Enslaved Book III: The Gladiators

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  “I could sneak out and test it,” Balen offered.

  “If you were caught, there would be no surprise and worse, they would then be even more alert and it might prevent any other attempt. I confess, I had thought of that and I like that better. There would be less danger to Lau-ren if that was possible, but I think we must be prepared to create a diversionary riot if that does not work. It is … unfortunate that we cannot wait until the next games to execute the plan. There are always far more ships at that time.”

  Dakaar shrugged. “There are always some here, however. I agree that I would like to have more choices, but there will be choices regardless. And it is not as if we will be able to tell which would be the better to choose.”

  “I am not incompetent,” Balen growled. “I can reconnoiter without being caught!”

  Kael met his gaze for a long moment. “Then that will be your task … but you must still wait until we have all that we can in place and are as prepared as we can be.”

  * * * *

  When Loren finally managed to divert her mind from her anxiety about the reaction of the men to the possibility that they might have gotten her pregnant, it focused firmly on the fact that she hadn’t had a period since she’d come out of the pod. The problem was that she had no idea of how long she’d been in the pod or how it might affect her. Stress could throw her cycle off. It rarely did, but it had happened before in the past and she thought that might account for it.

  If that was the case, though, then her body should be preparing and while that was a comfort in a way, it also brought her to the problem she’d been worried about—no pads and nowhere to get them!

  She was going to have to whittle at the blanket Dakaar had give her, she thought unhappily. It was almost as bad to think she’d have to use something that unreliable and unsanitary as it was to think she’d have to wash the damned things and reuse them unless she wanted to rip up the entire damned blanket! That wasn’t going to change even if they escaped—unless she was dead … or pregnant.

  My god! It sucked being a woman sometimes! Men never had to worry about anything like that, she thought angrily! That was why the bastards could joke about it!

  Truthfully, she doubted it would bother them even if they had to put up with them. Not too many of them seemed to mind nasty. In point of fact, she’d been around a few who seemed to have the idiotic idea that it was ‘manly’ somehow to be as disgusting as they could possibly be.

  Thank god the Hirachi weren’t crude and disgusting like that! It would’ve been hell trying to ignore it … especially when she’d made it a point to avoid crude, disgusting men!

  Not that any of that helped her situation. She didn’t like being crude and disgusting herself and she couldn’t help it in this barbaric place! At the very least, she didn’t see any way she could avoid confessing she was on the rag—literally! It might not have been quite so bad if it was something they were used to, but she had a feeling they weren’t!

  Who would’ve thought some people would be lucky enough to have built-in birth control—and could still enjoy sex in between times! How fucking unfair was that? She thought, though, that she had to conclude they cycled in three to four year increments if they were only fertile during the spawning time—which meant they couldn’t have periods. That was even more unfair to her mind!

  Especially now!

  She was going to be on the damned rag, she realized in disgust, just about the time they finally might have a chance to actually have sex, damn it to hell!

  If she hadn’t been so focused on her dilemma and her frustration because of it, she might have interpreted the stilted behavior of the men the next time they visited in an entirely different way. She was hypersensitive about it, however, and she immediately leapt to the conclusion that that was what seemed to have radically changed their perception of her.

  “Must break Lau-ren’s collar,” Kael announced as soon as he’d checked the corridor carefully to make certain no one else was close enough to hear. “Wait till dark.”

  Loren stared at him in dismay. “Don’t you think it would be better to do it when you can see better?”

  His lips tightened. “Am Hirachi, no hooman. Can see,” he responded tightly.

  Loren blinked at him in dismay. Anger quickly followed. “Well you don’t have to be so damned nasty about it! I can’t help it if I can’t see a fucking thing in the dark! We don’t have to!”

  “We need,” Dakaar said coldly. “Sea people. Dark down dere.”

  Loren stared at him in surprise and more than a little confusion. They’d never seemed touchy about the fact that they were different before. “I figured that out. Remember?”

  “Yes. Remember,” Balen growled. “Tell me no worry, den tell us spawn all de time … after we spawn!”

  Loren folded her arms across her chest. “So that’s it! A million, million miles from Earth—probably—and men are still men, right? A woman gets knocked up it’s all her damned fault?”

  “What is ‘knocked up’?” Kael demanded sharply.

  “Pregnant,” Loren retorted baldly, then added just in case they weren’t familiar with that term, “breeding.”

  He paled. “Lau-ren pregnant?”

  “No, I’m not pregnant!” she snapped. “I don’t know why in the hell men think they’re so god damned good all they have to do is stick their dick in and spit and ‘behold’ they’ve done it! Maybe your seed didn’t recognize my egg! Ever think about that?”

  “No tink. You did,” Kael said angrily. “Mayhap we right an’ you wrong? Lau-ren tink about dat?”

  Loren felt the sudden urge to cry because it was true and she knew they weren’t going to believe her if she lied and said it wasn’t. She’d thought she’d hid her prejudice well. Obviously, she hadn’t. It was almost worse that she still believed they couldn’t possibly get her pregnant even though she’d come to realize that she’d completely misjudged them—because she’d come to realize she didn’t want it to be true. “Go away!” she said angrily because she couldn’t think of a defense. “And don’t come back, because I’m not going any damned where with any of you!”

