Caged Warrior (19 page)

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.”

W
ithin minutes, Leto had secured the gates to the training arena, locking Nynn inside.
He couldn’t trust the guards, so he behaved as he always would. Champion of the Asters.
With any luck, they wouldn’t notice his slight limp. Most of the napalm bullets had
missed the mark, but one had pierced his thigh. The bullets didn’t go through flesh;
they nestled just inside the skin and burned and burned.

Even with time spent in the Cage, they’d both be long to heal. They were in no shape
to fight at top form. Not physically. Not mentally. Despite the embrace they’d shared,
and the awkward kisses, they weren’t partners either. For the first time, he envied
Silence and Hark. They were both Sath. Same clan. Same history and abilities. When
they stepped into a Cage together, they moved and breathed as one. Unified and deadly.

He didn’t want that—not permanently. But to feel it just once?

I don’t want to be alone anymore.

Shunting those thoughts aside, he focused on a more pressing matter. He felt as if
eyes followed him everywhere. Aster had seen Nynn and Kilgore together, and
what Leto had done to punish them both. Who was to say they were alone, completely
alone, in the training arena?

Why hadn’t he ever considered that possibility before?

Because since his youth, he’d never done anything to make being observed a concern.

The guards were especially wary of him. Since he’d been attacked from behind—and because,
frankly, he’d taken to believing all the human rabble looked alike—he didn’t know
whether these two men had done him harm. He wanted retribution. He fisted his hands
and kept walking toward the Dragon Kings’ quarters. They flanked him closely. He couldn’t
remember the last time a human had thought to encroach on his space.