Caged Warrior

TWENTY-FIVE

Leto needed to get Nynn out of the Cage and back to the complex before too many pressures caused her mind to implode. Already, when he looked down into her heavy-lidded eyes, he saw nothing but defeat.

Sweat tinged with blood trailed down from her hair. A human would be dead by now. The concussive force. The blow to the back of her head. Her feet tripped along, but at least she was holding up the majority of her weight.

Get her out of here.

Keep her safe.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Although victorious, Silence and Hark stood quietly by. They were good warriors—better than good—because they had perfected self-defense of a different kind. Blank disinterest from her. Grinning idiocy from him. Those expressions were exactly what everyone anticipated seeing, which had allowed them to appear good little soldiers for so long. Leto had never considered them allies, but at that moment, he grasped at the best he could find.

Their plan . . .

The Old Man entered the Cage, as did Dr. Aster and the Pet.

The crowd quieted.

The Old Man was given a microphone. His rasping, crushed voice was even more threatening when amplified. “Our champion, Leto of Garnis. Defeated!”

While thousands celebrated the novelty, an honorable, loyal part of Leto pinched into a stone that dropped through to his gut. Emerging undefeated had been the goal. Once. Too long ago to remember. Now, he held Nynn, who was mostly conscious. He had dragged her through three matches, dodging her wrath along the way. He had succeeded.

Yet having to let go of that former glory was like ripping out his ribs. He needed his ribs. He needed his pride. The latter had been pulverized.

The rumble of shouts quieted as the Old Man continued gloating. Maybe that answered whether he’d be wrathful or pleased with the outcome. Had he lost part of the Aster fortune, Leto might as well resign himself to an execution in the preliminary round of the next Grievance—Leto, who’d won the entire tournament at age sixteen.

Again, he felt a tingle of that old simplicity. Fight. Win.

Nynn groaned and coughed up a fleck of blood.

Nothing was simple now.

Amid the chaos, the Pet walked with ethereal poise across the scuffed clay floor. She wore her customary black leather, from her spiked collar down to slim-fitting boots. Intensely black hair swept in freakish disarray across her brow, around her ears, down her neck. None of it mattered. She was a riveting beauty—untouchable and cold, but with features pure and unsullied, as if she’d never conjured a single thought.

She hunched close to Nynn’s body, touching, almost caressing the shattered armor.

“What in the Dragon . . . ?” Nynn whispered.

“No. Because of the Dragon.”

“Who are you?”

The Pet focused her bright green eyes on Nynn. “The Chasm isn’t fixed.”

“You’ve said that before. I don’t understand.” Her body was going into shock as she shivered against Leto’s side.

“Jack is waiting for you. Nothing will ever be perfect for our kind. But you will hold him again.”

With a strangled gasp, Nynn faltered. Leto caught her in his arms. At least his strength was good for something, because his thoughts were a tangle of wire and chain. He strode past the Asters and out of the Cage. The doctor’s laughter trailed after him like a dirty stench.

The stench of the labs.

Just out of sight of the madness in the Cage, Nynn sputtered back to life. She fought him, hard enough that they both collapsed onto the concrete floor of a walkway in the rear staging area.

“Say something,” he growled.

Too much. He couldn’t process this much at once. So he took it out on her.

“Talk to me, you useless woman!”

“Let me kill him.” She rolled onto her hands and knees. The dragon on her bare shoulder blade gave off that ominous, beautiful glow in the corridor’s dim light. Her armor was a lost cause, but the steel in her body remained. “He’s in the Cage. Right now. I’m going to kill him.”

“With what? Are you going to spit on him, too?” He grabbed her chin with none of the gentleness the Pet had used. “You’d better learn to play dumb fast. I don’t know what’s happening in that head of yours, but it’s all shaken loose. That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Everything. I don’t—like a car crash in my brain.”

Leto exhaled. “Brave girl.”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

He’d have thought himself too tired and abused, with his pride burned to cinders, but he managed a sick smile. “Then we’re partners again. I don’t either.”

“She said Jack is waiting for me.”

“That doesn’t mean a Dragon-damned thing. She’s like the doctor’s extra limb. Whatever she said was something he wanted her to say.”

He pushed to his feet. He could save Pell and keep Nynn from getting herself killed. If either of them was harmed, he’d take his rage out on Silence and Hark. The plan they’d suggested was tantamount to anarchy. What they’d actually done was take the choice out of his hands.

For the best.

He’d never adjusted well to change. Everyone knew that. Now he needed to move as quickly in his mind as he could with his body. He was no longer the Asters’ champion, and his future was not clear. All he knew was that Nynn remembered her son. That eased the tightness in his chest that he’d carried for months.

Leto pulled her face nearer until their foreheads touched. “We haven’t much time,” he said. “We’ll have to take the bus back to the complex.”

