Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance (8 page)

Lennai left her at the top of the stairs with instructions to go down alone. This was the Chara fighting pit, where the cursii waited to fight, recovered, or where they died after the games.

At first blush, it was just like the baths. Naked people, well, aliens...everywhere, in all states of dress, all kinds of bodies, some slick with oil and others dusted with sand. Most in the process of being packed into various kinds of armor. Some looked like leather, some like metal, and still others looked to be of the same sturdy fabric Alaina herself wore. She had not been this close to the cursii before, none of them except the one who had attacked her. And Vega.

There was such an abundance of old scars, new scars, and muscle. Even the women among them were rock solid, and bore the silvered, healed wounds of battle. Gates let in false sunshine, lining one whole wall of the underground pit, and behind that Alaina knew the Arena itself waited.

She could already hear the rumble of the crowd finding its seats. One of the guards in red and gold handed her a bag which, upon inspection, was full of unmarked medicines Alaina had no name for, and surgical tools she wasn’t even sure she was capable of using.

“Good luck,” the guard muttered, voice muffled beneath his helmet.

A frisson of curiosity shivered through the cursii when the donara entered the pit. Vega looked up from where he was sitting in the sand across the room, already dressed and trying to meditate, and failing. The sight of her brought back all the shades of his homeworld he’d seen in her the night before, an awful homesickness rising in his heart that he’d been able to keep buried all these years. It made no sense that he should see the triumvirate sunrises in her hair or the morning mist in her eyes, but he did. And it drew his attention back to her again and again, no matter how he tried to redirect it.

He rubbed at his face and got to his feet, prowling towards the Arena gate to look at the sands and the gathering crowd instead of the girl. She was looking through the bag the guard gave her with a look of consternation on her face. Vega figured she was doomed. No use for it, and not his problem. On the other side of the Arena, he could see the Ankaa citizens settling in their seats, row after row of helmets.

Bathari popped up at his shoulder. “Saw the roster. You’re in the last fight.”

Vega nodded. He’d expected that. The domina was consigning him to only the final battle instead of having him fight up the lists, probably because he’d been injured the night before. It would delay his climb on the lists overall, but put him at the least amount of risk. He knew it was meant to be mercy, but it felt like a punishment.

Bathari went on, “They’re all gunning for you today, Vey. I’m sorry to say it. I didn’t want to say it, but you need to be ready. All your brothers are sore.”

“What have they to be sore about?” Vega muttered, scowling.

“The donara.” Bathari’s mouth quirked, head tilting so that his one tall antler cast a shadow across the sand. “Lohar told everyone you ruined it. That our domina is not going to give her to the highest victor anymore.”

Vega hissed out a breath. “Of course he did. Well, not that it matters, but I didn’t ruin fuckall. Lohar ruined his own fucking self.”

“His words were heard first, mate.”

“Fine.” Vega bent down, scooping up some sand, and started rubbing it over his hands. “Let them be pissed. Let them try to kill me. I’ll go through every one of them and win in the end anyway.”

Bathari sighed. “Or you could apologize. Soothe them?”

“I’ve nothing to apologize for.”

“That pride is going to get you in trouble, Vey. You’re a slave yet, remember, just like the rest of us.”

Vega glared at him, but said nothing. Bathari was, it seemed, his only friend, and there was nothing he might have said that wouldn’t have alienated him. Vega’s pride kept him alive. His pride kept him fighting. His certainty that he was
not
, in fact a slave, that he would not die a slave, was the secret of his strength. And he wouldn’t let it go, not for any man. He suspected Bathari would have gone on, but then the siren call came, the roar of the crowd followed, and the guards were shouting for them to find their weapons. The games had begun.

It was mayhem in the pit like nothing Alaina had ever seen before, once the games started. The cursii fought in teams, against other races, against other houses, and then sometimes against each other. From the pit, Alaina couldn’t discern what disputes were being settled by each game, but sometimes there were specific weapons and sometimes there were vehicles involved, like chariots, but they hovered above the sand. There was a Master of Games whose voice was amplified through the Arena, but Alaina couldn’t hear him over the bellowing of the crowd, the war cries of the cursii on the sands, or the screams of the fallen as game after game was fought, and won, and lost.

