Chapter 7
Merrilee
The guards brought me to what they called the "prize room."
I didn't know what I'd expected. A cell, maybe. Something dark and filthy that matched the rest of this nightmare. But when they shoved me through the door and locked it behind me, I found myself standing in something that looked almost... normal.
A hotel suite. Not the Hilton—more like one of those clean roadside motels where truckers stopped for the night. But compared to the holding room at Persico's compound, and the cage I'd been displayed in, it was practically luxury.
There was a bed. Big. The sheets looked clean, which was more than I could say for anything else in Fange City.
I moved closer, drawn by something I couldn't name, and touched them.
Actually soft. My fingers lingered on the fabric, and I realized I was trembling.
The holding room had smelled like rust and old blood and things I didn't want to identify.
This smelled like... nothing. Like neutral air.
A small kitchen setup occupied one corner—a counter, what looked like a cooling unit, a heating element. I opened the cooling unit and found it actually cold inside, filled with several containers of water.
Behind a partition, I saw a shower, sink, and toilet.
Real plumbing. I stepped toward it like someone in a trance and turned on the shower.
Water came out. Hot water. Steam rose up and fogged the small mirror hanging over the sink.
I stared at my reflection—bruised face, hollow eyes, the sheer dress clinging to my body like a second skin of shame.
The disconnect was making my head spin. They'd dressed me like a whore, paraded me in front of thousands of screaming aliens, displayed me in a cage like livestock, and now they'd put me in a room that looked like it belonged to someone who mattered. Someone worth basic dignity.
But this wasn't about me. They wanted the victor to be able to enjoy his prize.
Dread pooled in my stomach. I knew what came next.
At least he was the good-looking one.
The thought came unbidden, and I hated myself for it.
But it was true. The fighter who'd won—Ahrick, they'd called him—was massive and muscular and clearly not human, but there was something about him.
The way he'd looked at me in the cage. The way he'd fought.
The way he'd gotten hurt because he'd been watching me instead of his opponent.
I moved to the bed and sat down, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me. The mattress was softer than I'd expected. I ran my hand over the sheets and felt something in my chest crack.
Don't cry. Whatever happens don't let the bastard see you cry.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. Heavy. Uneven.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
The door opened.
Ahrick limped in, and the sight of him drove the air from my lungs.
He was covered in blood. It soaked through his pelt, matted and dark, running in rivulets down his chest and arms. The gash across his torso—the one he'd taken because of me—was deep enough that I saw the muscle beneath, saw how it pulled with each breath he took.
His face was bruised, one eye swollen nearly shut. He moved like every step hurt.
But his eyes—those strange, intense eyes—found mine immediately.
"Are you okay?"
I stared at him blinking, my mouth open, unable to form words. He was asking if I was okay? He looked like he'd been through a meat grinder and he was asking about me?
Before I could answer, he held up one hand. A signal.
Silence.
His head tilted toward the door, and I understood. The guards were still out there. Listening.
We stood frozen, him swaying slightly on his feet, me sitting on the edge of the bed with my heart slamming against my ribs.
Seconds stretched. A minute. Two.
Finally, Ahrick's shoulders relaxed slightly. "They're gone."
He straightened as much as his injuries would allow, and something shifted in his posture. Despite the blood, despite the wounds, there was a formality to the gesture that seemed almost... courtly.
"I'm Ahrick," he said.
I gaped at him. The absurdity of it hit me all at once—this massive alien warrior, covered in his own blood, standing in what amounted to a prison cell, introducing himself like we'd just met at a dinner party.
But there was something in his eyes. Something that said this mattered to him.
My throat felt tight. "Merrilee," I managed. "Merrilee Sanchez."
He nodded, like I'd just given him something important. "Merrilee."
The way he said my name—careful, deliberate—made something twist in my chest. His voice was rough, like gravel scraped over metal. Exhausted.
I found my voice. "You're bleeding."
"I know."
"You're bleeding a lot."
"I know."
I stood up, my hands twisting in the fabric of the dress, what little there was of it. The question I needed to ask sat on my tongue like poison, but I forced it out anyway.
"Where do you want to do it?"
He blinked. "Do what?"
Heat flooded my face. "You know. Sex. Where do you want—"
"No."
The word was sharp. Final. And he looked... offended?
