Page 73 of Shielded in the Shadows

I turned us carefully and curled up behind my mate, draping my wing over us as a blanket so there was no chance she would get chilled—or be seen should someone enter the room unexpectedly despite the locked door.

She fit to me, and I to her, so perfectly that it was almost enough to believe in Byx’s great pantheon of gods. Certainly the minutes I spent buried within her like this were the closest I had ever come to unveiling the great mysteries of the universe.

When she rested her head on my bicep and pulled my arm more snugly against her middle, the rumble in my chest grew until the bed vibrated. Her warm chuckle made me smile.

“We have to go to Saistea,” she murmured.

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I know.”

We fell into a comfortable, sated silence. I could all but hear her thoughts turning, but she remained relaxed in my arms so I let her think all she needed to without interruption.

“When I was four, my mother sold me to a procurer who supplied the arenas with fighters,” she said finally.

My gut contracted and rage swept through me so intensely that my vision tunneled. Her own mother had sold her?

It wasn’t unheard of for family members to sell children into servitude on impoverished worlds, but a mother selling a child…I couldn’t fathom it.

Keela laced her fingers through mine, as if she needed a stronger anchor to speak. “Procurers could be independent, or they might work for someone else, but the basic system was that the procurer evaluated a potential fighter, paid a lump sum to the seller if they thought the candidate had potential, and then either sold them outright to a keeper or opted for a lower initial payout plus a share of future winnings. Orqiel unha’Feste paid four thousand credits for me and sold me to a keeper for twice that, plus a share.”

Gods above. My body trembled with the need to rend this male limb from limb and take my time about it.

I knew about the horrors of Ganai before the arenas burned and the Alliance had stepped in to stabilize the economy and help alleviate the extreme poverty that plagued the planet, especially its human colonies. Conditions were much better now than a decade ago, but such monumental changes took time.

As bad as this story was, there was something Keela wasn’t saying—some additional horror that haunted the silences between her words. Something to do with her mother or father, perhaps? Some additional abuse she’d suffered at Orqiel’s hands?

I couldn’t ask, though—at least, not yet. My role was to listen with empathy and comfort as she recounted nightmarish memories.

“He was there when my keeper fastened my first collar around my neck,” she said, her voice calm and even. “I had a tracker too, but at least I knew I had it. I was awake when they put it in.” She reached up and indicated the area near her left shoulder blade. There was a scar there—one of many, but now I knew its significance. “Local anesthetic only, of course. And not enough of it. It was our first chance to show how well we could withstand pain. I tried so hard not to cry, but I did. I had no idea at the time my life would become little more than pain from then on.”

She toyed with my hand, stroking over my callouses and gliding her fingertips along my claws. “The gladiators whose procurers opted for shares got more…attention from the trainers. The procurers would pay them extra to ensure our weapons were a little better than what the others had. My training time started early and ended late. Every once in a while I got extra rations in secret. It created a caste system among the fighters. No one could have friends in the barracks because the pit lords liked to arrange fights between pairs of friends, but getting anything that was better than the person in the bunk beside yours made you enemies when otherwise you would have no reason to hate or resent that person.”

Keela pressed her fingertips to the points of my claws, not quite drawing blood but almost, as if this immediate, sharp, physical pain would help distract from the pain of her memories.

“There wasn’t much use for wishing for anything in those barracks,” she said. “The misery sucked the ability to hope and wish right out of you really quickly. But sometimes I’d lie in my bunk at night and wish Orqiel hadn’t opted for a share. It would have meant my nivilus wasn’t as well made and I got less training time and worse rations, but back then I would have made the trade if it meant I didn’t see hate in the eyes of so many girls in my barracks. It would also have meant Orqiel wouldn’t have lurked around the arena watching me when he didn’t have to be traveling to find new candidates.” She swallowed, the sound audible in the stillness of the room. “He wouldn’t have called me his. His fighter. His asset.”

I was coming up with even more new and inventive ways of disposing of this vile male.

“He didn’t touch me,” she said, answering a question I hadn’t asked but that had hung in the air. “I don’t think his fixation was of that sort. I was a thing to him. I made him a great deal of money. My success was also proof he was a good judge of who might make a good fighter, or at least that was how he used my skills to his advantage. It wasn’t always a wise choice to take a lower initial payout plus a share versus the other option, but with me, he earned far, far more than what the keeper offered him for an outright purchase.”

Her shoulder lifted in a tiny half shrug. “And then I turned sixteen and left the planet, and never saw him again until today. I have no clue as to why he would be seeking me now, or be seeking me at all, but that is the story of how I know Orqiel unha’Feste, Beastmaster of the Aiphelevia.”

When she fell silent, I cooed softly, sensing she didn’t want the full effect of my comforting song but wouldn’t mind being gently soothed.

Hours ago, Gitto had called me her asset, and though I hadn’t reacted visibly, my stomach had soured and I was infuriated. The way she’d said it made it clear she thought of me as something to be possessed and used as she saw fit. Our interactions had always been cool and professional, but there was nothing cool or professional about the way she’d looked at me as she hissed those words.

“Gitto is…or was…my GAIS handler,” I said.

“I figured as much.” I heard the smile in her voice. “She’s going to be a problem.”

“Probably.” I nuzzled her hair. “I sent a transmission to her superior yesterday—not one that could be traced here. In it, I stated I had altered my mission to take advantage of an opportunity to gather intel on a crime syndicate, and following that, I would be tendering my resignation under the matehood clause in our contracts. Physician Kel’parigan will attest to my newly mated status.”

“I see.” Once again, I could hear the gears turning in her mind. “Her superior is the one you referred to as Bruska?”

“Yes.”

“And did Bruska accept your change of plans and your resignation?”

“He did, reluctantly, but as a mated male himself, he acknowledged that the GAIS cannot separate us. He chose to remain because his mate works beside him and they share a home. But a planet-bound life and career in asset management at the GAIS is not for me.”