Caged Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  Still panting, he withdrew and sank heavily onto the mattress. With one agile movement—how was he still capable?—he swirled her body down and along his. They were glorious, shimmering with an afterglow that was nearly palpable.

  Nynn smiled against his chest, licked his salty skin. “See? Now I’ve broken you.”

  He rumbled something inarticulate and pulled her flush, chest to chest. “We both knew you would.”

  “Did we? I doubt that. Stubborn man.”

  “In that regard,” he said, kissing her crown, “I’ve met my match.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Leto awoke with a shiver. Some dream. Remnants stuck to his thoughts like having walked into a spiderweb. Two children. One slightly grown, in pain. Another just born. Small, red-faced, yelling at the world.

  His skin was cold. Nynn still slept across his chest, but his feet, legs, and one arm were bathed in an unnatural chill. Her heat had only so much power to keep the worst at bay.

  He wanted to hold her tighter, or pull a tangled blanket off the floor and wrap it around them as surely as they held one another. He did neither, unwilling to wake her.

  Bright and beautiful, her gift was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. Yet every day, she gave him more of herself.

  Break her. What a lie. She’d taken everything thrown her way and absorbed it like he could absorb the force of a punch. He was staring at the shadows on the ceiling, wondering when he’d lost his way.

  She was becoming even more of a slave to the Asters, just as she was prying his mind apart.

  He touched his collar, suffering through another bone-deep shiver of dread.

  Leto of Garnis, what would you be without this?

  The skin along the edges of the collar was scarred by callouses. He wondered what he would look like without it wrapped around his neck. He couldn’t think back far enough to remember, and even then, the face in the mirror would’ve been that of a young man. He’d been eager to follow the path forged by his father, even though that path had meant suffering, sacrifice, and ultimately death.

  Leto would live and die in the Cages.

  He shook his head, closed his eyes, but nothing eased the truth: He didn’t believe that anymore. What’s more, he didn’t want to believe it.

  For the first time in two decades, he remembered wails of agony—his mother’s voice, shredded into hoarse strips of sound. The crowd had cheered as it always did when strong men fell. His father had been made to look defenseless, slaughtered like a sacrificial lamb. He’d been made to look weak when Leto had never known a stronger warrior. A stronger man. Not himself. Not anyone. For years, he’d endured match after match, guiding his wife through multiple pregnancies until they had what few Dragon Kings could claim: a new family.

  Who else could’ve bid that family good-bye, kissing wife and children perhaps for the last time, every time he entered a Cage? Who else could’ve delivered the whip marks that still scored Leto’s back, all in the knowledge it would make his son a more resilient fighter? When faced with the same prospect now—of whipping Nynn to make her tougher—his skin tried to peel away from his muscles. The idea was that revolting.

  His father had been the epitome of honor.

  What Leto felt, lying there with Nynn, was selfish and ugly by comparison. His pride had been humbled, which was not necessarily a bad thing. He’d been riding too high as the Asters’ champion for too long. This infection of greed and petty wants was deeper.

  He wanted out of the dark.

  The single person who might be able to lead him free of such a place was in his arms—and she wasn’t even a real person. She was a warped version of the woman who’d once been more determined than the passage of time.

  Somewhere out there, held in a box or a cell by Dr. Aster, was a little boy named Jack MacLaren. Leto had helped erase the one person who would walk through hell to save that child.

  Nynn stirred, which added another layer of unease to the cold wrapped around his exposed limbs. Cold wrapped around his heart.

  He’d known it was wrong from the beginning. Hadn’t he?

  No.

  She’d been right. Brainwashed, she’d called him. He wished he could scrub it clean, start over, sink back into that numb, rote place where his misgivings didn’t bite his insides. He should’ve been sated, having won a tough match and fucked a lush woman.

