by Lili Zander
My body can’t hide its reaction to her either. Seated on my lap, she’s got to be able to feel my arousal. A pity. Right now, Raven Unnuk is terrified of me, and my reaction is making her fear worse.
“I’m sure she’ll do everything I ask, won’t you, little one?” I say for Zimmer’s benefit. The Overlord needs to believe we want to bed this woman. That we’re thinking with our cocks.
“Yes, my Lord,” she whispers, every line in her body stiff and unresponsive and afraid.
I’m not going to take you against your will, Raven Unnuk.
Zeke, who is the most honorable man I know, who must be revolted at the idea of causing her fear, winks at the Overlord. “I think she’ll be very amusing,” he says, undoing the fastenings of her jumpsuit until her cleavage comes into view. Even though this situation is dangerous, my cock hardens when the creamy swell of her breasts is exposed.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Pull yourself together.
Zeke’s thumb brushes the woman’s nipple, and the Overlord drinks in the sight greedily. I clear my throat, annoyed by the idea of him watching, his beady little eyes filled with lust. “The tournament,” I remind him. “Raven Unnuk will be participating.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sponsoring someone this year as well. I’ll be interested to see what your human will do against mine. It’ll make for good sport, don’t you think?”
“It will,” I agree, trying to figure out how quickly we can get the hell out of here. “I’m assuming that the competitors will be announced to the waiting crowds now?”
“Yes, along with their sponsors.” He gives Raven a hard stare. “You made some bold promises back there,” he says. “But talk is easy. Let’s see if you have skill enough to survive.”
9
Raven
Boarus 4
Sundown, FifthDay of FourthMonth
Part of me is very afraid. I’m way out of my depth here.
There's another smaller, stupider part of me that's turned on.
On FirstDay, Joanna had been gushing about Prince Ragnar, and I remember thinking I couldn’t ever see myself desiring a vampire.
I could not have been more wrong. These vampires are three of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen in my life.
What the hell is the matter with you, Raven? Your parents were executed because they were accused of plotting against the Empire. How could you possibly find vampires attractive after that?
The Overlord leaves the room. The moment he's gone, Saber moves me off his lap. Out of nowhere, he produces a med-wipe and cleans my arm, the one that the guard used as a pincushion. “Listen to me,” he whispers into my ear. “Zimmer doesn’t want you in the tournament. I forced his hand, sponsoring you.” His voice is tense. “He’s going to come after you. Stay close to us, and we will protect you.” His glacier-blue eyes rest on me. “Please.”
Please? I blink in confusion. Something’s not right here. Not Saber’s assessment that Zimmer is a danger to me; I completely agree with him on that. But the vampires don’t ask; they take. They don’t say please. Not to a human.
The vampire next to him—Zeke—takes the med-wipe from Saber and tosses it in the fire. He fiddles with a button on his uniform, and then nods to Saber. “We’re clear to speak.” He gives me an embarrassed look. “I’m really sorry about pawing you.”
I don’t understand. They’ve bought me. “Why? It is your right, my Lord.”
“Explain.” The other man, Nero, has a dangerously hard look in his eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
Saber and Zeke exchange glances. “On Boarus 4,” Saber says carefully, “A vampire that sponsors a human for the Night of the Shayde essentially owns them for the duration of the tournament.”
Nero’s hands clench into fists. “You knew about this.”
“Yes,” Saber admits. “I didn’t want to tell you, for obvious reasons.”
They’re having an argument, which feels so surreal. I never thought that our vampire masters would squabble amongst themselves. It seems so normal. Shouldn’t they be having an orgy instead? Shouldn’t they be demanding that I strip and part my legs so they may take their pleasure?
“I’m not made of glass,” Nero snaps back.
“Fair enough,” Saber replies. “I should have told you. I didn’t think it’d become relevant.”
The three of them turn to look at me. “Why did you want to enter the tournament so badly?” Zeke asks.
