Caged Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  And wept.

  She was too depleted to cry as forcefully as the pain demanded. Leto’s tenderness, however . . . just when she’d thought all softness crushed . . .

  “I’m here, brave girl.”

  Indignation forced her to suck in a hard, fast gulp of air. “You’re here? Now?” A push. A twist. She tried to get free of how dangerous he was. Four words—and she’d wanted to melt into him forever. “Where were you when Dr. Aster planned to beat me? You carried me here and handed me over. Hellix tried to break my back, one strip of flesh at a time. You fought, but by then it was too late.”

  Keeping her close must’ve been as difficult for him as restraining a mad kitten. He closed his big hands over her upper arms, held her, wouldn’t let her go. Protests or not. Insults or not. He wasn’t letting go.

  The light was scant, but it was enough for Nynn to catch sight of his right wrist. That perfect golden skin was circled with angry red welts—the bracelet only a sadist would bestow. She was strong enough to find his left wrist, where his large hand cradled almost the entire length of her forearm. Another repulsive welt.

  Fascinated, sickened, she traced the red weal with her fingers. Every movement was spasmodic, like a junkie three days into detox. Didn’t matter. The tender, raised flesh banding both wrists was proof that what she’d witnessed hadn’t been the last of his torture.

  It was safer to cast him as yet another villain, but to think of Leto as a villain was an outright lie.

  “I’m here now,” he said, low voice impossibly rough. “They wouldn’t let me before.”

  “What else did they do to you?”

  “Nynn, there’s no changing it now.”

  She coughed out something manic and twisted—something like a chuckle. “We still gonna argue? Just let me know. I’ll save my energy for words. Forget keeping body systems from shutting down.”

  “They . . . restrained me.”

  After pulling back to study his profile, she waited for more detail. Dragon damn, she would’ve gotten more forthright answers from talking to the Cage. But she didn’t have the energy to be angry with him. He kept touching her hair. Softly, as if by instinct, he avoided the places where she hurt the most. In that bizarre, terrible place, Leto of Clan Garnis was becoming more than a mere ally.

  She wanted that. Wanted someone to confide in, and who might confide in her.

  Defying her body’s juddering protests, she climbed his body until she pressed her lips against his strong jaw. Stubble abraded her lips with gentle sensation. He’d always been immaculately clean shaven in her company. Just how long had they been awake and, for the most part, suffering?

  “Please,” she whispered against his skin. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

  His big body was fiercely powerful, but at her hushed words, he shuddered. His head listed toward hers, until their cheeks met. The jaw muscle by his ear bunched, as hard as teeth and metal and Hellix’s strokes across her back.

  “I’m not alone,” he said.

  She frowned, gripped his unblemished forearm. “I never said you were. That’s proof, though. You feel it, too. Being isolated here. I’ve seen how the others avoid you. They move aside when you pass. Respect. Not companionship.”

  “I have what I want.”

  “But you needed to be restrained. What did you want that you couldn’t have?” The defined ridges of his forearm tightened until he made a fist—open, then closed, as if trying to reawaken a deadened limb. Nynn put her hand over his restlessness. This time they shuddered into one another and connected in a way that resonated behind her breastbone like the bass notes of a cello. Fear and hope—hope, that evil thing. “Leto, I’m being torn to shreds. My life, my thoughts, now my body again. You want me to be your partner in the Cages. That means trusting me. And I need to trust you. Please.”

  His swallow was audible. “I didn’t want them to hurt you.”

  She might’ve taken comfort in his words had he said them with any more passion. She would know the truth, even if she needed to pull it out of his mouth with both hands. “You’ve hurt me. And you’ve punished me. What’s the difference?”

  “Because you’re mine.”

  She reared back to look into his eyes. He’d already looked away. Blank again.

  “My neophyte,” he added quietly. “Mine to train as I see fit.”

  “So, a beating is worse than what you threatened with Kilgore.”

