66. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Z oey
I cuddle next to Steele’s sleeping form, burrowing into his warmth. Most days he’s up before me, lifting weights in the ludus . But today I get to snuggle my great big gladiator to my heart’s content.
Sunlight spills through the curtains, brightening this cozy room and allowing me to see him. My chest expands with love. Last night was a breakthrough. Now that my body knows how to find pleasure, can it be too long before I can find it with my beloved mate?
I must work harder to slam the door on my father’s voice. Now that my body knows, I have to get my head on board.
As I wiggle to get closer to him, my hand slides under my pillow and encounters the vibrator. My face instantly heats in shame. I was so pleasure-drunk, then guilt-ridden last night I didn’t think to slip it back into the bag under the bed with the other vibrators.
I don’t know how the thing wound up under my pillow, but I’m glad it wasn’t out in the open for Steele to find. It would wound his pride. I slide it to the far side under my pillow, then turn my attention to him.
I know every plane and angle of his face. I’ve memorized his kind expression, his regal nose, and his full lips. I know his eyes’ exact shade of blue in every mood. Ice-blue when he’s angry. Almost navy when he’s in the heat of passion. Sky blue most of the time when he’s gazing at me. I love that color best of all. It’s so full of affection.
He came in late last night. I should let him sleep in. I cuddle closer and kiss where my lips land on his breastbone.
Thoughts flood back from last night. War. I’m having another war inside my mind. Part of me is so happy that I finally accomplished this thing every woman knows about. I’m now part of some vast sisterhood instead of being an outcast.
Another part of me is filled with shame. Just when my father’s voice starts its litany of censure, I sweep him out the front door again and slam it in his face, then snuggle closer to my mate.
“Zoey, are you going to have fun with the other females today? I’ll be working in the arena, preparing for the games and obstacle course.”
Something’s wrong! His tone is tight, even his cadence doesn’t sound right.
“I was hoping we’d be together, Steele. I’ll help you in the arena. Surely there’s some way I can be of use.”
I tip my head to look at him and the first thing that strikes me are his ice-blue eyes, then his flared nostrils and tight lips.
I’ve seen this expression before. He wore it when he fought our captors and won our freedom. He wore it when our enemies, the MarZar cartel, caught our ship in a web and stole two of our shipmates. I’ve never seen this expression directed at me. I now understand the saying, “my blood ran cold.” I don’t like being on the receiving end of my huge gladiator’s anger.
My instinct is to freeze, but I push past that and press my palm to his cheek, wanting to connect. He can’t control his impulse to jerk away from my touch. It isn’t a big, exaggerated move. I can tell he’s trying not to flinch from me. But he did.
“Steele? Did I do something wrong?” My chest feels so tight my lungs can barely draw breath.
“I shouldn’t drink Sillerian whiskey. It tastes so good going down. I forget it always gives me a headache the next morning.” His voice sounds like Steele, but the little smile he grants me is stiff.
It suddenly strikes me that he doesn’t have an erection this morning. The other women call it “morning wood” and I don’t think a day has gone by since we met that he didn’t wake up that way. My heart plummets with this awareness. I won’t mention it. He’ll just blame that on the whiskey, too.
“When we’re at breakfast, I’ll see what everyone’s up to,” I say casually, although I have no intention of hanging with the women today. I’m working to make our relationship better. I want to be with my mate—in every way.
A s it turns out, I don’t have to insist on hanging out with Steele because we’ve all been assigned to work on the arena today to get it ready for Blessed Peace Day festivities. As Naomi said, “Many hands make light work.”
I catch her as we’re leaving the building, and she agrees I can invite the three Zinnian couples to join us for our Blessed Peace Day feast.
As the group of us are walking from the dining hall toward the arena, the Devil’s Playground touches down. It’s our sister ship, and last we connected, it was all males except for a few mated pairs. Since we’ve seen each other, they’ve added a few new human women to the mix.
I feel as if I’ve passed some barrier. The meet-and-greet isn’t as difficult for me as it was yesterday with the people from Sanctuary and the pirate ship. It’s nice to see proud gold-and-red Vartan’s tiny mate Lyra. She recently saved my life as well as everyone on the Fool’s Errand . Steele and I owe her our lives.
