by Zara Starr
He couldn’t imagine not having her as his own. He couldn’t imagine her going to someone else.
Gage entered the arena and he was the first to be announced. Usually, he liked to get the crowd worked up, to have them cheer for him, to be a part of the match in some way. It always made him feel more confident, like they were on his side no matter who they had come in to support in the first place.
He liked it when the crowd roared with cheers for him, when they responded to him, when they did as he asked. He loved that he had so much control. He had always seen it as the difference between him and the gladiators that weren’t free, the gladiators that were owned by Masters and didn’t fight for themselves.
Today though, he didn’t feel any different from them. Right now, he was on the same footing as his opponent who was a slave. Because Gage felt like if he didn’t have Amelia, he wouldn’t have anything at all. There was no difference between those who had no free will and himself.
Before, he had felt frustrated that he was so serious about Amelia, that she had that kind of control over him. Now, he was only filled with determination.
Gage walked around the arena, but he wasn’t quite as connected to the crowd as usual. He wasn’t doing it for the fame and glory, this time. He always had before, but this time it was only about Amelia. He wanted her to be his and that was all he was focused on.
The crowd roared and cheered when he entered, and he waved at them, but he didn’t engage. Some of them started clapping the way he always wanted them to, but they seemed almost confused since they didn’t understand why he wasn’t doing what he always did.
Again, he didn’t care. Not about them, not about how they reacted, not about what they saw.
Before he started fighting, he wanted to see her. He wished he could have talked to her. He wished he could have made sure that everything between them was alright. After they had sex, she had been whisked away. They barely had time for conversation.
He would have loved to know how she felt about him now – if everything had changed. He was anxious about it. He worried that she thought differently of him now.
He was shocked by the realization that what she thought of him mattered. He cared about it, and he wanted her to think well of him.
He turned toward the stage to wait for the females to be brought out. Usually, they were brought out while he was working on the crowd, he never saw them paraded until they were already there. This time, he was watching as they were brought out one by one. He was getting anxious that Amelia wouldn’t arrive when she finally appeared too.
Had she gotten back to her room okay yesterday? Had they checked her at all? Had their sex gone unnoticed? He hoped so. He assumed so, since everything seemed fine, as per usual. The females were paraded as if they were all equal. But they weren’t. The others paled in comparison to her.
As she was brought onto the stage, he noticed what she was wearing. A thin strip over her breasts and a very short skirt. It showed so much skin. It was better than the sheer dress he had seen her in yesterday, which had been for his viewing pleasure. But what she wore still didn’t leave much to the imagination.
Although, Gage knew what she looked like naked. He knew what her ass felt like when he fucked her from behind. He knew how her breasts tightened, her nipples pushing against the sheer material.
He knew how she felt, how she smelled… and no one else had that privilege. He was almost jealous as he watched her being paraded across the stage like an object to be admired. He hadn’t cared before, but now he wondered how many billions of eyes were watching, how many of them saw how good she looked.
It didn’t matter. He had taken her, he had touched her and felt her and seen her. No one else had experienced her the way he had. Soon, she was going to be his. As soon as he won.
After his opponent – Mal – had been announced by the presenter and he had done whatever was needed to get the crowd invested, it was time to start the match.
Gage tried to push Amelia to the back of his mind and get his head in the game. He had to be present, in the moment, focusing only on what was happening. The two fighters faced each other and the match was called into action.
At first, Mal got in a few good blows. He was just as pumped up as Gage, and the Karzem warrior was a good fighter. It went without saying, considering that he had made it to the finals. He was very focused, his mind on the fight while Gage was distracted. His head was full of thoughts of the night before, of Amelia and the way he had taken her, how it had felt to have her around his cock.
Mal managed to get in another good blow, straight to the face, and blood gushed out of Gage’s nose. It snapped him into the match though, making him focus. He had to win this fight if he wanted to own Amelia. He had to snap out of his daze as soon as possible.
He turned his attention fully on his opponent, focusing on the alien in front of him. He noted the way he moved, the way he used his limbs, how his body was a conditioned machine. Much of the way he moved was muscle memory and reflex. It was the result of years of training.
Gage focused on his gift, on the predictions. For a moment, he could feel the crowd all around them, their excitement, their tension over who would win. But predicting how they would feel and act wouldn’t help him win the match.
He narrowed his focus to Mal, who stood in a battle stance in front of him, eyes focused on him, his mind just as sharp and set on the match as Gage was.
When Mal moved in one direction, Gage predicted it, and he felt more on top of his game now.
Mal moved, and it was fast. Faster than Gage had imagined an alien of that size could move. Of course, he had known that the alien would move in that direction. It was purely because of his gift, and not because he had logically estimated it to be so.
It was just a reminder that Mal could take him if he didn’t fight the way he should be fighting.
They were allowed to use weapons, and Gage knew he had a better shot of winning if he used something long-range. He had a few different weapons that he liked to cycle through in a fight, but after feeling how Mal had hit him – nailing him so hard that his head spun and he saw stars – he knew that it was better to keep the alien at arm’s length, or weapon’s length, rather than have him come too close.
