Caged Warrior

FOURTEEN

Audrey woke up screaming.

She’d screamed for hours, even in her dreams.

Bricks of pain slammed down on her head. Fire like the lick of the Dragon’s breath scorched her back, ass, and upper thighs. What must’ve been burns from the Tasers nettled and itched—between her shoulder blades, down her ribs. One at the base of her skull.

She moaned. Her head was too heavy to keep upright. When she stopped fighting gravity, she hit pitted wood with her forehead. Must still be the post—the whipping post where agony threaded through every inhale, every shrieked exhale. Was the training arena in near darkness, or were her eyes failing? Hard to tell past her mangled senses.

Moving, ever again . . . wasn’t possible. She hurt too much. That pain would never stop.

A noise—the scuff of leather soles—pulsed panic across raw nerves. She moaned once more, then fought, fought to move. Manacles still circled her wrists. The chain would still be looped through the ring at the top of the post. Drawing from reserves she didn’t know she had, she dug her knees into the post. Flexed screeching abdominal muscles. Tried to find a position that wasn’t just hanging by a chain. If she could climb high enough, she might be able to release the chain from its loop.

She needed a weapon. Manacles would do.

Leto had been right. By accompanying Kilgore and trying to play his game, she’d volunteered to be used. Maybe so many months in the labs had left that possibility open. Nothing had been out of pride’s reach when begging for her son. She’d done unthinkable things on the chance of some small reprieve. What was the difference, giving in to one more sick bastard?

That wasn’t her anymore. She wasn’t scared Audrey MacLaren anymore. She wasn’t even some halfway-committed neophyte. Dr. Aster had handed a whip to Hellix, and the sick sadist changed her life once again. Weeks of Leto’s training and his strange, twisted faith in her coalesced around her pain and hatred. Making her new.

She was Nynn of Tigony. Fully. And she’d strangle the fucker who tried to touch her again.

Hoping for something other than hazy shadows, she blinked and kept blinking. She couldn’t trust that the lights had been dimmed. But she’d fight near-blind if she needed to.

Up. Up again—two more pushes, with all the strength she had left. Another inch. Struggling. No part of her body was free of agony, so it didn’t matter when the insides of her knees became ripped and bloodied, pierced with splinters. Her palms, too, as well as the inside grooves of her knuckles.

She reached the hook, the loop, the chance to hurt someone. It wasn’t going to be her.

Manacles and collar remained, but she was free of the post. She dropped to the ground. Although her legs gave way, she held a low, crouching defensive stance. Both shredded hands clutched the chain.

“Nynn.”

The shock of Leto’s low, hushed whisper was not as startling as the relief that followed.

“Where are you?” she gasped.

A light flickered on, far across the arena. The Cage waited between them. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to that slight illumination. At least she wasn’t blind as well as half-crippled. Small comfort, but she didn’t have any other kind. Any last softness in her life had been crushed.

Slowly, Leto appeared. He walked with the same deliberation that shouted ego and attitude and victory. But something was different. She stayed crouched low, watching. His pace was the same. His balance was not. He favored his left leg—nothing so obvious as a limp, yet she spotted the change. His shoulders, too. Tighter and set higher, hunched almost defensively toward the lower band of his collar.

She waited. Stunned, really. She remembered . . .

He’d lunged at Hellix, or perhaps he’d even aimed his strength at the doctor. She hadn’t known his target, and despite all of his courage and strategy for battle, she doubted he’d known either. Just pure fury. The memory of his fight materialized in full, grotesque detail. In the Cages, he was unbeatable. That confidence allowed him to attack every opponent, knowing its outcome in advance.

He had acted on quick, violent instinct. For her. That had been his failing. Rage had given him the power to hold off the guards, but he’d been an animal. No strategy, and none of the advantages a Dragon King had over humans—armed humans.

What had happened afterward, when her consciousness had slipped away like a raven taking flight? Had he kept fighting? Did that explain his strange gait and taut shoulders?

She didn’t know what to make of that. So new and unexpected.

He’d been the one to debase her in front of Kilgore. He’d carried her into the arena. He’d handed her to them, where she’d been beaten on the floor. Did any of that overwhelm how he’d warned her to save her strength, or his attempt to set her free?

Which warrior was walking toward her now?

Nynn hefted the chain. Enough slack.

After a sharp inhale, she was beset with a dizzying wash of black.

She fell face-first against the concrete floor. Her chin split. A sound of rage burst from her lungs. Maybe she would’ve lain there forever. Deflated. Defeated. Angry as fuck, but unable to do a damn thing more.

Only, Leto knelt. He touched her shoulders. She winced, tried to shrivel away.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said softly.

“I want to hurt you.”

One of those nearly indecipherable emotions crossed his rugged features. Disappointment? She didn’t want to disappoint him. Not after what he’d done. He’d dented his reputation, suffered pain, kept brawling.

Again those two words: For her.

“I got that impression,” he said, with a grim downturn to his full lower lip. That frown made his scar more prominent. “But your skills deserve better weapons than these chains.”

She made noise more than any concerted effort to move. Brain. Bones. Muscles. She was an orchestra without a conductor. Dissonant pain blared over every command. So when he wanted her sitting up, she sat up—all under his power.

That’s how she wound up huddled against his chest. He sat cross-legged and pulled her close. She winced, hissed, but even she realized when her protests stopped: when he kissed the top of her head and tucked her close beneath his chin. Strong arms circled her. Stronger legs braced her lower body. Every shaking and twitching muscle no longer needed to struggle. She slumped.

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.”