Chapter 12
Ahrick
The training pits stank of blood and sweat and desperation.
I stood in the center of the ring, watching three fighters circle me like scavengers around a dying animal. They thought they had a chance. They thought numbers would give them an advantage.
They were wrong.
The first one lunged—a Kerzak with scarred arms and filed teeth. I sidestepped, caught his wrist, and used his momentum to slam him face-first into the dirt. The second came at me from behind. I spun, my elbow connecting with his jaw hard enough to crack bone.
The third hesitated.
Smart.
"Come on," I said, my voice flat. "You wanted to train with me. Let's train."
He came at me anyway. They always did. Pride or stupidity or some combination of both that made them think they could take down a Vaktaire in close combat.
I put him down in under ten seconds.
Around the ring, the other fighters watched in silence. Some with respect. Some with fear. All wondering if I was too hurt to be lethal. All of them calculating whether I was worth challenging or worth avoiding.
I didn't care which.
All I cared about was staying sharp. Staying ready. Because when the moment came—when I finally got my hands on Declan Hewes—I needed to be fast enough, strong enough, brutal enough to end him before he could hurt anyone else.
Before he could hurt her.
Merrilee.
My mate.
The knowledge sat in my chest like a stone. Heavy. Inescapable. True.
Somewhere deep inside, I'd known it the moment I saw her in that cage. The moment our eyes met and something in my chest shifted—like a lock clicking into place.
Being with her last night had only cemented what my soul had already known.
The taste of her on my tongue. The sound of her gasps as I brought her pleasure. The way she'd trembled in my arms, trusting me completely.
The way she'd touched me back.
Her small fingers wrapped around me, her eyes dark with desire and determination. She'd wanted to give me the same pleasure I'd given her. Wanted to learn my body the way I'd learned hers.
And when she'd made me come apart, when I'd buried my face against her neck to muffle the sound of my release, feeling my heart stutter in my chest. Felt it reach for hers, trying to sync, trying to complete what we'd started.
The Vaktaire mating bond.
For centuries, we'd thought the bond would kill anyone who wasn't Vaktaire. The moment when hearts stop, then start again, beating in perfect synchronization with your mate's forevermore. We'd believed only our own females could survive it.
Then Chieftain Khaion—now Ambassador Khaion—had taken a human mate. And she'd survived. Thrived, even.
Since then, dozens of Vaktaire warriors had bonded with human females.
I knew Merrilee was meant to be mine in a way that went deeper than choice or circumstance or survival.
And I couldn't claim her.
Not here. Not like this. Not while I was a prisoner on Palaydium with no future beyond the next fight, the next day, the next breath.
I wouldn't tie her to that. Wouldn't chain her to a life of captivity and violence and slow death.
The cost of that choice was written into my body with every breath I took.
Even now, standing in the training ring with the stink of blood and sweat thick in the air, I felt her.
The awareness hummed beneath my skin like a second pulse.
The memory of her heartbeat echoed in my chest, a phantom percussion that didn't quite sync with my own.
Close enough to recognize. Far enough to ache.
My heart wanted to match hers. Wanted it with a biological imperative that hadn't to do with choice or logic or survival.
Last night, lying beside her in that narrow bed, I'd felt my pulse stutter and skip, trying to find her rhythm. Trying to lock into the pattern that would complete us both. My chest had tightened with the effort of resisting—actual physical pressure, like a fist closing around my lungs.
I'd had to concentrate on breathing. Had to remind myself to inhale, exhale, maintain the independent rhythm that kept us separate.
When she'd touched me—her small hands learning the shape of my scars, her fingers wrapping around me with that devastating combination of curiosity and desire—I'd felt the bond reach for her like a living thing.
A tendril of connection trying to bridge the gap between us.
My skin had felt too tight, stretched over a frame that wanted to expand, to encompass her, to pull her into the space where our heartbeats could finally synchronize.
For a moment, I'd almost let go. Almost surrendered to the pull and let my heart stop, let it restart in sync with hers, let the bond complete itself and damn the consequences.
But I couldn't.
Because completing the bond here, in this place, would tie her to a male with no future. A prisoner. A killer. Someone who would die on this hellhole planet eventually, and when I did, the severed bond would destroy her too.
So I held back.