  “Dis not reasonable!” Kael said angrily when she’d stalked away from the door and flopped down on her bed, glaring at the far wall and ignoring them.

  She was tempted to simply ignore him altogether, but she wanted to fight. “I’m a woman! I don’t have to be reasonable! I can be just as damned unreasonable as I want to be, god damn it! And who says it isn’t reasonable anyway? Maybe I think I’ll be better off here!”

  “Lau-ren die here!” Kael said harshly. “Die sooner keep yelling!”

  “I don’t care!” she said childishly, and it was the truth, at that moment anyway.

  “I care,” Kael growled.

  “I also,” Dakaar and Balen said almost at the same time.

  Loren felt her chin wobble with incipient tears. “No, you don’t!” she snapped. “You just want to take the pussy along!”

  “Might be baby,” Dakaar said coaxingly.

  Loren whipped her head around and narrowed her eyes at him. “You asshole!” she growled. “I knew it had to be something like that!” Surging up from the bed, she looked for something to throw at them and discovered the cell was virtually bare of potential missiles. She snatched the comb up that Balen had given her and threw it at the bars and then stalked to the shower area and jerked the blanket down, balled it up, and pitched it at them, and then took her loincloth off and hurled that.

  The first two objects hit the bars and fell on the floor. She managed to hit Kael square in the face with the loincloth, though. It stunned her almost as much as it did him, but it didn’t take either of them more than a moment to recover. Kael glared at her thunderously. She glared back at him, confident he couldn’t get to her no matter how pissed off he was.

  “I come back when dark,” he said through his teeth. “An’ I break dat ting if have to take door down!”

  “Assholes!” she flung
at them angrily when they turned and stalked off. Not one of the stupid brutes had even tried to convince her he cared anything at all about her!

  Because they didn’t!

  Flinging herself down on the bed, she gave vent to all the tears she’d been storing up since she’d been taken. She did her best to muffle the wrenching sobs because she didn’t want them to know she cared when they didn’t, but she couldn’t control the sobs once she let go. They tore at her chest and throat painfully and the tears seemed endless. No matter how many times she tried to calm herself and sniff them back, they started all over again the moment she thought about how completely mistaken she’d been about them! The bastards! All this time she’d thought they were so sweet because they really cared about her and it was nothing more than sucking up to get their hands on the damned pussy!

  That just went to show how absolutely stupid women were to ever think differently! Men never thought you were anything but a walking pussy with an annoying woman attached! And they were all the same, where ever you went! They were just as bad as her ex-boyfriend, she thought angrily. He’d just hung around until he could secure another source before he dumped her!

  She never actually managed to get her emotions under control. She wept until she’d completely exhausted herself and passed out, snuffling for breath because she’d cried until her nose was stopped up. She came to when a hand settled over her face that cut off what little air she managed to suck in through her mouth. Fear of suffocation instantly became her entire focus and she began clawing frantically and the hand, fighting for air. Despite her panic, her efforts to free her mouth were futile.

  Darkness danced in her mind and her arms grew weaker and heavier until she lost any ability to fight at all. Fortunately, when her arms dropped limply the hand was removed—jerked away actually.

  “You’re smothering her!” Kael growled.

  “You said to cover her mouth so she couldn’t scream!” Dakaar said angrily.

  “You covered her whole face! How did you expect her to breathe! Through your pores?”

  “Shit! I didn’t realize ….”

  Kael shook his head. “She’s alright. We need to get done.” Pushing her head back, he carefully measured the circumference and found the spot. Doubt flickered through him—not that it hadn’t every time he’d done it, but Lau-ren’s collar was smaller and he wasn’t as certain as he wanted to be. After a moment, he decided he had to risk removing the cover to be sure. “Cover her throat so I don’t burn her.”

  Dakaar settled his hands on either side of the collar, carefully covering the delicate skin. He couldn’t help but worry that the sound was traveling through the metal, though, when his hands began to burn and then worry that the collar itself might strangle her when it began to twist from the heat. To his relief, the cover popped free just about the time the pain became nearly intolerable. It took no more than a moment, then, to destroy the tiny chip and the collar, fortunately, was still soft enough from the heat that they managed to straighten if enough they hoped it wouldn’t be noticeable that they’d tampered with it.

  Neither of them were in any particular hurry to leave once they’d accomplished their goal. It was the first time they’d had any chance to touch her without the bars between them—at least when they were in any frame of mind to be fully aware of it.

  “Balen will wonder what is taking so long,” Dakaar said reluctantly.

  Kael didn’t glanced up at him. “I know.” He released a pent up breath and straightened. “It does not matter anyway. She rejected the gifts. She has rejected us.”

  Dakaar nodded. “She will not go with us willingly now.”

  Kael’s jaw tightened. “Then she will go unwillingly! I will not leave her here whatever she says!”

  “I hope Lecur will not notice the door,” Dakaar said uneasily when they’d fixed it back.