If I close my eyes, I will remember the feel of his thumb brushing over my nipples. I will remember the weight between my legs as I sat on the lap of one obviously aroused vampire, while another ran his hands all over my body.
I’d let them do whatever they wanted, of course; I didn’t have a choice in the matter. But buried underneath where I can’t examine it, there’s a hard, uncomfortable truth, one I flinch away from. I’d been turned on by their touch.
“The winner gets a lifetime waiver of the blood tax.”
Saber raises his eyebrow. “That’s the only reason?”
I can’t tell them that the enforcers are searching for me. If they find out, they will turn me in to the Overlord.
“Yes, my Lord.”
Nero frowns. “Stop that.” He opens his mouth to say something else, but there’s a knock on the door, and a servant slides it open. “It is time to present the contestants to the assembled citizens, my Lords.”
“Fine,” Saber snaps. He gets to his feet and extends his hand to me. “Let’s go get this over with.”
The contestants line up to be introduced one by one. I wait in the wings, with the three vampires close to me. The way they surround me feels weirdly protective.
The other contestants eye me curiously but don’t talk to me. The vampires who sponsored them ignore me as a matter of course. On the other hand, they’ve very deferential to Saber, Zeke, and Nero. Lucky them.
“Introducing the first contestant, sponsored by Overlord Klaus Zimmer himself, I give you Tomas Cabal.”
A cheer rings out, and Tomas, a tall young man with wavy chestnut brown hair steps onto an open-roofed skimmer and glides out into the crowd.
Once he’s lapped the perimeter, the next contestant, Bailey Ware, a girl with pink braids is introduced. She steps onto the skimmer along with her sponsoring vampire, and the assembled crowd cheers again.
“You look nervous.” It’s the vampire with the short, spiky hair. Zeke. He gives me a kind smile. “Don’t be. You’re a miner in a mining colony. Everyone’s going to be cheering for you.”
“That’s exactly what I’m nervous about,” I murmur before I realize who I’m talking to. “My apologies, my Lord.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not very big on formality. Call me Zeke.” He puts his hand around my waist and tugs me against him. “Zimmer has eyes and ears everywhere,” he whispers, under cover of the cheers that ring out as the next contestant is introduced. “Just play along. We’ll explain everything as soon as we get a chance.”
Explain what?
A vampire looks up and gives us a searching look, and I stiffen instinctively before relaxing against Zeke. Zeke waits until the vampire turns away. “You don’t like the hopes and dreams of everyone here resting on you?”
I think of Joanna Placzek’s brother Mical, serving an eighteen-month sentence for standing up to the Overlord’s second-in-command, Olaf Vandar.
To Mical, I represent a future beyond the re-education camp.
To the watching miners, I represent hope. Something to be optimistic about. A dream to cling to during the long hours of back-breaking work.
Everyone in the camps and in the mines would love to see me win. But I don’t care about the tournament. I just want a way off Boarus 4.
I don’t tell Zeke that, of course. He might seem friendly, but he’s a vampire. If he finds out that I’m the woman the Overlord’s men are hunting, he will turn me in. “I don’t want to let them down.”
“Why would you? If you spent ten years in the re-education
camps, you know how to survive. You know how to win.” His gaze rests on me, dark and serious. “Don’t let yourself forget who you are, Raven Unnuk.”
The ninth contestant enters the arena. My heart is hammering in my chest, and my palms are damp with sweat. Discreetly, I wipe them on my jumpsuit. Zeke is right, I tell myself. You survived the re-education camps. After that, you can do anything.
“Finally, our tenth contestant. Sponsored by our honored guests from Starra, Colonel Saber Hafsson, Captain Zeke Ulrich, and Captain Nero Calorio, we have Raven Peace Unnuk.”
Hafsson. Why does that name seem familiar? I have no time to ponder the mystery; it’s time to head into the crowd. With shaking knees, I step onto the skimmer and nearly fall right off. Saber steadies me, his grip strong, and he squeezes my hand.
The skimmer slides forward.
