Lois
“He is insane,” I mutter to myself, my hands on my face as I watch the screens through my fingers.
“He is literally- oh my God!” I gasp, my heart in my throat, when I see Az let go of the hoop and start plummeting into the deep mouth of the crevasse.
And then, just as I think I’m going to watch that big, stupid man fall to a big, stupid death, Puff and Lady swoop in and catch him on their saddled-up back right at the very last second.
“He certainly knows a cheap trick or two about show-male-ship,” Glex huffs beside me, unimpressed. “But one cannot win a game with fun little leaps.”
No words come to me for a while. I’m too busy watching Az fly on the back of that gigantic double-headed dragon creature around the arena. He swoops, and loops, walks along their necks, and dives straight off their snouts – mid-flight, mind you.
Forget about my heart being in my throat – my heart is in my ass right now while I watch this madness.
Does Az have a death wish? He must have thought that flight we took together the other night was child’s play with the way he’s riding that drak today.
It’s like they’re part of him. Like he trusts that wherever he is in that arena, they are going to be there for him.
And not just his drak, either.
At one point, Az is free-falling through the air, and their Arena Master, Rykor, conjures limbs to sprout from a tree for him to grab hold of, slowing his descent.
Then, when his feet finally do touch the ground, Az is surrounded by these awful-looking, massive demon-chimp monsters.
But this motherfucker looks as cool as a cucumber right before his teammates burst through the jungle undergrowth armed with an array of wicked-gruesome-looking-weapons, making the chimp-monsters go ‘poof’ into dust in no time.
Senator Glex shifts in his seat beside me before snappily signaling to a server to bring him another drink. I don’t think he likes that the Northern Principality team seems to be doing well. At least… I think they are.
“So,” I say, turning toward him. “How exactly does a team win this game?”
An upbeat chime goes off, and the Senator grumbles to himself as it seems Az’s team has collected enough advantage points to release another of their draks.
I reach out and touch his arm again. It’s a shitty manipulative tactic, really – offering touch to a species who is practically touch-starved to get what I want.
But I don’t think him sitting here getting more and more frustrated about his team being beat is going to make him want to listen to me.
I’m going to have to stroke that ego of his.
“Can you explain it to me, please?” I ask in the sweetest, most naive-sounding voice I can muster.
Glex looks down at the patch on his jacket sleeve where I’d touched him and swallows.
“Yes, well,” he says, composing himself.
“A team will collect advantage points to gain things at first – weapons, more power for their Arena Master, access to their draks. But once a team collects all the advantages available, their next points start to steal advantages from their opponents,” he explains before excitedly pointing at the screens.
“See! Like this! Capital just crossed the threshold of advantage points, and that last drakball my son scored took away the Northern team’s weapon!
Now they will have to use hand combat on any creatures we send their way! ”
He sounds way too happy about that.
“Ultimately,” he continues, taking his offered drink without even acknowledging the server.
“A team doesn’t need to steal their opponent’s advantages to win – but it helps.
To win, they just have to deactivate the game-stone on each of their opponents’ chests.
You either eliminate all players, or the team left standing with the most players still in the game at the final siren claims victory. ”
So that’s what that glowing blue gemstone on Az’s chest is? A game-stone? “How do you deactivate a stone?” I ask, genuinely curious now as I look at one of the screens showing Glex’s son, Zyre, flying on the back of his own drak, a ruby-red stone glowing on his chest.
Glex grins at me before taking a sip of his drink.
“Oh, it’s as simple as a touch – from a player, or a conjured creature,” he says, his eyes darting to my own chest as if imagining a game-stone there for him to touch.
“But no one gives it up that easily. There is normally a great deal of fighting before a game-stone goes out of play.”
There’s a moment or two where I wonder if I need to lean right into using flirting as my main manipulation tactic with this guy before he leaps to his feet and starts shouting at the glass.
“No! Why would you make a stupid move like that?! It’s too soon!
” he yells, banging the side of his fist on the glass window as he stares up at the screen showing the action in detail.
When I focus my attention on the game, I see one screen showing a tussle of Xaviann limbs – a fight breaking out on the back of a drak.
And then when I look to another screen, I see a slow-motion replay of Zyre flying his drak over Puff and Lady, only to drop down onto Az’s drak to try and sneak up on him.
Are… are Zyre and Az fighting on the back of a drak?!
Oh my God, this sport is crazy!
“No! NO! You fucking idiot!” Glex exclaims, pleading at the screens like he could change the outcome, his hands fisting his hair in frustration when he sees his son lose the fight and get tapped out – his red game-stone losing its glow after Az manages to touch it.
The cameras following the action split, one showing a defeated Zyre dismounting Puff and Lady when Az flies them close to a drak entrance area, halfway up the arena stalls – the other showing a smug-looking Az after successfully deactivating his rival First Drak Rider.
The close shot shows him spitting and then wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand as he rejoins the game.
Before I know it, a door from the far end of the Lords’ Gallery opens with a whoosh, and in steps the sweaty, dirty, imposing frame of Zyre.
“Unbelievable!” Glex bellows, striding up to his son. Glex is a full head-plus-horns shorter than Zyre, but he still points a finger in his face and mutters his angry whispers about being reckless during a training game.
I get the feeling he’s more mad about Zyre getting tapped out than any possible injury his son could pick up along the way, though.
Zyre’s eyes flick to me, over his irritated father’s horns.
He grunts in acknowledgment and sidesteps the Senator so he can approach, his pierced lip busted and bleeding.
