Caged Warrior

SEVEN

Audrey had only wanted to knock that smug expression off his scarred face. He was mortal. Fallible. The scar angling on his lip and the whip marks crisscrossing his back proved as much. He could be injured, bested, maybe even defeated.

Not that day. Not by her.

Her dagger glanced off his armor. He didn’t need to use his mace, only swung his shield as easily as a kid with a Frisbee. The edge of blunt metal hit her in the gut. Her thick leather training armor protected her from the worst of the damage. Yet the hit still rattled her bones. She bit her tongue as she landed on hands and knees.

Instinct commanded her to lift her shield. The head of the mace cracked down where her head would’ve been. She rolled out of the way and again crouched in a defensive stance.

“You asshole! Are you trying to kill me?”

“I’m finding your limits,” he said with a tight grin. “Apparently that wasn’t one of them.”

Audrey gasped for breath. The dagger’s hilt fit as if it had been molded to her palm. The shield was the perfect weight. Why was this remotely possible? She had trained from childhood to defend herself, and worst case, to defend Malnefoley. Never with weapons like these. She shouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to hold these implements.

But she did. It felt like coming home to a home she’d never known.

Sweat gathered under her arms. “What’s the silk for? In the armor.”

“Clan Garnis taught the samurai how to use it, centuries ago. Silk prevented arrows from embedding in the skin. Tug the fabric. Out they come.”

“It’s hot as hell.”

“At least I won’t withhold your water rations.”

“Small mercies.”

He kicked the toe of his boot beneath the edge of her shield. Her forearm wrenched upward. For a split second she was undefended. Only when the mace descended again did she act. A quick roll. A slice of her dagger. She missed setting metal to skin, but so did the mace. The round, spiked club swung past her armored shoulder. The breath of its movement was close enough to tousle her short hair. Leto caught its momentum by collecting the slack of the chain with one swift adjustment of his grip.

“Nearly.”

“Nearly,” he echoed.

“And the armor on only one shoulder. Why?”

“Do you always talk so much when fighting?”

“I’m learning, remember?” They breathed in tandem. Audrey licked her lips. “My martial instructor never let his students say anything other than yes or no. Maybe you’re a step up.”

Muscles bunched on both sides of his jaw. She could see his pulse where it throbbed at his temple, where shorn hair revealed the tips of his snake tattoo. The vigor of his blood gave life to the ink.

“Hold still and I’ll answer your question about the armor.” He dropped the mace and his shield. “I mean it. Hold perfectly still or this session will be very messy.”

The intensity of his hypnotic voice—a weapon in itself—meant she could only nod.

Faster than imaginable, he stole her dagger. A single slice cut through her shield’s leather cinch. It dropped, useless, to the ground. She was stripped within a heartbeat. Every cell in her body wanted to fight back. Run. Scream.

She held still.

Leto stabbed the dagger in a sharp, angled arc toward her armored shoulder. His right hand. Her right shoulder. The blade glanced along the metal and leather, as if shooting down a slide. He switched the dagger to his left hand and cut upward. Again the blade had no effect. It caught in the layers.

“Twist away!”

She responded instantly, spun and dropped low. The dagger stayed embedded in the leather, yanked out of Leto’s grasp.

He was far less winded than she, but his breath still echoed through the dark cell.

Leto nodded tersely. “The armor hugs the arm you use to hold your weapon. The exposed arm. An attack would need to be incredibly forceful to pierce so many layers.”

Audrey glanced toward her bare left shoulder. “And this one is free to maneuver with the shield. I guess that lesson was ‘don’t lose your Dragon-damned shield.’ ”

Admiration flickered across his features. The thrill of their sortie had momentarily obscured her true goals. She hadn’t even wanted to best him.

She’d only wanted his approval.

What the hell did that matter? She needed this condescending brute for what he could teach her.

“But you,” she said. “You can fight equally well with both hands.”

“Honing my gift—my reflexes—helped guide me. Now my muscles react before I do.”

“A Cage warrior acting with brawn instead of thought? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“You would do well to keep from taunting a man who stripped your shield.”

She grabbed the hilt of her knife. Pulled it free of the leather layers. Settled it into the palm of her right hand. “I’m not defenseless.”

He stalked toward her. She stared at the movement of thighs forged of pure muscle. Looking up his body sent an ancient shiver of awareness to her fingers and toes. His features were perfectly symmetrical, with a decisive brow that probably revealed more than he realized. Straight nose. Surprisingly wide eyes rimmed with thick lashes as dark as his hair. There was no telling his age. Few lines creased his smooth, flawlessly tan skin.

And his mouth. Lower lip just this side of full. Upper lip slashed by that old, silvery scar. It was the only hint of imperfection on an otherwise captivating face.