I shook my head, making sure my ears worked. "What?"
"That's not why I won you."
"Then why—" If not for sex... I didn't even want to think of the alternative.
"To protect you." He said it like it was obvious. Like there could be no other reason.
My mind went blank. "You don't even know me."
"Knowing someone doesn't mean they don't deserve protection."
"Then why would you—"
"A friend asked me to find you. To help you." He moved toward the bed, each step clearly agonizing. "Nansar. He said you'd be coming to Fange City. Said you'd need protection."
Nansar. I knew the name. Duke Ako's son, who been a party to his father's assassination attempt and sent to Palaydium for his crimes. He'd been instrumental in rescuing Admiral Blackwood's daughter Chloe and earned a pardon.
"I don't understand."
Ahrick lowered himself onto the bed with a groan that sounded like it came from somewhere deep in his chest. "The others—the fighters in the pit. They would have hurt you." His eyes met mine, and there was something fierce in them. Something absolute. "I couldn't let that happen."
"Will you hurt me?"
"Never."
The word hung in the air between us.
I believed him.
I didn't know why. Didn't know anything about him except that he'd nearly gotten himself killed to win me.
But I believed him.
"Do you work for the Prime?" I asked, trying to piece together how this all fit. If he was some kind of agent, perhaps the Alliance operative the Prime had mentioned.
Ahrick laughed. The sound was rough, humorless, and it made him wince as it pulled at his injuries. "Of a sort."
The way he said it—bitter, mocking—told me everything I needed to know about how he felt about that arrangement.
There was history there. Whatever connection Ahrick had to the Prime, it wasn't loyalty. It seemed something closer to a leash he was trying to slip. Like me.
He lay back on the bed, his body going slack, and another groan escaped him. Blood was still seeping from the gash across his chest, staining the sheets beneath him.
"Don't they let you see a medic?" I asked.
He laughed. It was a bitter sound. "In the pit? No."
"That's insane."
"That's Fange City."
I looked around the room, my mind racing. There had to be something. They couldn't just expect fighters to bleed out after every match.
I found the first aid kit in one of the cabinets near the kitchen. It was basic—bandages, antiseptic, something that looked like it might be for stitching wounds. Not much, but better than nothing.
I brought it back to the bed and sat down beside him.
"I need to clean this," I said, gesturing to the gash across his chest.
He nodded, his eyes already half-closed.
I opened the antiseptic and poured it onto a clean cloth. The smell was sharp, chemical. When I pressed it to his wound, he hissed but didn't pull away.
Up close, I mapped the reality of this warrior.
Scars. Dozens of them, crisscrossing his torso and arms. Some old and faded, some newer. Evidence of a life spent fighting, surviving.
But beneath the scars was muscle. Dense and powerful. The kind of strength that came from years of training, of pushing a body past its limits.
I cleaned the wound as carefully as I could, my hands steadier than I'd expected. He watched me work, his breathing evening out, and I tried not to think about how close we were. How his body radiated heat. How the pelt on his chest felt softer than it looked.
Don't, I told myself. Don't go there.
But my hands noticed anyway. Noticed the way his muscles tensed when I touched a particularly sensitive spot. Noticed the scars that told stories I'd never hear. Noticed the vulnerability in how he lay there, trusting me to tend his wounds.
"Who are you really?" I asked, threading a needle to stitch the deepest part of the gash.
I had no real medical training—no formal education in anatomy or wound care. But growing up on Grandpa's ranch had taught me things that mattered more than textbooks. How to stay calm when an animal was bleeding. How to stitch torn flesh.
I'd sewn up horses, cattle, even the ranch dogs when they got into scraps with coyotes. Alien skin wasn't so different, I told myself. Flesh was flesh. Blood was blood.
The needle pierced his skin, and I pulled the thread through with remembered skill. My grandfather's voice echoed in my memory: Steady now, Merrilee. Don't rush it. Clean stitches heal better than fast ones.
"Just a prisoner."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have." He winced as I made the another stitch.
I worked in silence for a moment, focusing on keeping the stitches even.
"I appreciate your help. But I have a mission."
The word mission felt too grand for what I had. Too official. Like something soldiers said, or spies in the movies Grandpa used to watch on Saturday nights. What I had was rage. What I had was a burning need to make Declan pay that consumed me from the inside out.