She’s happy to see us. She looks different now that she’s shaved half her head and dyed the other mermaid colors. She manages to look both kickass and adorable at the same time. For the first time, perhaps because of the bright sunshine, I notice her blue eyes have tiny flecks of gold—unusual.
I meet loud, brash Maximus’s mate Raine for the first time. She’s the Devil’s Playground’s new doctor, and she’s smoothed off a lot of Max’s rough edges, although even in public he doesn’t attempt to keep his hand off her bottom. She certainly doesn’t seem to mind.
I’d heard he unexpectedly sprouted a mate mark shortly after they met. He had been abducted very young, so he didn’t know what the marks signified. It’s obvious he does now. It shines through his skin in what looks like golden letters. Gosh, he seems so happy. They both do.
We all make our way to the arena and Dhoom stands on one of the stone bleachers so we can hear him as he breaks us into work teams.
From what we surmise, the compound grew from feudal times, the little town getting larger and larger through the centuries. The well was constructed in the center and things grew from there. At one time, the town must have been doing well with their produce and livestock, because they built an enormous stone arena.
It, like everything in the compound, is constructed of rose and brown stones that look like a whimsical checkerboard. The arena hasn’t been in use for what looks like centuries. Some of it is crumbling.
No matter that we have the crew from three ships and all the inhabitants of Sanctuary, we still don’t have the manpower to fix this enormous arena. Yesterday, Dhoom coordinated a group to clean and organize one small section of the stands, while others removed decades of dead leaves and rodents from the sands. A third contingent was tasked with collecting a veritable grocery list of items for Savannah’s obstacle course we’ll be building in the arena.
Today, Dhoom breaks us into teams to construct the course. The task looks overwhelming, but there are a lot of willing hands here, most of them gladiator-sized.
Steele leans to place his mouth near my ear and says, “It looks like they could use my strength moving some large stones into place. You work on the smaller obstacles, I’ll help with the heavy jobs.”
My world slows down as my chest tightens in pain. Tears pricking behind my eyes swell so hot and fast I dip my head and dash them with a knuckle before I can force them back.
I’ve never, not once, felt rejected by my mate. Not until right this minute.
Following the insurrection, everyone debated whether or not to stay with the person the slavers threw them together with. Anya and Zar knew they were mates right away. For them, there was no discussion. They were formally mated within days.
Steele and I weren’t as open about our feelings, but we never slept a night apart—never. We went from our horrid cell to a shared cabin. I was too shy to want the spotlight of a public mating, but at some point, Steele began calling me his mate, and then it became public we were together.
I’ve never felt he didn’t love me. Could I be wrong? With all these other people around, does he want to distance himself from me? There are four unmated females here—Naomi, Lissa, Allura, and Dusty. Would he prefer one of them?
I successfully fight the urge to cry and am equally successful at forbidding myself from begging him to stay with me. I just say, “Sure,” and walk to the center of the arena where my team is already discussing what to build.
Despite repeated attempts to tune in, I can’t pay a lick of attention to what they’re saying. My brain is stuck on repeat of the biggest rejection I’ve ever experienced. I can’t keep my gaze from wandering to Steele, his muscles bulging under his silver skin as it glints in the Fairean suns. No matter what he’s doing, he manages to keep his back to me the entire time.
I’ve only recently become aware that things between us are badly broken. Has he felt it for longer? Does he resent me? He must. I’m clingy and needy and if that weren’t bad enough, I’ve denied him the one thing every male needs—a bed companion. I assume he wants two simple things from me: a woman who gives him pleasure, and one he can please. I deliver him neither.
Steele
Tiny Melodie and Willa arrive, each riding a huge six-legged mronck as the animals pull enormous boulders on flat skids tied by ropes to their harnesses.
Their mates, Thran and Bayne, along with two other males from Sanctuary, Abraxx and Revikk, roll the boulders off the skids and place them at strategic spots in the arena. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to be using them for, but I don’t think this competition is designed to let any of us off easy.
They’ve been working at this since before we touched down, because there are at least twenty of the enormous rocks already scattered in the arena sand.
“That’s the last one,” Willa shouts as she and Melodie ride their mroncks back to the barn.
I’m trying to be of help as Savannah points to where other heavy materials need to be placed, but I’m useless. All I can think about is the look on Zoey’s face when I left her to work with a different crew. She tried hard to hide how much my words crushed her, but I know her so well it was as if I could feel her pain as deeply as she did.