  “You said it yourself. I gave you an out. You took it.” He’d stopped stroking her hair, instead cupping the backs of her thighs. He pulled her closer, and she accepted that comfort. “I’ve worked to make you stronger. You’d be able to stare anyone down, with red in your eyes. Even those first few days, I never doubted we could make that happen.”

  Maybe it was pain or fatigue—no telling—but Nynn blinked a surprising sheen of tears. “And now?”

  “Now they’ve undone everything. Made you a victim again.”

  She found her same ragged chuckle. She sounded insane. “I climbed that post to get free. Had you been anyone else, I would’ve died defending myself.” She sat up a little straighter, as much as her trembling, aching limbs would permit. With his jaw in her hands, she forced him to see her eyes. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that without your training. Sick as some of it’s been.”

  “Necessary.”

  “Fine. Necessary.” She touched his injured wrist again. “Tell me what happened. The real reason.”

  “I didn’t want Hellix to hurt you. Or the doctor . . .” He turned to kiss her forehead. “Kilgore looked like a man should look. Turned on. Eager for release. It was disgusting but predictable. Whereas the doctor never changed that sinister expression.”

  “Scrutiny . . . It’s all for posterity. How much can a person take?”

  “That. Yes.” Another kiss. This time he didn’t pull away to talk. Just spoke against her skin, pushing his rasping words right into her mind. “I fought back. Tasers, napalm bullets—the whole arsenal.”

  “I saw,” she forced out. “For a few moments, anyway. After?”

  “I was chained over there, in that corner.”

  Nynn looked toward where he indicated with his chin. “I never noticed them. Locks on the wall?”

  “To force me to watch.”

  She lifted his injured wrist and kissed the bruised skin on the tender inside. Then the other. “It was my fault. My impulse to try to play Kilgore’s game.”

  “Maybe to start,” he said, shifting their positions. “But how can anyone predict what a man like Aster will do? No rules. No honor.”

  “Do you see why I hate him so much?”

  Leto nodded, then slowly, very slowly, got to his feet and helped her stand. She wavered. Clutched at him. She bowed her neck and pressed her dizzy, pain-spiked head against the chest plate of his armor. His muscles would be just as hard as that protective metal, only warm and pulsing with life. She shivered, then shivered again when he gingerly gripped her upper arms.

  “I’d carry you,” he said, “but I think I’d do more damage than if you walked.”

  “Walk where?”

  “To the Cage. Turn off our collars for a while. It’ll speed the healing process.”

  She dumbly followed him toward the wired gate entrance. He flipped a switch on the outside control panel. Step up. Walk inside. Breathe.

  She gasped, but it sounded less like surprise or pain. More like freedom, no matter the bars and locks. She stumbled, then knitted her fingers into the wire mesh. Leto entered, too. She saw the exact moment when the collar released him from bondage. Pleasure washed across his expression, too potent to be concealed. Eyes shut, neck tilted toward the ceiling—he looked like a man who’d just come. Pure satisfaction.

  He stood behind her and laced his hands over hers. His warmth layered across her back. Maybe that was the rush of sensation that came with being free again.

  And to think she believed she’d never possessed a gift from the Dragon.
Now she felt its power coursing through her body as strong and sure as her own thunderous heartbeat.

  Leto was so careful. He didn’t touch her anywhere other than where their hands fused with the charged metal that gave them back what made them special. But his voice had always been a force, an enticement, a touch of its own.

  “I can see why you hate him,” he said, as if their discussion about Dr. Aster had never ceased. “And how much danger Jack is in.”

  A sob coughed out of her lungs, which burned as if she’d run for miles in the searing winter cold. “That’s the first . . .” She coughed again, leaned her head back to rest against his solid strength. “That’s the first time you’ve called him by his name.”

  “Maybe it was time.” He let go of her hand and smoothed his fingers along both of her cheeks, back across her hair. He turned her, held her, would not let her look away. “You need to decide now, Nynn. Are you ready to do what you must?”

  “Will you be here, too? I mean, an Indranan witch . . .”

  “Yes. I’ll be here.”

