapping at him in three bare misses. Luckily, my mate’s attention was totally focused and he managed to outrun the beast.
“Wrage!” I scream over the prodigious roar of the animal. Somehow he hears me, his head tipping back in shock when he sees the weapon I’m offering. “Achilles tendon,” I say when he runs toward me. “When he’s down, jugular.” I point to my throat. I imagine he’s well-versed in cutting this part of the anatomy.
I wish the scythe had been better constructed. It would have given him distance from the animal. This weapon, though, will force him to get close to those snarling jaws and that deadly tail.
Wrage
I’ve never walked into an arena believing I would lose. It’s a bad omen. I’ve always felt I had a chance. This match? I don’t see how I can win. Although I thought I’d be fighting with no weapon, the meager blade my mate provided me is laughable. It extends less than two fiertos beyond the reach of my own arm. How am I supposed to down this beast with a barely-sharp blade such as this?
The animal has never been to gladiator school, has not been taught technique or rules or etiquette. This animal has been bred to kill. It’s a killing machine from it’s razor-sharp teeth to the long tail whipping across the length of one side of our enclosure.
Having no time for lengthy discussion, I don’t have a clue as to the why of Elyse’s instructions. I know only two things: I don’t know how to kill this beast, and she seemed certain about what to do. I’ll follow her instructions.
Wherever the animal attacks, I try to stay near its flanks. Waiting for the perfect moment to catch it with its tail as far from me as possible.
The enormous reptile is canny. It tries to strike with its teeth, then counters with a murderous sweep of its tail. It instinctively presses me into a corner, with my only defense being to climb to the top and scramble away as I avoid the snap of its teeth. The beast has barely had to move, and I’m dripping with sweat from my efforts.
The crowd is booing, calling me a coward because I’m not attacking. He has easy access to me when I’m at the top of the cage, so I’ve found the best strategy is to stay close to its hip. I shut everything that isn’t useful out of my consciousness.
I move into the flow. It’s something I learned in the scriptures from the Indira sect, along with the wreathing technique. All thoughts disappear. I’m just drifting in the flow of the universe. In this state, I move completely on impulse. It’s like a dance with no music.
I effortlessly jump back to avoid the tail. I counter and feint to keep away from its dangerous dagger-edged teeth. I bide my time, my vision arrowed in on the Achilles tendon. Finally, the stars seem to align. His head pulls back as he readies himself for another snap, his tail is at the other end of the cage, about to make the return trip to kill me. I rush in and hack with all my might at the tendon.
His skin is thick and hard to cut through with this sickle that’s almost a toy, but the tendon is right below the surface, and I know I’ve struck an effective blow when the beast screeches and stumbles.
He’s still standing upright. I need to cut the other leg. Skirting the bars of the cage, I make my way to his other side, wait until his flailing tail is curled around his injured leg, and slice even deeper on the other side.
Like a miracle, the beast falls forward, unable to keep standing. Its loud bleating pierces my ears as it thrashes across the stone floor. He keeps snapping at me and is able to move enough to still be a menace as he pulls himself around with his tiny arms, his weight on his right shoulder.
“It’s just an animal,” I bellow into the camera over the noise of the crowd. “Pronounce me the winner and let him live!”
“I knew you were a coward,” Ryone’s voice booms. “Only one of you walks out of the cage tonight.”
I look down to see the sickle handle in my hand, the blade still embedded in the animal’s leg. How am I going to finish him off?
“Wrage!”
What miracle has my Elyse arranged to help me kill my foe now?
I look over and see every eye in the cavern isn’t on the life and death struggle in the cage, but on my mate. She’s at the bars, her body naked from the waist down except for the little panties she wears.
“Here,” she says as she tosses me her pants.
I shut out the picture of my vulnerable beloved standing almost naked in a room full of predators, and continue my work.
I wrap her pants around my palm over and over until it’s as protected as it can be, then snag the blade from where it’s lodged in the beast’s flesh. After pulling it out, I unwrap my hand, and bind the end of the blade so I can hold it without cutting myself.
The knife is now an extension of my hand. This moment is something I trained for my entire life. I stalk with confidence toward the beast’s head, leap onto its neck so I’m riding the side of its throat, and slice its arteries.
Blood spurts and the animal roars. Its breath is hot and stinks. I’m covered in his blood, and still I keep cutting, keep slicing, taking care to avoid its thrashing tail and snapping teeth even as the beast goes through its death throes.
My foe is most probably lifeless now, but its muscles are twitching, so I keep hacking.
The pool of blood grows so large it seeps under the bars and out into the audience. I wait a moment longer, then when I’m certain the monster has no more life in it, I slide onto the floor.
Before I search for Elyse in the crowd, I bow my head to the poor beast who had to die in order for me to live. I say a quick prayer for its journey to the afterlife, then scan the crowd for my Elyse.
I find her and our eyes meet. My heart is racing, I was just closer to death than I’ve ever been, I’m covered in blood from head to toe and yet my thoughts and emotions are consumed with the beautiful nearly-naked female clutching the bars of the cage.
The guards are calling to me, ordering me to drop the weapon and approach the doorway. I do drop the blade, but I move to Elyse and grab her wrists through the bars. I can’t hug her, though I’d like to even though I’d get her bloody. I just need to connect with her right this minima .
“I love you Elyse,” I say, my lips as close to her ear as they can get. “You’re the smartest, bravest, best female in the galaxy.”
Two guards snag her waist and pull her with them. I don’t want to think about what she’ll endure as they pull her through the crowd to bring her back to our cell. I walk to the doorway where a contingent of guards look ready to kill me for not complying with their dracking orders for one minima .