I’m not focused on my task as we pair up to move some heavy timbers. I keep glancing over my shoulder, fully aware of Zoey’s gallant efforts to pretend she’s all right.
She’s hurting, and although she decimated my world last night, I wish her no harm. I love her more than life itself and can’t stay mad at her for more than a few hoaras .
I don’t understand that vibrator, though. Why would she cheat on me like that? But I forgive her.
“I’m going to help Zoey’s team,” I say when we’ve moved the last timber. I avoid the males’ gazes as I jog to Zoey’s side. I hum so I don’t hear their laughing accusations that I’m xyzca -whipped. I don’t care that I am. I only care that Zoey doesn’t feel my rejection for one more moment.
Zoey
I learned early that staying busy was a good strategy for keeping myself from having an emotional meltdown. I developed the technique at age five when I was tasked with holding angry signs emblazoned with my father’s offensive slogans.
The Hematite church was mainly comprised of family members and others from our small Alabama town. We’d pile into a couple of old school buses and travel to places that would garner my father the most media attention.
He started small, first in our tiny rural town, then nearby. Later, we drove to other states, and finally began pilgrimages all across the country. Now that I have distance from my childhood, I realize how abusive it was to make your preschool-age daughter hold signs that said, “God sent the fire,” when we visited a burned church, or “They deserved to die,” at servicemen’s funerals.
Although I couldn’t even read at that age, I carried the signs for years after, even when I could read the slogans that screamed of hate and intolerance. When everyone around you spews those beliefs and teaches you everyone else is a sinner, it takes a while to shake your thoughts free and discover right and wrong for yourself.
At some point, even though I believed my signs were gospel, I didn’t like the way the counter-protestors looked at me. I learned to dive into my work, holding my sign proudly so I didn’t tune in to the angry words protestors shouted back at me.
I’m trying to do that now. Trying to ignore Steele’s conspicuous rejection by paying attention to what people are saying as we figure out how to build the obstacle course. I’m not following any of it, but I wish I could. If I could just pay attention to this, I wouldn’t be wondering if I’ve driven Steele away permanently.
A warm body presses up against my back, and Steele’s silver arms wrap around my waist as he sets his chin on top of my head.
“Looks like your group could use some help,” he murmurs as he sways us both from side to side. Calm washes over me with just this touch. He’s proclaiming to anyone with eyes that he loves me, that we’re still mated. At least I hope that’s what’s happening.
Dipping his mouth to my ear, he whispers, “I love you, Zoey. I was…”
What? He was what? What would make him so angry at me?
“Upset about things in my head. I’ll explain later. Let’s build this course.”
“Glad to have your help,” Savannah says. “I’ve been watching American Gladiator since I was sitting on my dad’s knee. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and here’s what I’m suggesting. It’s going to be part American Gladiator , part Olympics, and part marine basic training.”
She pulls out a computer pad and shows us sketches of six original designs for competitions, each more elaborate and potentially dangerous than the next.
“Who’s going to compete?” I ask, my eyes wide in alarm. Certainly none of the women are going to engage in these dangerous activities.
“I am!” says every male within earshot.
“And I am,” Savannah and Nova chime in. Savannah was in the marines back on Earth and Nova fought as a gladiator for her first two years as a slave. Dr. Drayke, who is now her mate, reattached her arm after it was severed in her last match. I shouldn’t be surprised they want to compete. These women enjoy pushing their bodies to the limit.
The word, “Testing,” echoes through loudspeakers. “This is Callista. Did I really get this antique working? Yay!”
I’m not sure what Callista did before her abduction, but the moment we freed ourselves from our captors, she learned comms like a boss and hangs out on the bridge almost all day every day. She must have studied electronics or tech because whatever equipment she found in the high towers of the announcer’s booth must be ancient, yet she got it to work.
Wrage and Elyse from the Devil’s Playground are running up the steps to the booth. They’re holding hands and laughing. I’ve heard stories that they hated each other when they first met and then were somehow forced into marriage. It sounds like it was pretty dicey between them for a while, including the fact they had to get matching brands on their arms. Yikes! But it all worked out. Now they’re inseparable.