  A chill unlike any she’d ever known stole over her skin. Not even Leto’s nearness kept it away. But she had no other choice. She needed to control her powers, no matter the cost.

  “Then, yes. Let me meet her.”

  FIFTEEN

  Within minutes, Leto had secured the gates to the training arena, locking Nynn inside. He couldn’t trust the guards, so he behaved as he always would. Champion of the Asters. With any luck, they wouldn’t notice his slight limp. Most of the napalm bullets had missed the mark, but one had pierced his thigh. The bullets didn’t go through flesh; they nestled just inside the skin and burned and burned.

  Even with time spent in the Cage, they’d both be long to heal. They were in no shape to fight at top form. Not physically. Not mentally. Despite the embrace they’d shared, and the awkward kisses, they weren’t partners either. For the first time, he envied Silence and Hark. They were both Sath. Same clan. Same history and abilities. When they stepped into a Cage together, they moved and breathed as one. Unified and deadly.

  He didn’t want that—not permanently. But to feel it just once?

  I don’t want to be alone anymore.

  Shunting those thoughts aside, he focused on a more pressing matter. He felt as if eyes followed him everywhere. Aster had seen Nynn and Kilgore together, and what Leto had done to punish them both. Who was to say they were alone, completely alone, in the training arena?

  Why hadn’t he ever considered that possibility before?

  Because since his youth, he’d never done anything to make being observed a concern.

  The guards were especially wary of him. Since he’d been attacked from behind—and because, frankly, he’d taken to believing all the human rabble looked alike—he didn’t know whether these two men had done him harm. He wanted retribution. He fisted his hands and kept walking toward the Dragon Kings’ quarters. They flanked him closely. He couldn’t remember the last time a human had thought to encroach on his space.

  In trying to save Nynn from the inevitable, he’d lost much of his standing in the complex. Only a fresh victory—still doubtful—would help restore his importance and trustworthiness.

  At least Nynn was on his side for the first time. She wanted to control her powers.

  He knocked on a dorm room door. A haggard-looking old Indranan woman name Ulia answered. What must’ve once been the golden, flawless skin of a Dragon King woman was creased with wrinkles and so wan as to be unnerving. She might be two hundred years old, for all Leto knew. Stooped. Gray-haired. Eyes clouded to the point of blindness. She didn’t need sight. Her telepathy meant she used other people’s eyes to compensate for her own.

  One of many, many reasons why Leto avoided her.

  She had once fought in early Cage matches. Her telepathy was legendary among those who’d served the Asters—and likely among those who’d feared facing her in a Grievance. Only when she’d lost her leg to a Pendray berserker did the Old Man offer her freedom. She’d refused. After decades in the complex, the outside world held no appeal. She had purpose among the other warriors.

  The outside world is frightening.

  At his own errant thought, Leto bit his back teeth together. He wasn’t afraid of anything. Only the thought of disappointing the Old Man and risking the safety of his family held any sting. Surely Dr. Aster would tell his father of Leto’s transgressions. He had a lot of ground to make up with his mentor. That was important. The outside world held no appeal because it couldn’t honor a skilled warrior. Where else would he be hailed as a living god? Nowhere but in the Cages.

  “Young Garnis,” she said, her smile cagey. “No courtesy for your elders? No greeting? This is no time for conversation.”

  The night was in its ninth hour. Not quite time to rouse. Dragon Kings renewed on a twenty-six-hour cycle. Ten sleeping. Sixteen waking. The actual hours of an Earth day had no impact belowground. That he hadn’t slept in longer than he could remember was probably doing his judgment no favors.

  He wondered how Nynn and the Dragon Kings coped while living among the humans. Perhaps they adjusted as Yeta had, learning to accept the constant touch of sluggishness that came with being awakened too soon from a solid rest. Perhaps that had affected Nynn’s ability to channel her gift. She’d never been in touch with the rhythm of body.

  “My neophyte. You’ve heard talk of her, I’m sure.”

  “The Giva’s cousin. How could anyone close their ears to such a temptation? And she’s to partner with you.”