Her awareness shot inward, deeper than fear or hunger or vengeance. A shiver settled low in her belly. To admit she was aroused seemed tantamount to betraying Caleb’s memory and Jack’s innocent struggle to survive.

Yet he was sexy in the basest, most primitive sense. Weapons and armor and strength. Unequaled skills. He possessed confidence she doubted could ever be matched. Rather than wanting to divest him of that confidence, she wanted to get closer, soak it up, know what it was like to look at the world with such unabashed certainty.

She truly couldn’t remember what certainty felt like.

He crossed his arms. Default stance. Proving a point, marking his territory, and ready for attack—all at once. Power coiled there, barely leashed. Dark eyes glittered. The lights bathed him in garish bronze that shadowed his features and accentuated his blunt, prominent muscles.

“Do not get cocky, Nynn. This is still training. The first hours of your training. Admit what you must and I will give you one ration.”

Inhaling deeply, she looked down at the ground. She realized she was bowing. It didn’t matter. She needed food. Whatever he wanted her to admit would be worth what he offered. Energy for another round. Maybe he could break her after all, beyond the physical. The journey between pride and submission had shortened.

Again, she wanted his confidence.

One day. Soon.

“Admit what, sir?”

“Stand. Lift your head.”

She did as she was told. Limbs that should’ve been weak from exertion had recovered in record time. The feeling of inhabiting a body that wasn’t her own added to her disorientation. Dragon damn, she wanted to remember what had happened in that Cage.

Leto stripped the knife from her hand and tossed it behind him. Metal slid across concrete. He took hold of her wrists. Vises and manacles had nothing on his incredible grip. He could snap her hands clean off. Her shudder must’ve traveled between them because his lips parted. That was new.

She liked it.

“I wear new armor and a bandage because I was not at liberty to kill you,” he said quietly. “Your skills are already impressive. I cannot say I’ve trained your like before. I’m twenty years a Cage warrior, but this is only the beginning for you. To survive, you must admit that I could’ve bested you at any moment. You would be dead now had I not refrained.”

The truth of his words hit her like a blast of cold water. His grip slid from her wrists to her hands. Squeeze. His hypnotism wasn’t limited to his voice. She could barely detect what subtle devices he used to manipulate her body and mind.

But he was right.

“Yes, sir. I would be dead now had you not refrained.”

He nodded tightly. “Retrieve your dagger. We have hours to fill.”

♦ ♦ ♦

Two weeks later, Leto stood outside the locked gate that led to Nynn’s training cell. To his left, one guard’s chin drifted tellingly toward his chest. His eyes were closed. The other flipped through an old issue of Playboy. And why not? It was nearly midnight, and they knew Leto’s purpose was to check in on his new charge, as he’d done several times a day. That he brought an extra ration as reward for a good day’s work didn’t matter to them.

Soon, after her first match, Nynn would be ready to meet the rest of the Dragon Kings in the compound. She had already faced a half dozen during practices in the training Cage, but that wasn’t the same. He wanted her to bond with them. To see this place as an unexpected haven that could provide security and purpose. Yet custom had it that neophytes didn’t associate with proven warriors until after a first victory.

Knowing her, as he was beginning to, she would use any such interactions as a means of resisting him. He could imagine her crafty enough to foment rebellion and form new alliances. Leto wanted his domain just as it was. His. He’d spent years aligning patterns and relationships to his advantage.

Only when Nynn knew victory would it be time to fit her into the hierarchy. In the meantime, he was the center of her world.

Even with the collar in force, his senses were remarkable. He’d perpetually developed the blessing. Once experiencing the rush of what he could be, he refused to let it go. He worked at it. Fought to keep what the collars stole. Trained until muscle memory followed him out of the Cages. Because of those senses, he knew she was still awake.

He also knew the habits she’d developed. When she managed to sleep. When she cleaned her body. When she trained.

Which was almost always.

Since those first contentious days after her arrival, she ate regularly and followed the regimen he dictated. Stretches. Weight training. Cardiovascular. She’d even found a way to do vertical sit-ups by hooking her legs over the top of the door of the cage. She’d progressed from a weak creature into a woman on the verge of untold boldness.

He peered through the gate bars and down the corridor that led to her dank, dark quarters. He shut off the bulbs at night—though, on occasion, he kept them on. Her training included being able to adapt to any situation. Only with his keen sense of sight could he discern her movements. He narrowed his eyes and concentrated. Scant glimpses of her body at work were erotic, dancing shadows. Every panting breath wove into his chest. She grunted. Gasped. Cursed.

Too faint for humans to hear, those sounds were for Leto alone.

Without the details of light, he recalled how she looked naked. Audible proof of her determined physical labor laced into his nearly perfect memory.

He could make her sound like that.

They could fuck. Hard. Aggression and combat layered over a fierce coupling. Afterward, they would lie together in a tangle of naked, sweaty limbs, as after twelve hours of training. Tenderness was for softer people in softer places.

