Gentle Chains (The Eleyi Saga Book 1) (25 page)

I hesitate. There is no easy answer to a question like this, and she
deserves the truth. “You? No. I hate being a slave—anyone’s slave. Sometimes,
especially at first, it was hard to separate the two. But I’ve gotten to know
you, and you have a good heart, and it’s in the right place. Even if your
method is wrong.”

“But you hate being with me. You don’t want to be
here
,” she says quietly.

It startles a laugh out of me. “Of course I don’t. I’m a
slave,
no matter what pretty spin you put on it.”

She flinches and I feel guilty for my words. There is no need to be
unnecessarily harsh.   “I have been treated with more dignity and respect
than I thought possible as a slave,” I say quietly, and she glances at me. I’m
startled by the tears in her eyes, and without thinking, I reach out and touch
her cheek. “And that’s because of you.”

She takes a shaky breath, and releases it as a sigh. “We’ll reach Pente
soon. What happens then?”

“I take my sister back from those bastards,” I say simply and she
shivers. Something like desire slides through her psyche, there and gone
quickly enough I can ignore it.

“And after that? Can you go back to Eleyi after everything you’ve been
through?”

I sigh, leaning back against the bed. She settles against me, her head
on my chest, and I whisper the truth that scares me: “I don’t know.”

Chapter 27

Chosi’le

THE SCREAMS OF THE CROWD have become the lullaby that soothes my soul.

I hate them for their casual disregard of my life—of all of our lives.
Yet, I would do anything to keep them screaming. I pause for a moment, wiping
sweat from my eyes as the gladiator I’ve just killed slumps sideways and the
screams increase in pitch

Another gladiator charges me and I twist, my wings snapping out. The
blades on their tips sheer through his neck. Blood, hot and acidic, spews from
the Trendel’s neck. I wipe it from my eyes furiously. Above me, Natsu screams a
challenge. She’s too small for me to ride for the entire match, but the crowd
is happy enough to see us fighting in tandem. -
Fire on the next pass,
darling,-
she calls down, and I brace myself for the searing heat that eats
through the hardboiled leather armor of the glad charging me. I dip, ducking
under his sword, sliding a dagger into his leg as I roll aside and fire rains
down. My draken bugles a challenge and the crowd answers, half-mad with
delight.

It’s intoxicating, and I let it swell around me, swallowing me for a
moment too long. The sudden silence of the crowd penetrates before the pain. As
I struggle to understand what it means, I feel it—icy hot pain. I look down dully,
see the gaping wound on my leg, the blood seeping from it.

Natsu shrieks, diving at the last gladiator, the one we both forgot, the
glad with a laser whip. She takes two slashes in her chest before she tears the
lean human limb from limb, and the crowd is on their feet, cheering with mad
abandon as I sway.

-Chosi,-
Natsu shouts in my
mind, and I blink blood and tears from my eyes as I watch her. I stumble,
falling to my knees. My face would hit the sands, too, if Natsu didn’t move
fast enough to catch me. I can feel her panic, seeping in around the pain and
the euphoria of the crowd. Far above me, I can see the sun and moons, merciless
as they beat down on me, throbbing in time with my heart and the searing pain
in my leg.

I hear a familiar voice—Kristoff—shouting and then I succumb to the
siren call of the darkness.

As if from a great distance, I can feel them: Jenalle’s practical
concern and calm as she works, the worry of Kristoff balanced against the quiet
of Kevan, even Petyr, desperate for me to live if only so he won’t become the
sole draken keeper. Farther off, I can feel Natsu battering herself against the
walls of her pen, desperate to know that I am safe.

-Don’t leave us,-
she
begs, her voice broken and echoing in my mind.

But it’s all so distant, drowned out by pain, easily ignored. Something
is tugging at me, pulling at me across the vastness of space, a psyche I
recognize. I wonder if he will talk to me this time. I want him to leave me
alone—I’m exhausted by the hope he forces me to feel, across time and space,
every time he finds me.

It’s harder to survive, with hope for something else.

I warned him not to contact me, and somehow managed to avoid detection
the last time I felt his presence. Prator will kill Miwya if he knows I can speak
to my twin outside the jakta. The thought makes my blood run cold, but it isn’t
enough to make me push aside his psyche. It tangles around me, and I can feel
the flavor of concern, even without words.

He is my twin, and I can read his emotions even when I am angry and
drowning in pain.