  “I hope so, as well. He is greedy and he is vindictive when he does not get his way, but I have never noticed that he is either blind or stupid,” Kael said tightly. “I would not have risked it if I had believed that Lau-ren would be reasonable.”

  “She was angry,” Dakaar said when they’d returned their own cell.

  “You think?” Kael retorted sardonically.

  Dakaar’s lips tightened. “I am only saying that anger is not the same thing as not desiring!”

  “Not even when it is as clear as day that she cannot see past our differences?” Balen asked tightly.

  Dakaar shrugged. “Tira rejected me twice and took me back twice. She was angry. I do not know why when it was us who had a right to be!”

  Kael frowned at him in confusion. “Tira?”

  Dakaar uttered an angry huff. “Lau-ren! I know why Tira was angry …. At least, I think I know.”

  “Why?” Balen demanded.

  Dakaar flushed. “She said that I was not an attentive lover.”

  Balen gaped at him, dumbfounded. “Well, if that was true, why would she take you back?”

  Dakaar shrugged. “Because she thought I had improved?”

  “Twice?”

  “It was for something else the second time,” Dakaar muttered.

  “What was it the second time?”

  Dakaar glared at him. “That is beside the point! That was Tira. I was talking about Lau-ren!”

  Kael studied him thoughtfully. “I have not been rejected before. Do you think it was because of something that we did? Or something that we did not do?”

  Dakaar and Balen both glared at him. “Then you are overdue your taste of it!” Balen said irritably. “You might have experienced it yourself if you were not always so quick to move on that you did not give them time to reject you!”

  Kael’s lips tightened. “Mayhap it does not take me as long to figure out that I am not satisfied with the arrangement?”

  “Mayhap you thought it better to leave before you were pitched out?” Balen countered sourly.

  “And mayhap it was because you knew you always had your choice?” Dakaar retorted.

  “You are still angry about Tira? You have had how many lovers since?” Kael demanded. “Anyway, she tossed you out of her pod so often, how was I to know that you were still in favor? It is not as if she refused you after that!”

  “No, but I was second, and I damned well get tired of being second!”

  “You were first before I came!” Kael reminded him.

  “At least you were not third!” Balen snapped angrily.

  Kael and Dakaar both turned to stare at him for a long moment, exchanged a speaking glance, and decided to abandon that discussion. “So,” Kael said after a long moment, “you think she is only angry?”

  “Mayhap she did not even know that she was dismissing us? Her customs cannot be the same as ours … do you think?”

  Kael considered it. “She seemed pretty set on spurning us,” he said doubtfully. “Not that I am greatly surprised, all things considered. I cannot think we acquitted ourselves very well as lovers while the fever was upon us and there has not been an opportunity since to prove to her that we could do better.”

  “We should have taken the time while we there tonight,” Dakaar said in disgust.

  Balen and Kael both stared at him in outrage, but for different reasons. “You think we would have proven any gods damned thing if we had pounced on her for five seconds and bounded off again? I cannot see that that would do anything more than prove we were piss poor lovers who could not hold their seed long enough to give pleasure!” Kael snarled.

  “It passes all bounds that you even considered it!” Balen growled. “I should have known that that was why I was left to stand watch!”

  Dakaar’s lips tightened. “I did not even think of it until we were there!” he said indignantly.

  “And you had subdued her by nearly smothering her,” Kael added dryly. “You should not have thought about it then!”

  “He hurt her?” Balen demanded in outrage.

  “He was not as careful as he should have been,
” Kael returned. “I will beat him senseless for it the next time we are on the field. We cannot do anything about it now else it will over set all of our plans.”

  “Well, I will also beat him senseless!” Balen growled.

  “I am first. I am still pod chief!” Kael reminded him.

  * * * *

  Kael had composed himself to mentally review his plans and search for anything that he might have missed when he finally lay back to rest. Instead, he found his mind wandering from Lau-ren to the conversation between him and Dakaar and Balen.

  It annoyed him that Dakaar had brought up their rivalry over Tira after so many years, confused him, as well. Neither of them had been much more than younglings at the time and both of them had moved on long since. At least, he had thought so. He had also thought that they had settled that issue long ago, though.

  He dismissed it after a few moments. He thought, always had, that it hadn’t been Tira that had mattered so much to Dakaar as the wound to his manhood and there was nothing he could do now or then to soothe such a wound when it had been Tira who had inflicted it. And to do her justice, she had also been young and wild … and as thoughtless then as they had been, focused far more on enjoying their new status as adults who could, and did, flit from one lover to the next than trying to form a more permanent bond.

  Their comments about that rankled. He didn’t suppose it would have if there had not been at least some truth to it. Or maybe it would have anyway since he would have resented an unjust accusation as much or more? His resentment stemmed from the fact that that had only been true of him when he was young and reckless, however. The young maidens were far more prone to spurn their lovers and run them off than the more mature maids and he had figured he might as well move on as soon as he saw the weather had changed—that and the fact that he did not particularly care to be rejected. Then again, he had not seen the sense of hanging around once he knew, or at least suspected, what was coming.