He craved the release not even combat could provide.

Another of her determined grunts stirred his cock. He remembered bare flesh. Sensuous hips and pert breasts. A flat stomach. Long, graceful legs.

And scars. Scars she had not earned in combat.

The intensity of that memory spiked down to the base of his skull. What had been done to her was disgraceful and disgusting.

He blew out a sharp breath. Dragon-damned fool.

Past torments meant nothing when preparing for the Cages. Enduring the unknowns of Dr. Aster’s laboratory had likely made her stronger. He would use her past to forge her into a warrior, not wonder at the abuse she must’ve suffered.

She was a survivor, which made the mystery of her gift even more frustrating. How could she be so dedicated to martial training, yet refuse the most powerful asset at her disposal? She might as well be a human in a boxing ring. The Asters’ guests didn’t venture underground for anything so mundane. Their disappointment would be Leto’s failure to bear.

Clenching his fists into tight balls, he put the night’s goal ahead of every other consideration. He would push and push and push until something broke. Or until they forged into a single unit.

“Checking up on me?”

Nynn had walked down the sloping corridor to meet him on the other side of the gate. That she’d done so without his sensing her approach caught him off guard. Was she that good, or had he been lost in thought? Sweat glistened on her supple, golden skin. She’d stripped down to her underwear and tank top. Simple white cotton. Damp. Clinging. Her breasts and stomach and lush hips were his to admire, overlaid with new mysteries.

“Because you’ve given me cause to think you need to be observed,” he said. A brush of cool air against his forehead revealed he was sweating, too. Leto nudged the guard who stared at a flexible blond centerfold. “We’re going to the practice Cage.”

It wasn’t a request.

The guard only shrugged, although his bulkier, full-body armor nearly concealed the movement. They dressed as part SWAT team goons and part medieval warriors. The two might as well be the same thing. Things Leto hadn’t seen in person were difficult to comprehend. Refusing to be left alone, his mother had followed her young husband into the cartel’s complex in the hope of starting and raising a family. Leto’s father hadn’t believed in educating his son in the ways of the outside world. After all, Leto would become a Cage warrior. His future was set, while Yeta and Pell were prepared to emerge from the dark and find husbands from among the Five Clans. Yeta had succeeded; Pell had never been afforded that chance.

Yet their mother had been adamant in teaching each of her children life aboveground, including Leto. She had insisted that he understand all that existed beyond the cartel’s dark walls. A deep, edgy corner of his mind still doubted any of it. They were words, not concrete facts accumulated by his senses and his experiences.

Guards from the Townsends and Kawashimas wore their own distinctive uniforms, although Leto rarely noticed the details. He only thought about the other cartels’ Cage warriors when the Grievance pairings were announced. That was when he called in favors from the likes of Kilgore. Leto learned all he could about the opponent he would take down.

Nynn dragged her hand along the back of her neck, slick with sweat. “Now we train? I was just about to sleep.”

“I can leave you here. But I thought you might appreciate an extra ration.” He held up a wrapped tray.

After banking her obvious surprise, Nynn stood a little straighter. “What’s on the agenda tonight?”

She no longer called him sir. A trivial thing when she was obeying. He wasn’t sure what to make of her mood that evening. Or his. In all other respects, she should have been the perfect neophyte: a quick study, skilled, and with a powerful motivation to success.

Should have been.

Just like he should have been able to keep his gaze off her breasts as a guard wrapped her wrists in metal. She lifted her chin—that distinctive gesture she must’ve learned among the humans. It accentuated the elegance of her neck, the pout of her lower lip, and the width of her soft, round cheekbones. She glared at him with pale, narrowed eyes, as if she were ten feet tall. That lithe elegance didn’t stop with her neck, but trailed down a body that was tempting. So tempting. She was strength and curves. Power and femininity. Nynn of Tigony would be as much a challenge to bed as she was to battle in the Cages. Leto wanted his hands around her bare waist, down her sinuous back, between her thighs. He would find her wet. He would taste her. And she would taste him, making use of her stubborn mouth.

The guard dragged her into the open and roughly guided her toward the arena. Leto found it more disconcerting than arousing to see her bound and hauled like an animal. He liked her best when she blazed with confidence, because the last thing he wanted was to pity her. Or to sympathize with her pain.

His own pains burned hot enough.

The guards left them alone in the Cage facility and locked the doors. One of them handed Leto the keys to Nynn’s manacles.

They were alone.

“Now what?” she asked.

With calm and patience, his sensual thoughts banished, Leto set the plate on a bench against the wall. He walked closer. He unbound her wrists. And he grabbed the pale gold hair at the top of her head, where the strands were longest. “Tonight, Nynn of Tigony, we see how you react to complete unknowns.”