He pulled out his favorite – his antimatter pistol. It was fast, it was effective, it was exactly what he needed in a fight against the powerhouse of the Karzem like Mal.
Despite taking out a weapon, it didn’t look like Mal was interested in a weapon. Or very scared. Of course, his opponent would have chosen a female for himself too, and was fighting just as intensely to win. Gage could feel his determination, although he couldn’t tell what Mal’s goal was. He knew that Mal was desperate.
Gage couldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t let him win the fight. Maybe Amelia wouldn’t go to him this time, but she would remain in the prize quarters if Gage lost, and she would end up going to someone else. The human females were a hot commodity and someone else would choose her, no doubt.
He had to do something and he had to do it soon.
Gage knew that he couldn’t afford to fight for a long time. He would get tired first. And he couldn’t get caught up in a hand-to-hand fight. He trained well, but he wasn’t as bulky as the Karzem. In a hand-to-hand combat, he would lose his advantage. It didn’t even take his prediction skills to figure that one out. His weapons were going to win him the fight.
Gage aimed his pistol at his opponent, keeping both eyes open and letting out a slow breath. He steadied himself, even though he didn’t have a lot of time. But he had to make sure that you didn’t miss his target.
He pulled the trigger, and it was almost in slow motion as the blast left the pistol. As it did, he predicted that Mal would dodge the bullets, and as he had predicted, his opponent jumped out of the way a split second sooner than the bullets moved.
Dammit. It wasn’t going to be a quick, easy fight like usual.
His opponent was a good figh
ter, moving with care, carrying his enormous body with surprising agility and speed. But he was a slave, he had been trained for years in the art of gladiator fighting. Probably since he was a child. He had a head start. Gage had only started fighting a couple of years ago when he had decided that he would leave the military and become a gladiator himself.
He had studied all of the aliens and their moves, he had made an effort to stay on top of what they would do and his gift of prediction helped him. But warriors like Mal still had something on him that Gage didn’t have – experience.
Still, he wasn’t going to allow this warrior to take the win. He wasn’t going to lose today when he had already won two tournaments before. He wasn’t going to lose Amelia.
Gage was good at what he did. He had many fans betting on him, and he knew that he could make it. Or, at least, die trying.
Would that happen? The thought had never crossed his mind before, but suddenly he wondered if this fighter would try to kill him if he got the upper hand. It was more than possible – many of the slave fighters did it to please their Masters. Gage could see Mal’s Master watching the fight. It was no secret that Slinin, one of the richest business Saithin on the planet, owned this gladiator. It had been advertised for weeks on end.
Gage shook off the thoughts. He couldn’t let these things get to him. He had to keep his head in the game, eyes on the prize. It didn’t matter that he was fighting a gladiator who had been taught in the art of fighting since he was a child. It didn’t matter that his Master was a rich, powerful Saithin. Nothing mattered, except that Gage was good at what he did, that he was in it to win it, and that he was going to do everything it took to make that happen.
If he allowed the negative thoughts to overpower his judgment, he wouldn’t be able to rely on his gift of prediction as well as he needed to, and that would cost him the fight.
He wouldn’t allow that.
He had to win. For Amelia.
Chapter Seventeen
Amelia
Amelia hadn’t cared about any of the matches she had been forced to watch since she had arrived on Saitha. After all, she had been abducted, she was being forced to wear skimpy clothing, and she was being used as a prize for the finalists of the tournament. None of it had been her choice, and none of it mattered to her.
She hadn’t cared who the finalists were, she hadn’t cared how tournaments worked, she hadn’t cared about any of it. No more than was necessary to plan an escape of some sort.
But since she had spent time with Gage, everything had changed. At first, because she had wanted to use him to escape – if she could get him to choose her, being the finalist that would probably win, then it would allow her to leave the gladiator dome, and then it would be easier to escape. It was how she had figured it out.
The seduction had worked, for sure. She just hadn’t expected to get emotionally attached to him, to become involved with the alien. She hadn’t thought that she had it in her to love someone who she saw as a monster.
But Gage wasn’t a monster at all. He was a good guy, caring, attentive, albeit a little arrogant. She was sure it was part of his act though. Sometimes, she had been convinced that he was just an ass. But he wore a mask and he wore it well. When it was just the two of them, when he dropped his guard, Gage was someone very different than she had initially thought.
Now, after having gotten to know him, after feeling positive that he felt something for her too, the match that happened in front of her was a lot more important.
For the first time, her stomach was a fist of nerves, she was nauseous. She stood at the railing, gripping it so tightly her knuckles turned white, her heart beating fast and her breath so shallow she had to remind herself to breathe every now and then.
She had noticed Gage staring at her since the very moment she had stepped out of the transport pod and onto the stage. Before, he had always worked on the crowd, getting them invested in him. The crowd had always loved it. It was a part of why Gage did it at all. He loved the attention, he loved the fame and glory. But this time, he hadn’t seemed as interested in what they thought of him.