The lights in the arena almost blind me, after the relative dimness of the interior, and at first, I can’t see. I can hear though. I expect enthusiasm, but the roar of sound that greets me when my skimmer glides out into the open still takes me by surprise. The crowd surges to its feet, chanting my name.
I know I’m supposed to savor this moment, but it just makes me sick to my stomach. I feel like a fraud.
Once the introductions are done, the Overlord takes the stage in the middle of the arena. “I have an exciting announcement to make,” he says, his voice reverberating around the arena. “Prince Ragnar will be honoring us with his presence. He will be attending this year’s tournament.”
Saber swears under his breath. “You have got to be kidding me. As if this wasn’t complicated enough.”
Huh. What’s that about?
The Overlord says a few words about Prince Ragnar, and then he moves on to talking about the tournament. I return my attention to him. “There are ten contestants in this year’s tournament,” he says. “Last year, I devised five tasks that tested their strength, their ingenuity, and their skill.”
The first task is usually something pretty benign. Last year, if I remember correctly, the contestants had to chop a hole through the ice to reach the ice-fish underneath, and the first person who caught a fish won the round.
“This year, I’ve decided to change things,” he announces. “There won’t be five rounds. Just one.”
Everyone’s listening now. “Our planet is mostly ice. To win this year’s Night of the Shayde, our ten contestants will attempt to survive it. My men will place flags in Glacis in five locations, each one eight hours apart. The contestants will need to retrieve all five flags.” He turns to us. “You will be given a map, a tent, and enough food to last two days. You will need to forage for the rest. Rest well until the tournament begins, contestants, and conserve your energy. You’re going to need it.”
Whoa. If each flag is eight hours apart, the Overlord intends for us to spend at least five days on Glacis. Out there, on the ice, with just two days of food. This is insane.
I see fear on the faces of the other contestants. Even Tomas Cabal, the Overlord’s chosen champion, looks shell-shocked. The ice desert is a part of our planet, but not too many people venture out into Glacis on foot. Why would they? It’s brutally cold out there. The wind rages, blowing up shards of ice that feel like a thousand tiny knives against your frozen body. The s’kal cats hunt in packs during the day, and only fire will deter them.
Boos break out from the crowds. “This is impossible,” voices shout. “They won’t survive.”
The Overlord’s eyes rest on me, glittering with malice. He doesn’t have to speak the words out loud for me to understand that this is a message.
Saber’s right. Overlord Klaus Zimmer is definitely trying to kill me.
10
Nero
Boarus 4
A few hours past midnight, FifthDay of FourthMonth
Fuck Zimmer. Fuck this stupid, backward, world, and fuck the Empress, Prince Ragnar, and the Ruling Council for turning a blind eye to the plight of the humans on Boarus 4, all so the Empire can receive a steady supply of boarium.
“Saber, this is insane,” I murmur as the crowd reacts to Zimmer’s announcement. The contestants are pale and unnerved. Except for Raven, who wears no expression on her face. “Look at them. They won’t make it a day out there. You’re not going to stand for this, are you?”
I have great respect for the Colonel. More than that, I genuinely like him. Other officers are rigidly attached to protocol. In any other unit, I’d probably never be able to speak to my superior officer this way. Not unless I want to pull latrine duty for months on end.
“No, I’m not.” Saber’s eyes are hard. “Zimmer’s in a tough bind financially, but that doesn’t give him the right to toy with ten lives.”
He waits until we’re back in the audience chamber, and then he approaches the Overlord. “This is an impossible task,” he says evenly. “A death sentence for some of your contestants, most likely.”
“So what?” Zimmer asks, his tone indifferent. “What if a few humans die? They’ll be easily replaced. We have ten thousand of them in this colony alone, and they breed like bush-grubs, wild and uncontrolled.”
If Raven hears what he says, she gives no indication. She’s standing with her back against a pillar, saying something to Zeke. A smile plays about her lips, but her eyes are wary. Guarded.