  Instead, he was beginning to wonder what sort of man he would be if Nynn snapped. If she became Audrey again. If she burst into pieces as violent as the fireworks thrown off by her gift. Living in the dark was one thing. Knowing it surrounded him and defined him was another. He could endure that darkness, even contentedly, had Nynn been his partner for good. His mind touched on Silence and Hark. That sort of comfort. That sort of light and promise.

  But what kind of man would he be if he kept Nynn from her child?

  “You’re really out of it,” came a sleep-soft voice.

  “Hm?”

  “I’ve said your name twice.”

  Leto opened his eyes and found Nynn propped on her elbow, looking down at his face. She touched his brow. He inhaled deeply. Soaking in her lax, rested beauty was as much a pain as it was a balm. He shouldn’t have cared. He should’ve let her training be harder, meaner, more selfish—to protect his family. Nothing more. He hadn’t known that his capacity for selflessness extended beyond them.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  Leto forced a small smile. “Have you changed so much that you think I have anything in this head of mine?”

  “Changed?” A frown tipped her brows together. “For the better, I hope.”

  He gave in to that need to cover their cooled bodies by grabbing the tousled blanket off the ground. “Changed,” he said softly.

  “No, no.” She shrugged out of the blanket and stood up from the bed. “I want to see my tattoo. I remember at least that much.” Another pause. Another frown. “I keep . . .”

  Leto sat up. “What?”

  “I keep losing time.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Glimpses of you.” She ducked her head, then pulled on her wrinkled cotton shorts.

  Unable to resist that seductive call, he joined her standing in the middle of his small room, holding her from behind. Her dragon seemed to glow in the scant light. “Which glimpses?”

  She turned her face and grinned against his inner arm. “How about glancing back at you as you came? That was a good one.”

  “Wicked,” he whispered against her hair. “Tell me another.”

  “You held my face as Lamot seared my back. I want to see what he put there. I think I’ve earned it, don’t you?”

  There was no putting off the inevitable. He nodded.

  Although the room had only one mirror, there above the sink, he retrieved a breast plate from the wall. It was polished to a shine that was nearly as revealing as a mirror. Nynn held the breast plate and shifted. Recognition came in the form of a soft inhale.

  “That’s not a serpent.”

  “No.”

  She peered closer. “A . . . Leto, what does this mean? Did Lamot do this?”

  “No,” he said again, as grim as delivering news of a death. “I told him to.”

  Whirling on him, she thrust the breast plate into his hands. Stark, strong anger shone from her face. In the last twelve hours, he’d seen her determined, depleted, triumphant, panicked, and ravished. Now she looked ready to steal his skin and sew it into the leather of her armor.

  “And why was that? It was easy to joke about being a champion alongside you, but now it’s not so funny.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She jabbed her forefingers against both of his temples. “This, you Dragon-damned bastard. You commit sacrilege on my skin and keep the Asters’ symbol from me. Am I still such a neophyte that I don’t deserve what I’ve earned? I fought for them the same as you did.”

  Leto wanted to smash his mace against everything he
could see. Then he’d start again, catching what he missed the first time. He’d kept her from wearing the permanent mark of the family that had ruined her life, and she’d turned it into some sick competition. The irony was strong enough to punch through his resistance to change.

  Change wasn’t going to let him be. Walking into the training cell where Audrey MacLaren was held prisoner had been the first step toward this moment. Nothing that significant could be recognized as it happened.

  Tell her the truth.

  Keep her safe from the truth.

  Muscle and strength weren’t enough for him to solve this puzzle. But they might be enough to keep her alive and honor the goal she’d forgotten. No matter what he did, he wouldn’t hold Nynn again. She would become his enemy; her furious expression said as much. That knowledge wedged needles into his joints, until every movement—forward, backward, even standing perfectly still—was agony.

  The safety of her mind and, eventually, the safety of her son depended on becoming her rival. She would despise what remained of her year of captivity, but stubborn woman, that bitterness would keep her strong.