Back in our cell, I put my hand up in front of myself to keep her from leaping into my arms. It takes me long moments to wash the blood off. After sticking my head under the spigot, I try to clean the rest of my body. Having no towel, no blanket, I keep sluicing water from my cupped hands onto my chest and limbs.
There’s a river of blood under my feet, but I keep washing. Elyse keeps inceing closer, as if she can’t bear to be parted from me even in this state.
“I’ll get your back, Love,” she says as she approaches. The look on her face says she won’t take no for an answer, so I turn my back to her.
My hands had been harsh on my body, in a hurry to clean myself so I could hug her to me. Her hands are soft, careful, and so small. She pours water down my shoulders, then slides the water off my back, half practical, half sensual.
I don’t pay attention to the sounds of the males joking to each other nearby. I close my eyes and hear her soft breathing and the trickle of the water as it rains on me. It strikes me that we’re in hell, but we can create our own heaven.
“I thought I’d lost you for sure,” she’s matter-of-fact as if she’s talking about the weather.
“And I you, Love. But I’m alive. Because of you, Elyse.”
I’ve kept my eyes from her body since I entered the cell. When I look over my shoulder and see her almost naked form, it makes me want to kill Sooma Ryone and every guard in the compound.
I stare at one of the cameras in the ceiling. “Send her clothing!” I demand. “She’s a good female, don’t make her lose her pride. Send her clothing!”
I have no way of knowing if he’s watching or not, but I think he probably is. He thrives on creating pain, and had to assume there would be mourning in this cell tonight. Although I won, we all know my winning streak can’t go on forever.
“In olden days on my planet, there were traveling troubadours who went from town to town telling stories in verse. Many of their songs were in praise of courageous fighters. I think I’ll sing you one.”
She creates a song about me out of thin air. I wonder how the words can come, so swift and sweet and rhyming, as if she’d worked on it for lunars . And her voice, clear as a bell. Beautiful. Look at that face, like the angels my father’s religion spoke of. A beautiful, almost-naked angel who sings like her song is a gift from God.
“And he smote the giant beast,” she sings. “Again and again his arm came down with the strength of a dozen males. And when he was done he was covered in blood, but he’d saved himself to come home to his fair maiden.”
The cell block is silent. For the first time, the brutes in the other cells shut the holes in their faces and listen to the beauty of my mate’s talent.
A hot wave of guilt pierces through me when I think of the abusive words I threw at her like arrows the first time I saw her, as if I wanted to destroy the only thing in her life that gave her happiness. I know I’ve apologized, but my behavior dishonored us both.
Now is not the time to talk about it, though, instead I say, “Elyse, you honor me.”
“Yes, mate. I do, and will until the end of time.”
We haven’t made love in this place, even though my urge has been desperate to show her my feelings in one of the best ways I know how. The cameras trained on us, the lack of even a rough-hewn blanket—I didn’t want to disrespect her that way.
It’s she that approaches me. She glides to her knees on the jagged rock floor, but doesn’t notice the discomfort—her full attention is focused on me.
“I’m going to make you feel good, my love,” she says with that voice she uses that allows no argument. “And then you’re going to repay me in kind. We’re going to live, Wrage. We’re going to live until we die. I don’t know when that will be. But we’re living now.”
With that, she grips my cock, and before I can protest, she takes me to the hilt. I don’t stifle my groan, my pleasure is too boundless to hide. If I live another day, I’ll marvel at how, after just escaping death and knowing with certainty that my end is coming swift and sure within one lunar at most, my first thought is gratitude.
Yes, thankfulness at what I have—the love of this good female who would do anything for me, as I would do anything for her.
She presses me into the back of her throat. I don’t protest, knowing it’s her way of showing her love, her tribute to her mate.
“You’re a blessing, Love,” is all I can rasp through my gritted teeth before she wrings another moan from my throat.
Her hand cups my sac as she takes all of me, all the while her gaze never leaves mine. It’s her moan of pleasure that undoes me. I spill into her mouth and down her throat.
As soon as I can move, I hit my knees, joining her on the rigid stone floor.
“I don’t deserve you, Elyse. But I thank all the Gods that I have you.” I almost told her I’d never leave unless I had to, but she knows that.
Carrying her to our filthy mattress, I wish it was pristine—she deserves so much more. But she doesn’t complain, she holds her arms out to me, her eyes brimming with love.
“What do you want from me, Love?” I ask. “Tongue? Mouth? Cock? I want to pleasure you until I’m too tired to move.”
“All of you, handsome. Everything you want to give me.”
“Quit humping your whore, asshole. You’re the one who asked for clothes,” a guard thunders at us. He’s standing so close to our cell his feet intrude through the bars. I don’t want to think about how long he's been standing there.
He wads the fabric he carries into a ball, pushes it between the bars, and tosses it dangerously close to the puddle of watery blood taking up half the floor.
I grab it and see it’s the robe Sooma Ryone wore the day we arrived. He’s staking a claim. It even smells like him.
I open the garment, it’s large, with lots of fabric, then drape it over our heads and down my back so it hides our lovemaking. Then I attack my mate.
I whisper to her of how much I love her. She doesn’t need to be able to see in order to know the light of my love shines brightly out of my eyes.
After making certain she’s more than ready for me, I slide into her, revelling in the sounds we make as we moan our pleasure to each other.
When we’re done, I move to the bed’s edge, nestling against her back and kissing her soft brown hair until her breathing calms and slows.