He had been staring at her, and their eyes had locked the moment she had set foot on the stage. Shivers traveled along her spine, heat washing along with it. She thought back to that night they had shared, and she could almost feel the connection between them again, even though they were only making eye contact now.
The second warrior was announced after the females were on the stage, and Amelia watched with bated breath as she sized up the opponent. She had seen him fight before. She had seen all of them fight. The females had been forced to watch every match, to parade in their outfits, to add an extra sense of excitement to the tournament for both the people in the seats and those watching on their televisions from home across the Galaxy.
Before though, she hadn’t paid attention to the warriors specifically. She hadn’t made mental notes about who they were and what they were capable of, what kind of opponents they would be during the final match.
Now, she wished she had paid more attention. She wanted to know what the odds were, how easy it would be to beat this guy.
Because Amelia wanted Gage to win. She wanted it so badly.
The crowd reacted positively toward the other alien. Amelia was nervous. The alien was large, with blue skin and metal spikes down its back. He moved as if he understood his boundaries, and Amelia imagined that to make it to the finals, the creature wasn’t a bad fighter.
When the females had been lined up for the inspection the day before, Amelia hadn’t seen this contestant. It must have been because Gage had asked for her to be escorted to a private room. The other contestant must have been with the females when she had been taken away.
She thought it was strange that it had been allowed, since she would have been available as a prize for the other contestants too. But Gage had been very convincing with his threats, and they probably figured that it wasn’t necessary.
Gage knew how to use the system to his advantage.
But there was no way he was going to be able to use the system so that he could win this fight. It was going to be a serious one, and the only thing he would be able to do was rely on his fighting skill.
Amelia had watched him and knew that he was good at what he did. But he wasn’t the only contestant who had made it to the finals.
What if Gage lost? What if something went wrong?
No, she wasn’t going to think like that. She wasn’t going to consider that Gage might end up injured, or dead. She wasn’t going to imagine the worst-case scenario, where she would remain in the prize quarters as a prize for the next tournament, and she wouldn’t end up with Gage.
She was going to stay positive. She was hoping that Gage would stay positive too.
Because if he lost, everything would fall apart.
After the announcements were made and the crowd calmed down a little, the match was called into action. Amelia watched with bated breath, her heart beating in her throat, her hands hurting where she was gripping the railing but she didn’t want to let go. She felt that as soon as she did, she was going to faint.
The warriors circled each other, both of them completely focused, as if they were blocking out the rest of the arena.
Good. She wanted Gage to be focused completely on the match so that he could win.
The first couple of blows weren’t delivered by Gage. It was the opponent – Mal, she had heard him being called – who had dished them out. And they had seemed hard too. Gage had staggered backward, almost shocked, as if he hadn’t expected it.
Which was very strange, because so far, it had always seemed like he expected what was coming to him.
When blood blossomed on his skin, gushing out of his nose, Amelia clapped her hands to her mouth and watched in horror. How was this possible? They had only just started and it looked like he was losing.
But no, he was retaliating. It was almost as if he had properly joined the fight now.
The next couple of blows were dodged easily as if Gage had known they were coming.
This was more like it.
Despite Gage looking as if he was more on top of it now, Amelia felt exasperated. She was completely helpless up on the stage. She couldn’t do anything at all. She couldn’t even encourage Gage, who wouldn’t hear her from up there above the roar of the crowd. And he wouldn’t look at her now – she didn’t want him to. She wanted him to focus.
She just wished that she could help somehow. But she hadn’t been able to before and it was ridiculous to want something like that now.
At the same time, it wasn’t ridiculous at all. Amelia found that suddenly, there was so much to want and so much to hope for. It was a strange sensation, considering that she had lost hope, had stopped wanting. Since she had realized that she was a slave, that she had no say over her own life, she had stopped trying.
Was hope dangerous? Maybe. But it was better than having nothing at all. And ‘hope’ had started to look a lot like Gage.
She turned her attention back to the fight, watching as the men circled each other yet again. Gage’s nose had stopped bleeding. He had wiped away the excess blood with his sleeve and it made him look fierce, as if he had sustained more injuries than before. It made him look incredible, still standing, serious about the match. He was a true warrior, Amelia decided. Not just a gladiator, but fighting for something bigger and better.
Although, it was probably just a game. But if she saw it like that, she would start to unravel completely.
It didn’t take very long before Gage reached for a weapon. The pistol-like gadget that shot the strangest arrays she had ever seen. Then again, what was strange? Everything was relative here. Nothing was like it had been back home and Amelia had started accepting that.
She watched as Gage aimed and fired, but the plasma rain missed the opponent.
Gage was aiming again, and everything had changed about him. Again, he seemed to become even more focused than before. It was almost as if he reached forward, not physically, but mentally. Amelia didn’t understand what she was seeing, but he was incredible to watch in a fight. Now even more so than before.