  “Yes,” he said heavily. “I told him to withhold the family symbol.”

  A flare of her nostrils was her only reply. Hair a spiked tangle, breasts still bare, she looked more like a wild Pendray than a woman of royal Tigony lineage. “Then we do this the hard way, you lonayíp piece of shit. I’ll fight beside you, champion, but don’t expect any warning next time. You’ll know I’ve used my gift when it throws you to the ground and you lie there like a steaming heap of shit.”

  She deserved her anger. He deserved his anger, too, although he didn’t know where to aim it.

  Crossing his arms, he retreated to the old ways. The old places. He’d lived in the complex long enough that he almost convinced himself he welcomed the homecoming—rather than hating the creature he was becoming.

  “What does that mean, neophyte?” he asked, needing the distance of that old insult.

  “It means that the next time we step into a Cage, you’ll be fighting me, too.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  If you’re in agreement,” said Hark, that grinning idiot, “today will be the day.”

  Leto stood in the weapons room. He’d been mentally preparing for his upcoming match where, for the third and hopefully last time, he would be paired with Nynn. For their second turn in the Cage, a month before, they’d been manacled at the wrists. Maybe this time, for added sport, the Asters would chain them at the neck.

  Apparently pairing him with a woman who’d rather incinerate him than stand with him wasn’t interesting enough.

  The Asters knew. They knew he and Nynn had fallen out, even if they didn’t know the reason. For giving Lamot the command to change Nynn’s tattoo, Leto had endured twenty lashes by one of the family’s hulking human thugs. Nearly, very nearly, he would’ve preferred being whipped by Hellix. To turn his back and take his punishment from a human had been a withering blow to Leto’s pride. That incident, three days after earning that first dynamic victory with Nynn as his partner, only added to the cracks in long-held beliefs.

  He was only as valuable as his last success.

  In every other respect, he was a slave.

  As Nynn progressed through the weeks, appearing more and more content with her lot, she became a living mirror of how he’d spent his life. That she served the people who’d ruined her family was even more devastating. She’d called him brainwashed. Now she was. Literally.

  After standing to his full height, he looked down at Hark—and kept his fists firmly at his sides. The man’s smile was fraying Leto’s already tissue-thin temper. “In agreement with what?”

  “That today’s the day.” He nodded toward where Silence leaned against the wall. A line of swords and shields reflected her placid expression, unnerving black eyes, and white blond hair. “Silence and I have taken what we need from this place. It was needle in a haystack for a while, but we’re all set. It’s been surprisingly satisfying to follow a hunch and have it work out. But now it’s up to you.”

  “Speak plainly. Nynn and I fight next.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Hark handled a pair of sickles as if he might select those weapons rather than his usual nighnor. “See, big guy . . . we are your opponents. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed. And I’m a little disappointed. Being completely ignored doesn’t say much about our ability to intimidate.”

  Leto blinked. He was surprised, too. So caught up in the strife he expected to face with Nynn in the Cage, he hadn’t moved through his tried-and-true routine. He hadn’t been this clumsy since he was a green kid.

  Then again, he’d never faced decisions that threatened to rip his life in half. He’d trained. He’d fought. He’d won. Those had been the three tenets of his waking days and the dreams he relished at night.

  Had been.

  He was no longer that arrogant young man. Nynn had become worse than a stubborn neophyte. She was trained and she hated him. That hatred showed in every skewering stare and frenzied attack. Her mastery of her gift bordered on the sublime.

  Sublime and devastating.

  His right arm still throbbed where she’d landed the full force of an energy burst. Five days ago. Even the fresh lash marks on his back had only hurt for two. Something about her gift had the ability to wedge under the skin and leave traces of that Dragon-damned electricity behind. He itched with the pain of it.

  “So,” he said. “We fight. I hope this isn’t your way of asking for mercy.”

  Silence hid her mouth behind her hand, but her eyes crinkled around a concealed smile. Hark laughed outright. “We’d never beg quarter and you’d never give it. A waste of breath.”