“There’s snow outside. We’re somewhere high altitude.”

A shudder traveled across his body in a slow but leveling journey. “Is that what it is? That smell of cold?”

She touched his face. “Yes, Leto.”

“You’re back to thinking about getting free.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Hark and Silence have a plan.”

“Incinerating me with my own gift,” she said with a hard twist of her lips. “Great.”

“I don’t know that I trust them either. But right now, you need to do just as I told you. Play dumb. Be as brainwashed and compliant as I was.”

“Was?”

He nodded while pulling her to her feet. “Was.”

“I don’t know whether to gloat or celebrate.”

“Both. But later. If they think you’re useless or dangerous, they might send you back to the labs.”

“I’d see my son again.” Her hands fisted within his.

“But without the means of setting him free. Think like them. The long game.” He dipped his head, only briefly. “It’s something I’m not used to doing.”

Darkness passed through her eyes. He watched it as if her soul were being poisoned. Voice flat, body trembling, she said, “I was Audrey MacLaren.”

Not again, Nynn. Don’t go.

But he forced his stiff neck to nod.

“Before that, I crippled my mother so badly that she’d begged for death. How could I have forgotten that?”

“You . . . ?” He touched her cheek as understanding dawned. “The psychic block. Calm yourself, or you’ll never sort through the answers.”

“I was already a killer. Who knew? I was meant to be in the Cages all along.”

“You weren’t. Not you. Not down here.” The vehemence of his reply startled them both. Logic be damned, he was being selfish—and it felt amazing. “Do this, Nynn. Do it or they’ll take you from me.”

Her expression softened. She leaned into where he still cupped her cheek. “We can’t have that, now, can we?”

Then, as if by the trick of some magician, her gaze went hazy and heavy-lidded and dead. She was no magician now. More like a blunt instrument. She straightened her shoulders. Even in that ruined armor, or perhaps because of it, she looked every inch a soldier tamed by the Asters. Humbled, yes, but still proud, ready to rise again.

He recognized that posture. He recognized that stance and that vacant acceptance. He’d seen it in the mirror every day since his adolescence, when defeat was more common than victory.

“I’ve turned you into a fiend.” His throat was tight enough to gag him.

“You’ve taught me how to survive. Let’s keep it that way.”

A curt nod.

They cleaned and stowed their weapons, soon joined by Hellix and Weil. Weeks had helped the woman recover from Nynn’s attack during her first Cage match.

“Well, well,” Hellix said. “The Thieves figured out how to turn your freak against you. The champion taken down.” His sneer warped into a smile without mirth. A pitiless expression. “Maybe your punishment about her tattoo will be the first of many. I’d love to be the man who struck the lash on both of your backs.”

At Leto’s side, Nynn didn’t even flinch. Because she didn’t remember, or because she was that in control? She’d teased Leto, and she remembered Jack. He had to trust that her blankness was an act, just as he’d encouraged.

“How did your match fare, Hellix?”

“I’ll rip out your tongue, lab filth.”

She arched a golden blond brow. “I guess that answers my question.”

With that snide reply, she put an end to Leto’s doubts. Nynn was back. She was returned to him. Now to keep from letting everyone else know that.

After the rest of the Asters’ warriors returned their weapons, they walked toward the airlock corridor. Silence and Hark assumed no boasting posture, each flicking glances at Nynn. Silence kept her expression as placid as always, but Hark radiated an air of accomplishment paired with eyes brimming with curiosity.

They’d done their part, it seemed, even without Leto’s consent. He may well owe them an apology—and the serious consideration of their plan.

As if nothing had happened, the Dragon Kings offered their wrists and accepted their manacles. Leto was shocked by the urge to fight back. His imprisonment was real. The heavy metal cuffs biting into Nynn’s slender wrists were real.

As was the one-two-three thump of the Old Man’s shuffling rhythm.

His steps echoed down the corridor long before he came into view. Perhaps he took to the shadows on purpose. Even Leto could not discern the exact shape of his body as he approached. That should’ve been possible, even while wearing the collar.

Other steps followed: one set assured, one like a ballerina on tiptoe.

Cold swept across Leto’s skin. Nynn had been able to mask her true feelings when faced with Hellix. But when faced with Dr. Aster? The man who’d abused her and who still held her son prisoner?

Leto could only trust that her mind was clear enough for strategy. Otherwise, he’d be forced to make a choice—one that shook him to his bones. He could play along just as well, hoping for the guarantee for Pell’s care to be honored, or he could risk his sister’s safety by jumping to Nynn’s defense.

♦ ♦ ♦

Nynn felt each and every one of her scars.

Not the ones Hellix had carved into her back, although she knew they were there. They would heal in time.