And despite my anger, I circle him, wrap my mind around him, and drift
on the disturbing comfort of his nearness. If half a galaxy is close, then we
are together again.

“Damn it, Brielle,
wake up
!”
Jenalle snaps, her voice intruding on my quiet seclusion, and I feel pain sing
through me. Medpatches—where the hell are my medpatches? I surge upward,
fighting a shriek and losing. It fills the room. Kristoff sighs in relief and
Jenalle huffs, “Finally!” an instant before she slaps a small square patch to
my hip.

It’s strong and the pain recedes almost immediately. I try to glance
around the medhall, unsurprised by most of the faces surrounding me. Kristoff
breaks away from Kevan and comes to me, taking my hand. “You idiot,” he
murmurs. “You could have died.”

I nod and force a smile. “I won’t let it happen again.”

He looks startled and I wonder if the emotion is reflected in my eyes.
Until I said it, I had no idea it would slip from my lips. No idea that this
brush with death had left me craving life.

But it’s true. I don’t know if it is the knowledge that my brother is
close or the simple fact that I
don’t
want to die. Either way, it is
true.

“Petyr, go take care of Natsu. She knows I’m fine, so she should be
pretty docile. Get her fed and cleaned up,” I say.

He pales, but doesn’t argue—maybe because of the vicious look Kristoff
sends him when he hesitates.

“Why you took that piece of fodder as your aide, I will never
understand,” Kristoff mutters, taking my hand as he crouches next to my bed.
Jenalle murmurs softly to herself, working above me.

“I need to seal the wound,” she says and I tense, pain flaring through
me. I choke on a scream, and Kristoff exchanges a worried look with Jenalle.
“She should be anesthetized,” she says quietly.

“No,” I grit out. “I don’t want it.”

Kristoff nods and Jenalle sighs, an aggravated sound, then slaps another
medpatch to my leg, and my eyes flutter, fighting the meds that invade my body.
I hear the laser turn on, feel the heat of it as she moves toward me. Then the
smell of it, cauterizing my wound. Pain invades every inch of my body and I
scream.

 
When I blink away the black spots
dancing in my vision, Kevan has vanished. “You’re an idiot,” Kristoff says, and
I roll my head to look at him.

“Kicking me while I’m down?” I ask and he laughs. Jenalle hands me a cup
of water and I sip it under her gimlet glare.

“You need to rest that leg,” she says, reclaiming the cup and I nod. She
frowns. “I mean it, Brielle. You could lose it. The whip did damage to your
nerves and they need rest.”

“I fight at the will of the Ja,” I tell her truthfully. Her eyes narrow
dangerously, and she spins, storming out of the medhall still wearing the coat
covered in my blood. “Where is she going?” I ask, and Kristoff shrugs.

A moment passes before the door slides open, and Petyr enters, his eyes
wide and wild. “You didn’t tell me they’re psychic!” he practically yells.

I try to shrug, and wince as pain ripples through me. “Sorry. Is Natsu
well?”

“Fine. She settled down some after going through my memories and
assuring herself you weren’t on death’s doorstep.”

I smile—that sounds like my draken. “Take care of her,” I say. “She
needs food and water, and a secluded place. And she took two arrows. She needs
to have them treated.”

Kristoff squeezes my hand. “Brielle, you need to relax. Petyr isn’t
going to let anything happen to your darling.” He gives the Eleyi a fierce,
amused glance and Petyr pales, shaking his head.

The door slides open again, and Jenalle stalks in, looking as
disgruntled as a wet cat. “Get out, both of you. Prator has given me three
hours to let her rest before the patrons demand her presence. Even I cannot
gainsay the Ja in this.”

A heavy look passes between her and Kristoff, and he begins to stand. I
catch my one-time mentor’s hand. “Don’t. Don’t give him a reason to think you
mean something to me. I can face patrons.”

Kristoff starts to argue, but his mouth closes in a hard line, and he
nods once. After leaning over to kiss my forehead, he straightens and pulls
Petyr from the room. Jenalle fusses over me for a few minutes more, as the
medpatch continues to numb my pain and my eyes grow heavy.

“I thought I would die on the sands,” I murmur, and she pauses. “I
wanted to. Just to escape the pain.”

Her eyes are haunted when they find mine. We aren’t talking about the
pain from a whip lash. That is nothing compared to the pain of slavery.

