Page 9 of Beast Unburdened

Frek contemplated the male a little longer and then shrugged, “Fair enough. But I could kill you now or you can die in another seven days. What do you prefer?” I nearly laughed at that, if I hadn’t had Abigail I knew what I would choose.

But Sunder surprised me, “You can’t kill me now.” His deep baritone was concise and certain. “If you do, you’ll lose your master a lot of credits. He has bet against me on that fight, if I don’t show up he’ll lose out. You can’t afford to incur his wrath Frek or you’ll find yourself in my position next.”

Frek let out an angry howl and jabbed the pain control on Sunder’s collar. The older male fell to his hands and knees but stoically bore the pain the way I had. He bared his fangs at Frek but didn’t make a sound. Not until he thudded to the floor several minutes later, head awkwardly falling against the wall, thankfully that male had skin like stone and a skull made for headbutting like mine. He could handle that kind of knock without injury.

The Krektar said nothing as they left the cellblock, though Frek gave a sharp warning look to each of the males awake. As the door slid closed behind them with a deafening thud Kitan let out a long loud sigh and then he tssked, “Was all that worth it?”

The males erupted into conversation then, aware that none of their words were recorded. “Yes! Of course! There are so few of them now, we need to whittle them down!” one said and another scoffed. “We’ll never get out of our pain collars they’ll always have the upper hand.”

There was loud angry growling from the mind broken beast that drowned out everything for a moment and then the conversation flared up again. The males were hard at work trying to recall how many guards were left, an admirable attempt. I desperately needed to know this information myself. We had to know the odds we were up against. I wouldn’t risk Abigail without it.

Chapter 5

Abigail

He was hurt, again! I couldn’t stand seeing that awful Frek hurting the males in the cells like this, but especially not Ziame. I knew I did something stupid when I tried to defend him, drawing attention to the fact that I was not scared of him. That I cared.

When he started to collapse I had only a short moment to panic and then he was on top of me and we fell to the hard floor like a ton of bricks. I expected that to hurt a lot, I practically saw my life flashing before my eyes. Ziame had to outweigh me at least three times, I was going to get crushed! That is, if he didn’t poke an eye out with one of his horns or spikes.

But somehow my head landed softly on his arm and I managed to get my hands between us to push at him. He didn’t budge of course, far too heavy. I barely heard Frek when he said something, instead, I focused on how I felt. Was I really in one piece? With nary a bruise on me? Oh wait, had Ziame just shifted his weight?

Ziame’s arm cradled my head, my face was in his throat and his legs were on the outsides of mine. One long arm stretched out up along my head, his bicep brushing my hair. He wasn’t that heavy at all, I should be crushed but I most definitely wasn’t.

As Frek moved his attention to the male looking like a gargoyle I tucked my face close to Ziame’s throat. He smelled so damn good, spicy and familiar. Already the scent symbolized safety to me and I was certain that if I could bottle this and sell it on Earth as male cologne I’d make a fortune. It was so damn good, especially pressed up close like this.

I didn’t miss the fact that finally, after a long interminable day of shivering from the cold on that cot, I was at last toasty warm. His scales were warm where I touched them and with his entire body engulfing mine it was like I had my own personal heated blanket. Maybe a little heavier than I liked but not all that uncomfortable.

The Krektar finally left the cellblock and I took a chance and whispered very softly against Ziame’s throat. “Are you awake?” There was no way he was this light, he was propping himself up somehow. My suspicion was confirmed when I felt his muscles tense beneath my fingers a little, “I am my Abigail.” His whisper was even softer than mine.

“Did you fake fainting?” I poked at him and now there was the softest little growl. “I did not! I faked losing consciousness.” I laughed quietly, of course, males the universe over were sensitive about such things. “Can you get up?”

There was a brief pause and I listened to the background noise of the males in the cellblock arguing about the effectiveness of killing the guards the way Ziame and Sunder had done. “Not yet little one, it needs to look real.” Oh well, I wasn’t really complaining. I happened to like being warm finally.

“Are you alright?” I asked him, aware he’d just suffered through a hell of a lot of pain. “Why did you do that?” I didn’t want him to take risks like this. He was my only protection in here, if he got himself killed I didn’t know what would happen to me.

“Fine, I am tough. Don’t worry.” He shifted his head a little so that his face was angled more my way, it was now pressed into my wild mess of curls. I heard him sniff and I inwardly cringed, without a shower for god knows how long, I doubted I smelled as nice as he did. “We need to whittle down as many guards as we can before we try to escape. That is why.”

Oh, that made sense, he’d caused the death of three guards since I’d gotten here. That took the number down considerably. It was it seemed the same thing the other males were now debating. “Twelve left then, plus two confined to bed rest who are still injured from the fight with the pirates.”

Ziame didn’t immediately respond to my statement, but I could feel the tension radiating from his body. “How do you know?” he asked and I felt a stab of hurt at his suspicious tone. “I asked the doctor, who’s a slave too by the way.”

“The doctor touched you again!” now he sounded angry and it finally made him move. He flowed to his feet and let out an angry roaring sound and shook his head so that one of his horns rattled against the bars to his side. I remained frozen on the floor and he leaned in suddenly, picked me up with his huge hands, and then he retreated with me into the darkness surrounding our cot.

The cellblock had descended into silence at his outburst so everyone could hear me when I said indignantly. “Don’t manhandle me you big jerk! The Doc only checked if I wasn’t hurt, like I said he’s as much a slave as any of us here!”

Ziame huffed loudly as if he didn’t believe me, “He put translators in your ears without sedation! It’s barbaric!” “He didn’t have a choice!” I yelled back, sitting up on my knees on the cot and planting my hands on my hips as I squared off with him in the dark.

“He talks?” someone asked and then someone else said, “Go female!” “Did you know he could talk?” “What arcane magic is this?” demanded a last voice and then Ziame let out another loud roar that had me clamping my hands over my ears and silenced all the gladiators.

“I could always talk,” he huffed in a pissed-off voice and I heard something click and then two thin tendrils of fire curled away from his face. Lightening up his angry countenance for a moment. He cast me a narrow-eyed look and then started pacing in the dark. His tail swishing into the light at the front of the cell with each pass, the spikes flared up.

Then there was a loud sigh as if he was surrendering to the inevitable. “I was just biding my time,” was the explanation to the stunned gladiators who’d all gathered to the front of their cells to catch a glimpse of him. “How is this possible?” asked a male standing two cells over, it was the one who closely resembled a fox on two legs. “You’ve been faking a lack of intellect all this time?” he sounded incredulous and slightly offended.

“Hey watch your tone!” I snapped, offended on Ziame’s behalf that this male had thought so little of him. There was a wicked grin from the fox and a round of chuckles from the other males. “Abigail,” Ziame said with a sigh, “That is what I wanted him to think. It means I did it well.”

I knew that, didn’t mean I liked it. The gargoyle male had rolled to his feet at that moment and flared out his huge bat-like wings. “I had a feeling, I met one of your kind once,” he said in that heavy baritone. “You have a plan to get your female out?”

My eyebrows shot up. I’d heard how Ziame had been referring to me as his and I’d noticed some of the other males say it but it hadn’t sunk in until this statement. Then to think that that gargoyle male was talking of escape solely for me as if that was the primary concern… That was strange and oddly flattering.