No, the scars she felt were burning reminders of hell. They scorched beneath her skin, where cauterizing blades had rendered even Dragon King cells unable to heal. She looked down at her left hand and remembered the anguish of when Dr. Aster had broken each middle knuckle. No one else would ever notice the difference, but she did. Her fingers didn’t line up just right.

Scars.

More scars.

And he held her son captive, if Jack was still alive.

She banked a shudder and cut that thought off at the knees. Jack was alive. She would’ve felt it carved into her marrow, had he been killed. She’d endured that grinding agony when Caleb was murdered.

Her task, as it had always been, was to keep her boy safe. That meant suppressing the nearly overwhelming urge to jump on Dr. Aster, wrap the manacle chains around his neck, and smile as he turned the color of a bruise. She would snap his neck.

A glance at Leto’s profile revealed the same determination. He was trusting her, just as he had in the Cages. He was trusting her to remember all her training, and that his sister’s future was on the line, too.

I hate them. I hate them all for what they’ve done to us.

Us. Because she and Leto were in this together.

She realized now that he had saved her from wearing their mark forever—the serpent that circled his skull. She owed him so many different apologies. She’d never get to tell him if she gave hint of her true feelings.

“Leto.” The Old Man’s voice was as raspy as dead leaves. “You did not emerge as champion.”

“My apologies, sir.”

“No apologies.” His warped smile was a chilling reminder that while Nynn hated the doctor, he was born of equally maniacal stock. “Silence and Hark performed wonderfully, as did you both. The family made a fortune today.”

The Sath pair were infuriating in their ability to match completely blank expressions. Even Hark, the smiling bastard, registered no emotion. Plans and tests and weak links. The Tigony were not the only tricksters among the Five Clans.

Nynn was still missing too many pieces to keep up.

The Old Man grinned and leaned heavily on his cane. “Your performance couldn’t have been more entertaining. I’m very pleased.”

“I’m glad of that, sir,” Leto replied. He sounded humbled but no less arrogant—quite the feat.

“And you, Nynn of Tigony? How do you feel?”

“Gratified that I did my duty for the family.” She couldn’t quite make herself say sir, when calling Leto by that title of respect had become a teasing joke between them.

“Good, good.” The Old Man ushered his son into the conversation. “You kept your partner whole for three matches. Such a remarkable job of training such a stubborn mind.”

Nynn remembered a time in the recent past—Dragon be, so many memories returning—when Leto would’ve taken genuine pleasure in such praise. She didn’t dare assess his expression to see if that was still the case.

Trust. Oh, Dragon damn. Just . . . trust.

“You not only survived, Nynn, but thrived in your natural element. I knew you would become remarkable. Your part in tonight’s drama was equally important.” He spread his hands. “Although you didn’t technically win the fight, I offer your choice of rewards.”

She felt rather than saw Dr. Aster become more attentive. He’d studied her for more than a year. He knew her weaknesses better than she knew her own. But those had been the weaknesses of a distant, grieving woman named Audrey. The sadistic doctor had no idea who she was now.

Long game, Leto had said.

Shutting away the request that Jack be freed was almost simple, but not without pain. She knew what she needed to do—stay hidden—and she would not deviate from that goal. Although she would never sacrifice him for a moment of selfish comfort, she was able to ask for that comfort when there was no choice to make.

“I didn’t technically win the fight,” she said, purposefully echoing his words. “But I would ask for the reward offered a winning warrior. I want a partner tonight. I ask to share Leto’s bed.”

Again, Leto stiffened. She was as attuned to him as she was to her own breath. Anyone with his senses would’ve been able to read them both like fresh newsprint. The men she faced were beasts in anonymous gray suits, but they were still human.

The Pet, however . . .

Hands clasped around the doctor’s upper arm, she made a noise that sounded more feline than human. Contentment? Appreciation? Nynn didn’t think it was because she’d chosen Leto over another warrior. Instead, the strange woman looked up with an expression of having shared a secret victory.

Pale, ethereal, possibly insane, the Pet was a Dragon King. If Nynn had ever doubted, she knew it as fact now. But what clan was she? What power did she possess?

“Request granted,” the Old Man said. “I’m glad to see that the Cages have brought out the more carnal side to a Tigony. No one would’ve expected that, but I enjoy seeing arrogance brought low.”

He glanced toward Leto. He might as well have hunted for signs of life in granite.

“Now, Leto, the time has come to honor the promise we made. Pell will no longer be a burden to Yeta and her young family. You will never need to worry about her future. My son will assume responsibility for her care. She will live out the rest of her days within the safety of his personal residence.”

“His personal residence, sir?”

“Yes, my champion.” A cagey, disgusting glint matched in the eyes of both father and son. “My son never likes to be far from his work. He lives in the labs. And so will Pell.”