  “You know a great deal about that.”

  “Generally. But not this time.” Bright blue eyes morphed from idiotic geniality to the sharp focus of a merciless killer. Intense. Unrelenting. Leto knew from experience that the man was capable, even brilliant on occasion. This was something else entirely. “Are you listening, Leto of Garnis? We know you can, even past these Dragon-damned collars. Listen to the silence.”

  Leto glanced at the woman who still leaned against the wall. She lowered her hand, tipped her head, and began to speak.

  Only, her voice was more like a sigh. Leto fought past the damping powers of the collar. He’d worked diligently to make that possible, never thinking he would one day use his repressed gift to hear words among a woman’s sighs.

  What he heard he could not believe.

  Found both halves of the idol.

  Deactivate the collars.

  Living gold.

  Waiting for this.

  Go free.

  The plan Silence whispered in his ears—practically in his mind—made him want to wring her slender neck.

  “And you’ve been hiding this the entire time?”

  She lowered her eyes, apparently done with her end of the conversation.

  Hark stood close. “Not all of us bought into the system. Some . . .” He looked back toward his lover. “Some of us had never planned to stay. There is an outside world and it’s pretty damn fabulous. You, fearless leader, need to be introduced to it for the first time.”

  “Do you always make plans with madness at the root?”

  “No, but there’s patience. That should be her real name, you know.”

  Leto couldn’t go through with what they suggested. He still had his sister to care for. This was the final match before earning his reward for Pell. Her well-being had been his aim for nearly four months, since first meeting his new neophyte.

  Let it go, a deep, greedy voice said. You can’t afford to care.

  He could take care of Pell. He could . . .

  “And what of Nynn?” he asked, having known the whole time that he couldn’t leave her out of his decision.

  Silence selected her preferred shield, the one with the serrated edges. Hark shrugged, then hefted the nearest nighnor. “Her brain is a mud puddle. Tell us
a way to guarantee her restored mental health and we’re all over that. Ready to skip right to the endgame.”

  Nynn was falling away from him. Things that fell eventually crashed and shattered. For nearly two months, he’d lived with the shadow of who she was. He’d sworn to keep her safe. In body, she was, whereas he was cursed with too many overlapping memories that swirled into gray clouds. At night, when he slept alone in his dorm, he simply remembered her kiss, her smile, and the feel of her body. That satisfaction was gone now. Knowing it had existed at all was an internal scar he would bear for the rest of his life, one spent in darkness and brightly lit Cages.

  During the waking hours, however, he watched her. Had she given him any sign, he would’ve been able to select the right course. A softening of her expression? She might have forgiven him and he would work to get Nynn back. A frown of confusion as old memories filtered through? She might be close to breaking past the barriers in her mind.

  He’d seen nothing except the balls of energy she hurled around the practice Cage. All he knew, all he felt, was her fury. It blotted out everything else.

  “No.” Leto grabbed a mace and a shield, strapping the latter in place. “I won’t go through with it. If you try, I’ll take you both down.”

  “You’d rather let her sleepwalk through the next ten years?” Hark was smiling again, but the expression was cruel, completely void of mirth. “Or until some Kawashima or Townsend bastard takes off her head at the next Grievance? She’d die and she wouldn’t even know the reason. Her little boy . . .”

  “How did you know that?” Leto growled.

  “Silence and patience. I have my partner, Leto of Garnis. Yours seems to have gone missing. Tell me these last few weeks haven’t been like fire under your skin.”

  “Shut up, you Thief bastard.”

  “And you’re a remnant of the Lost.” Hark stepped back, hands spread wide. One still held the nighnor. “How appropriate. So lost.”

  Silence looked between them, until her bizarre tickling voice became real sound. “I don’t want to be numb. She said that to you.”

  She’d actually spoken, and the words cut Leto to his heart.