He wipes the blood with his thumb and then sucks the digit clean, all while maintaining a level of eye contact that I’m sure could impregnate every woman in the room.
One of the female members of staff hurries up to him, offering a glass of something refreshing-looking. Zyre pauses and takes the drink with a casual bow of his head in thanks, sending the female Xaviann back to giggle with her friend behind the bar.
“Enjoying the spectacle, little human?” Zyre drawls, dropping his huge, shirtless frame onto the couch right beside me.
I can practically feel the heat coming from his body. Can see the dirt and dried blood and sweat coating his skin, muddying up the lines of his tattoos.
My eyes bounce away from his body only to land on Az out there still playing his sport, shoving a spear through the belly of a monstrous creature like he’s some kind of warrior god.
Damn it, I am not here to admire professional Xaviann athletes!
That’s when I see it – the back of Senator Glex’s horned head as he strides out of the Lords’ Gallery and into an area that I don’t think I’m allowed to follow.
My shoulders slump.
“Well, fuck, human,” Zyre says, chuckling softly into his drink. “I know it’s not been the best game to watch, but it can’t have been that bad.”
“What? No… It’s not that. I was just hoping to speak to your father more.”
He regards me for a moment before leaning forward to place his drink down on the coffee table, his elbows resting on his splayed legs. “What do you want from him?”
All I do is blink back. Is the jig up if I spill the beans to Glex’s son? Has this whole mission folded before it even began? I swallow and manage to say, “I want him to care… I want him to care about something very important.”
Zyre sighs and leans back against the couch. “Let me know if you figure out how to do that.”
“It-” I take a shaky breath. “Him caring about this could mean the difference between life and death for other humans – humans like me who were stolen from our homes and sold on to God-knows-who for God-knows-what.”
Zyre’s golden gaze holds mine for a moment before dropping down my body.
“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, lifting his butt off the couch to fish around in his back pocket.
He brings out a golden case. Flipping it open, I see what look like cigarettes, except they’re rolled in black papers with flecks of gold.
“Do not tell my coach or my father about these,” Zyre grins, holding the case out to offer me one.
“Finest moonweed you can find in the Capital.”
I hesitate and glance behind me at Zek. He’s standing behind the bar, watching me while simultaneously re-polishing their glassware. He shakes his head at me.
“Um… Thank you. But I don’t know how that stuff affects humans.”
Zyre shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says, taking a match and striking it against his right horn to light it.
Taking a drag, the end of the moonweed lights up in a lime green color, and I watch as Zyre blows pink smoke into the air – smoke that somehow creates the form of a small drak flying through the air.
The imposing male sits back, one arm spread across the backrest behind me as he blows smoke directly above us.
“If you want to get my father to care about something, all you need to understand are two words. Self. Interest,” he says before taking another drag.
“Senator Glex doesn’t do anything unless it benefits Senator Glex.
Be it for wealth, influence, or self-image.
Take his investment into this team,” Zyre says, gesturing around us.
“Do you think he would spend anything on this if it didn’t mean he could bring other Lords and Senators here to show off?
Do you think he would pump time and money into something if it didn’t mean he could present himself as a savior of the Capital’s team to the common folk?
” Zyre shakes his head and scratches at his chin with his thumb.
“The very first time that male learned the rules of this sport was the day he spent his first credit on the team. He is only ever interested if it makes him money, gives him influence, or makes him look good. There’s no room for anything else. ”
“But,” I start, shifting in my seat. “Him backing this cause would make him look good, right? He could help change the laws so that humans are protected and-”
“He already has causes. He makes a big song and dance about every one of them. People trust the male who runs a whole conservation planet, after all – it makes him look blessed by the Goddess San herself because he’s so overflowing with kindness and caring.
” He shudders like the whole thing makes him feel sick before leaning in, beckoning me to do the same.
“Listen, you need to know what buttons to push with my father? I don’t know what it is about that planet, but if I were you, I’d start looking there. ”
“The conservation planet?… The one Zann has been sent to?”
Zyre nods, quickly looking around to see who is watching us before ducking down again, leaning close enough to whisper.
“My family has owned it for generations. It started as a vacation planet, but people forget that part. It’s the jewel in my father’s crown whenever he’s trying to explain what a great and charitable male he is, but-…
he really did not like Prince Zannador being sent there, even though the king insisted.
There were heated conversations about not letting him see certain operations.
My thinking is that the best button you could try pushing is-”
A loud thump and cracking noise interrupts our whispered conversation. Both our heads whip up to see the glass wall in front of us. A huge fracture reaches across the pane, fanning out from one area where something had hit it. Hard.
And that something was standing right there, on the snout of his drak, glaring through the spiderweb lattice of glass cracks like he wants to murder Zyre right now.
“Get. The fuck. Away from her,” Az growls through the glass.
Leisurely, Zyre puts the moonweed to his mouth again, taking a long pull on the cigarette while leaning back against the couch.
The plume of pink smoke he puffs in the direction of the glass looks suspiciously like a human female.
It’s definitely hornless, for sure. And I won’t lie – those ample curves look a lot like me.
The pink smoke Lois disperses along the window’s surface to reveal Az’s furious expression on the other side.
I watch as he grunts and slaps his chest. It takes me a moment to realize he’d tapped himself out of the game, his game-stone no longer glowing as he settles back in the saddle and flies his drak off to presumably exit the arena.
Unhelpfully, Zyre chuckles, his head tipped back as he blows smoke up into the air. “Well, I guess we know which button to push to get to your prince, hm?”