We turn our attention back to Savannah’s next creation when we hear Elyse say, “Okay, everybody, we’re going to get you all in the holiday mood. I gave a lot of thought to a song that was easy to sing and that wouldn’t baffle a certain contingent who doesn’t know who Santa is, what a reindeer is, what snow is, or what a sleigh is. We’ll sing songs about those, perhaps for advanced players only, another day.
“Today we’ve picked one that everyone can enjoy and sing along to. I want to hear you from way up here.” She waves from behind a window in the tall booth overlooking the stands. It must be plastic because it has withstood a lot of weather over a lot of years.
“I’m watching you! I want to see everyone’s mouth moving! If you enjoy this, we’re singing karaoke tomorrow. Okay everybody, if Wrage can sing this, everyone can. ‘Deck the Halls’.”
Singing! I love to sing when I’m alone. Because things were so weird with my father and my church, I have an unusual relationship with God, but I always feel close to Him when I’m singing. I only sing, though, when no one else will hear me. To the best of my knowledge, no other living soul has ever heard my voice. No one in my family, not even my mate.
I never sang Christmas songs because we weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas, but I know this one. You can’t live on Earth between Halloween and the first of the year without hearing all these songs a million times.
At first, Elyse just says the words, which are kind of ridiculous when you hear them because there are so many fa la la la las. The males in the group laugh nervously. I can only imagine they’re wondering how crazy Earth must be if this is a favorite song.
“Does she think we’re stupid?” Steele hisses into my ear. “She thinks we can’t remember the words to a basic song and is just speaking random syllables? Gladiators aren’t that thick.”
“Nope. Those really are the words.”
Then the strangest thing happens. After a stanza or two, it seems everyone in the huge arena has stopped what they’re doing and is singing along—except me.
Steele is now fully in the spirit, his voice hearty as he sings the final la la la and then peals with laughter. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard him sing before either. His voice is deep and mellow and right on key. I think I just fell in love with him all over again.
“I haven’t sung a festival song like that since I was a child. I didn’t know I could still do it. I don’t know what holly is, but singing about it felt amazing,” he says, his face stretched into a smile. “Why didn’t you sing, my mate?” his voice is low and tender as he speaks into my ear. He’s not mad at me anymore and I’m so grateful.
“Embarrassed,” I tell him.
He bends to kiss me, to make it all better, just as he’s tried to make things better for me since the first day we met. He’s never done this in public, though. Well, that’s not true. He certainly used to try when things were new between us.
He’d see Zar and Anya kissing on the lips and laughing like they just said something dirty, and, of course, he thought he could share his passion and affection in public just like them. It took many rebuffs for him to get the message that I couldn’t tolerate that.
He stands ramrod straight, having stopped himself from leaning to kiss me. I’m sure he’s felt my rejections far too many times to want to feel their sting again.
Do it, Zoey, I tell myself. Show him you’re changing. Let him see you’re trying.
I pull him down to me even as I reach on tiptoe to him, then put one palm on the back of his neck and another on his back, warm from the beating Fairean suns. It doesn’t feel natural at all to press my lips to his in the middle of this enormous arena. But I do it.
I don’t just give him a peck on the lips, either. I’m not just going to cross this bridge, I’m going to burn it to the ground. I nudge him closer to me until my breasts graze his naked chest. Even when I realize my nipples have beaded to hard points, I don’t step back. I move even closer.
The hand at the back of his neck slides upward, combing through his silky, black hair, gripping the soft strands and keeping him from pulling away. I can only imagine that every eye in the arena is watching us in shock—Zoey and Steele are showing PDAs, public displays of affection. And I don’t care.
His lips are stiff under mine until he realizes I’m giving permission. Then they turn soft as he kisses me back, then nibbles my bottom lip. I didn’t expect it, but desire sizzles along my veins with just this chaste touch.
He’s the one who puts on the brakes after licking the seam of my lips once, twice, three delicious times. Then he pecks my lips and pulls his head back. His navy-blue eyes wide with an unspoken question.
I smile at him as if there’s nothing broken between us. As if this wasn’t unusual. As if this wasn’t the loudest statement I know how to give that I love him and desire him and want us to have the best relationship of any couple on Fairea. Because we deserve it.
“Fa la la la la,” he sings as he shakes his handsome head with a laugh.