Even in her drab clothing, she stands out. She’s beautiful. Bright eyes, fantastic boobs, nice ass. But that’s not the reason my gaze keeps returning to her. There’s something about Raven. An instinctive sense that she’s similar to me. That underneath our defenses, we’re both wounded.
She said she spent ten years in Glacis and another four in the mines. She looks roughly my age. Twenty-four, twenty-five?
She would have been a child when she was sent to the re-education camps.
This fucking planet. This fucking Overlord. And the rest of the Empire, we’re all complicit in a system that sends children to jail. For ten years.
Saber clenches his hands into fists and straightens to his full height. “Nobody dies,” he says coldly, staring into the Overlord's eyes. “Do you understand me? They get all the supplies they need. A surplus of rations. Warm clothes. A communicator. Shelter. Everything. If anyone gets killed out on the ice, I will hold you personally responsible.”
The two men glare at each other. Zimmer is making his calculations. Saber is a Colonel of the Imperial Army, one who carries the might of the Empire on his shoulders. He vastly outranks the administrator of a remote colony far away from Starra.
On the other hand, Zimmer controls the mines and has ensured a steady supply of boarium for the last eleven years. If matters came to a head, which one of them would survive?
It seems that Zimmer isn’t ready to find out. Not yet, at any rate, and not over something so trivial. He averts his gaze. “Very well,” he says curtly. “My enforcers will patrol the ice deserts from the air and keep an eye on the contestants. If they appear to be in trouble, we will rescue them.”
Good.
Zeke’s attention is on the stand-off, but I watch Raven. Her eyes widen when Saber goes head-to-head with the Overlord. She seems shocked that he’s willing to intercede on behalf of the humans.
I can’t really blame her for her surprise, and I certainly cannot blame her for being suspicious. Given her experiences so far, it would be a miracle for her to think well of us.
The Overlord bares his fangs into a smile. “Now that’s settled,” he says. “It’s time for a celebratory banquet. You will join us, won’t you, Saber? Bring along your new possession, if you'd like.”
My temper flares sharply. She is not a possession. I open my mouth to say something hot and angry, but a slicing hand-movement from Saber shuts me up.
“I must decline,” Saber replies smoothly. “As you pointed out, Klaus, I have a new toy, one I’m quite eager to play with.”
Raven definitely hears that. Her body tenses, but her eyes are resigned. She expects to be taken by us, with or without her co
nsent.
I want to burn this world down.
We’re staying in the house that the Overlord uses to impress his visiting guests. It's an ornate building, made of expensive stone that has been imported from Starra. The luxury seems out of place in this harsh world, but then, I’d expect no different from Zimmer.
Since we can’t risk letting Raven out of our sight, we take her there after the arena. Her mouth falls open as she takes in the tiled walls, the floors that are covered with carpets and furs, the many cushions everywhere, and the flames burning brightly in three fireplaces. “It’s so warm,” she marvels. “Almost too hot to wear clothes.”
I wink at her, flirting out of habit. “If you want to take them off, little human, we won’t stop you.”
Zeke gives me a disgusted look. Rightly so. So does Saber. “Make yourself at home,” he says. “Zeke, Nero, I need to talk to you.”
We go into a bedroom and shut the door. Zeke checks the blocking disks to make sure it’s safe to talk. When he’s sure we cannot be spied on, he looks up at Saber. “What’s going on?”
The Colonel runs his hands through his hair. “We’re in trouble.”
“Why?”
“Her blood is tainted.” At my blank look, he sighs in frustration. “Do you not know your own history? She’s carrying a disease that can potentially kill every vampire that drinks from her.”
I stare at him in shock. “That’s the weapon Levitan built?”
“Yes. I ran into something similar on my first mission, but it got hushed up.” He takes a deep breath. “What is the General playing at? He would have known I’d figure it out.”
“Would he?” Zeke asks. “If it was your first mission, it was before Levitan was your commanding officer. If it got hushed up, would he have known?”