“Don’t you ever want to go home?” I ask.

She inhales sharply and closes her eyes, as if the memory is too
precious to share, even with a friend. It is answer enough, and I nod to myself
as I turn my head away and close my eyes, letting the medicine and my own
exhaustion pull me into a restless sleep.

Before it claims me, though, I hear her whisper, “Every day. Every second
of every day.”

The sorrow in her voice chases me down into my dreams.

“And here she is, Geoff.” Henri’s voice precedes him, and I straighten,
hiding a wince as my silk pants tug across my bandages. Behind me, there is a
soft click as Kristoff slips away, but I focus instead on the pair of men
entering my room. Zeke, the arena manager, gave us a suite of rooms while I
convalesce after the first patron threw a fit when forced to visit me in the
medhall.

This one isn’t as bad as yesterday’s. He’s clean-cut, his aura as close
to pleasant as I’ve seen in a patron. I almost wonder what he’s doing here,
until a petite blonde steps into the room behind the men.

Her eyes are bright, amused and so utterly detached it makes my skin
crawl. I don’t even bother touching her psyche. After over a week of these
visits, I’ve learned to stay away from the perverse psyche of patrons who look
like her.

“Brielle, this is Geoff Petrov and his sister, Lillian.”

Geoff grins at me, and motions to his sister. “Sit down, love,” he tells
her, and I feel a flash of emotion from him that disturbs me.

Lillian sits down, and her brother and Ja Argot retire to a table away
from my bed, relaxing in the chair and sipping a pungent tea.

“You’re very lovely,” Lillian says softly, and I suppress a shudder at
the soft beauty that is her voice. I want to ignore her, focus on the tiny
pattern my finger is tracing on the blanket—but that is weak, and I’m too
valuable to be seen as weak. Especially to a patron.

“Thank you, my lady,” I answer, smoothing the invisible pattern with my
finger, and finally looking up.

Amusement sparkles in her eyes, and she scoots her chair closer to me,
lowering her voice in intimate confidence. “Do you know, last night, Geoff took
me on our bed. And the entire time he was inside me, he was watching your last
spectacle. When you collapsed, we both came together—it was the best sex we’d
had in months. And we have amazing sex—my brother is very talented. He wants
very badly to fuck you.”

I pale and she laughs lightly, looking over at where Geoff sits with
Argot. “Oh don’t worry, darling. Geoff isn’t allowed to touch. But if you could
hear the things he wants to do.”

And then she tells me. Graphically and in great detail, even showing me
the welts he left on her wrists when he did to her what he wants to do to me.
Going on for what seems like forever.

It’s not forever. Patrons pay for a specific amount of time, and she is
just finishing when Kristoff clears his throat at the door, signaling to the
Ja. She leans over and kisses me on the cheek, murmuring in my ear as she does,
“Next time you fight, he’s going to fuck me through it. Think of us as you
dance the sands.”

I clench my teeth, fighting not to throw up as Geoff and his disgusting
sister follow Argot from the room. I feel dirty and exhausted. A few minutes
later, Kristoff pokes his head into the room and glances at me. I shake my head
at him and he nods, vanishing.

Most days, I need a little time alone after a patron’s visit. At least
Lillian was content to leave me with mental images of incest and violence,
content not to touch.

I wonder how bed slaves endure it, night after night, year after year.

“Kristoff,” I ask, later that night, “how long have you been at the
jakta?”

His eyes are startled, when he looks at me. “I was sold to the jakta
when I was six,” he answers after a pause. “My father bet too much on the
games—there was no way to pay it back. So I was sold. The debt was erased; my
family gained enough money to keep Father betting for another two years.”
 
He says it without bitterness, without any
inflection at all, and I stare at him, silent.

There is so much, so very much, about this quiet young man that I don’t
know. “How long...” I trail off, unable to form the question.

Kristoff smiles, a knowing smile.
 
“How long until Argot took me to bed?
 
I was fourteen. I had been his assistant the entire time, and was
leaving his service for my training in the arena.”

“Are you happy?” I ask, unable to help myself.

He shrugs. “It’s the life I know, and I have Kevan. I’m not happy to
share the Ja’s bed, but it’s life.”

I start to respond, a sharp retort, but there is a knock, and both of us
fall silent. The door slides open, and the Ja enters, alone.

He eyes me, ignoring Kristoff. “I want you to serve lunch tomorrow.”