  “As the Old Man bids.”

  Her grin widened. It was unnatural to see a Dragon King use such a breadth of facial expressions. Ulia was animated, as was Hark—that disturbing, chattering jester. Leto had only just gotten used to the variety Nynn could produce. Perhaps other rumors—that Ulia was just as mad as she was powerful—could be true as well. No one outside of their clan knew how the Indranan’s gifts worked. For all Leto knew, she had three personalities in that small, almost shrunken old head, grappling for control. Perhaps they only came together when it was time to crawl into someone else’s mind.

  He stiffened his back to hide a shudder. The Pendray were easy to understand. Simple brawn and mindless rage. The Sath were secretive but manageable thieves. When the Tigony weren’t playing Tricksters and sidling up to their human subjects, their gift of concentrated electricity could be evaded. Fellow Garnis—well, that was just a matter of knowing one’s own weaknesses and turning the tables. So few of the Lost remained that Leto had never faced one in competition. Frankly, he didn’t know if he could kill one of his own.

  But the Indranan. They were so devious, with a gift so potentially devastating, that a millennia-old feud had broken the clan in two. Northern versus Southern, separated by the Indian Ocean. They would kill a fellow member of their clan as surely as they would kill a sibling.

  Revolting people.

  “She was blocked at the onset of her gift,” he said. “She’s needs it reversed.”

  “As the Old Man bids.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He instructed me to provide any services you requested for your neophyte. What is her name?”

  The surprise of Ulia’s statement came first. Was Nynn so valuable that the Old Man hadn’t trusted Leto with her training? The truth—that Leto had been unable to see her properly prepared—lanced shame between his ribs.

  Then came another concern. The Indranan witch didn’t know Nynn’s name? Perhaps she was playing games. Testing his patience. Or pretending to be a doddering crone. She might not know Nynn’s name. Maybe she hadn’t cared to learn, or had forgotten.

  And she was going to have the whole of Nynn’s consciousness to mold.

  Leto had learned as a young man that few would discuss having blocked the gifts of a loved one. Fewer still wanted to talk about the particulars. He only had two experiences to draw from: his own and Pell’s. One had succeeded in bringing order to frenzy. One had failed,
leaving a husk of a young woman.

  The ceremonies were private for a reason. This was a time when minds touched. Vulnerabilities could be exploited when both individuals slipped into the world on top of the world. Of course Leto’s had been private as well. Much to his agony. That time alone had given his telepath free rein to exert physical as well as mental dominance. Leto still bore a trio of parallel scars on the backs of both calves. Not only that, he carried a crystalized, infallible memory of the moment those wounds were inflicted.

  The guards walked them back to the arena, but their vigilance was waning. Like all the humans, they worked on a different sleep cycle. After twelve days, the day guards became night guards. Always a species out of step.

  Locked once again in the training arena, Leto led Ulia toward the entrance to the Cage. He presented the stooped-back woman to Nynn, who still looked like a shredded piece of cloth. Blood had caked in slashes across her back. Blond hair was streaked pink at her nape. She moved with noticeable pain when she pushed away from the wire framework. Her icy gaze moved instantly to Ulia’s prosthetic.

  “Don’t worry about staring, young one,” Ulia said. “Lost it in a match. No shame. I still won.”

  “That’s . . . good.”

  Nynn’s posture had changed. Stiff. Wary. But she straightened her graceful shoulders, even if the adjustment pinched her lush lower lip. He’d tasted that mouth and he knew that stance. She’d made up her mind to be stubborn. At least it wasn’t aimed at him for once. He’d come to depend on her resilience. Unlike Dr. Aster, his goal had never been to see her cowed. He’d only wanted her to be an asset, strong and working with him side by side.

  A partner. This was how she would become his.

  Even if he only thought of it in practical terms, he needed her. Other emotions—darker, needier, unfamiliar—had no place in a warrior’s mind.

  “Our champion says you’ve been blocked.” Ulia tsked. “Not right. Dragon Kings deserve the full use of their gifts.”