This morning, I'd woken with her curled against my side, her head on my shoulder, her breathing slow and even in sleep. And my heart had tried again—that involuntary reach, that biological imperative to sync our rhythms.
I'd felt it stutter. Skip a beat. Pause for half a second too long.
Then restart, still independent. Still separate.
Still wrong.
The ache had spread through my chest like a bruise, radiating outward until my ribs felt too tight and my lungs couldn't quite expand fully.
I'd lain there in the darkness, listening to her breathe, feeling my heart beat out of sync, and understood with brutal clarity exactly what I was doing to myself.
I was choosing slow death over the risk of her destruction.
And I would make that choice every day for the rest of my life if it meant keeping her safe.
But what if there was another way?
The Prime's offer echoed in my mind, the words I'd been trying not to think about since she'd spoken them. Kill Hewes, and you're paroled.
Freedom.
The word tasted foreign on my tongue. I'd stopped believing in it years ago. I'd accepted that living the rest of my life on Palaydium was my penance. That a warrior who'd killed innocents, didn't deserve redemption. Didn't deserve a future.
Didn't deserve her.
But Merrilee had looked at me like I was worth saving. Like the blood on my hands didn't define me. Like the man I'd been before still existed somewhere beneath the scars and the guilt and the violence.
For the first time since the transport had dumped me on this gods-forsaken rock, I let myself want something beyond the next breath. Let myself imagine a life where I could complete the bond without condemning her to die beside me in the wasteland.
Where I could be worthy of her.
The thought terrified me more than any opponent I'd ever faced.
Because wanting something meant having something to lose.
So I held back. Kept that final barrier between us. Refused to claim her fully even though every instinct I had screamed at me to complete the bond, to make her mine in a way that nothing could break.
Even if it killed me.
"Ahrick."
I turned. One of Persico's guards stood at the edge of the ring, his expression carefully neutral.
"You're wanted."
My jaw tightened. "By who?"
"Does it matter?"
No. It didn't. Thought I suspected it was Persico wanting to torment me about claiming Merrilee. We hadn't exactly been quiet last night, and I suspected news of our joining had reached his ears.
I followed the guard through the compound, my senses on high alert. We moved past the corridor that would have taken us to Persico's throne room, heading to the lower level.
The guard stopped at a reinforced door, knocked twice, then stepped aside. "He's expecting you."
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The office was cleaner than the rest of Fange City. Actual furniture instead of scrap metal. A desk. Chairs. A comm unit that looked new enough to still have its factory coating.
And behind the desk, Declan Hewes.
He looked up as I entered, and something cold slithered through my gut. He was smiling. The smile of a man who enjoyed causing pain.
He was tall for a human—not as tall as me, but taller than most of his kind.
Silver threaded through the dark hair at his temples, giving him a distinguished look that seemed calculated.
His clothes were Earth-made, I realized.
A pressed shirt and jacket. Pristine. Immaculate.
Completely out of place on a prison planet where everything else was covered in dust and blood and desperation.
"Ahrick," he said pleasantly. "Thank you for coming."
I didn't sit. Didn't move from my position near the door. "What do you want?"
"Straight to business. I appreciate that." He leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. "I have a proposition for you."
"Not interested."
"You haven't heard it yet."
"Don't need to."
His smile widened. "It concerns Merrilee."
Every muscle in my body went rigid. "What about her?"
"Your next fight." He pulled up a holo-display, showing the roster. "You're scheduled against a new prisoner, a Draxian named Korroth. Big bastard. Mean. He's being sent here for a slaughter on Turaxxan-7."
"So?"
"So I need you to lose."
The words floated in the air like stinging insects.
"No."
"I'm not asking, Ahrick. I'm telling you." He dismissed the holo-display with a flick of his wrist. "Korroth has connections to someone with access to shipping routes I require. He wants a prize. Specifically, he wants Merrilee."
My vision went red at the edges. "Merrilee isn't for sale."
"Perhaps," Hewes agreed. "But she can be won. If Korroth beats you, Persico will award her to him as prize. And in turn Korroth will give me the information I need."
I felt my claws extend involuntarily. "Draxians are brutal bastards. They've been known to kill females during mating."
"I'm aware of their... proclivities." Hewes's tone was utterly indifferent.
"She's human. She wouldn't survive it."
"Probably not." He examined his fingers, examining his fingernails. "But that's the price of doing business."