She watched the first game through the gate, standing beside one of the guards. Errai versus Ankaa, House Chara versus a house whose name she couldn’t have pronounced on her own. House Chara won, but one of the cursu was stabbed with a shining metal spear right through the heart, and there was nothing Alaina could do for him at the end. They threw his body onto a hover-pallet and drew it down one of the dark tunnels, never to be seen or spoken of again. After the second game, Alaina got busy. More wounds, less of them mortal, and she tried to patch people up and clean blood the color of blueberry syrup if they were Jiayi, silver if they were Errai, and a clear, viscuous liquid if they were Ankaa.

She did the best she could without understanding the medicines in the bag or half the instruments, and at least she could say that she was saving more than she was losing. But she was losing some of them. And it never seemed to stop. She lost count of how many games were fought, of who was fighting who, and eventually gave herself over to the never-ending line of patients.

Until she heard a siren, different from the previous calls for the cursii to line up at the gate, and the guard muttered to her that it was the last fight. Alaina realized it must have been hours and hours, though it felt like days she’d been bent over alien after alien, learning their anatomy at the same time as trying to heal them. She looked up, watching the cursii find their place before the gate, and saw Vega among them. And the red-scaled Errai who’d attacked her, the one Vega had saved her from. Were they meant to fight on the same side? She finished stitching up the sliced shoulder of the Errai cursu she was treating, thrust her hands into the wash bowl to get the blood off and, went to the bars of the gate as it shut.

She watched Vega, specifically.

His armor was black like his scales, conformed to his body like a second skin, and he bore two blades on his back with jagged, brutal-looking edges. His dark hair was tied back from his face and though it became clear that the cursii from House Chara were all on one team, against a hulking group of Ankaa, Alaina could see that Vega wasn’t putting his back to the red-scaled cursu. Or any of his teammates, for that matter.

“What’s happening?” she asked the guard at the gate.

“A land dispute,” the guard said. “House Khuun claims House Chara invaded a planet already claimed. House Chara says there was no claim. The cursii will fight and whoever wins gets dominion of the planet.”

“What about the people who already live on the planet?” Alaina asked, frowning.

The guard shrugged. “They have no power here.” Then he indicated Vega. “The favored is in trouble with his brothers after last night. Watch, once it is plain they’ve won the game, they’ll turn on him.”

Alaina’s heart pounded. “Why? Why would they do that?”

The guard looked at her, and she could see him arch an eyebrow through the fore of his helmet. “To claim you.”

“But he hasn’t claimed me,” Alaina argued. “That’s wrong! He’s outnumbered three to one!”

The guard shrugged again, looking back out to the Arena. “Hope he’s ready for a fight, then.”

Alaina found herself curling her fingers around the bars of the gate, pressed against it, watching as the Master of Games counted down to the siren start. And then it wailed through the Arena like a blast. The ten cursii fighting drew their weapons, and the game began.

It happened in a blur, and Alaina couldn’t see it all through the gate. The crowd was so loud it was like thunder shook the whole Arena, rattling right to Alaina’s collar bone, clamoring in her ears, blocking everything else out.

She tried to keep Vega in her sights but they were all so fast. They moved and fought like nothing Alaina had ever seen. Vega himself was liquid, a black slick of oil lashing in amongst the other cursii, blood splattering in so many colors as he moved from opponent to opponent. It was clear, despite the ferocity of the other cursii, that Vega was the strongest fighter among them. He dispatched the last of the Ankaa cursii and then Alaina could hear that the crowd of the Arena was chanting his name.

Ve-ga. Ve-ga. Ve-ga.

Vega lifted his blades, soaking in the sound of their cheering, and the crowd went wild in celebrating his triumph.

Then Alaina saw the red-scaled cursu lifted his weapon, something akin to an axe, and hurl it right at Vega.

She screamed. “VEGA, WATCH OUT!”

By some miracle, Vega seemed to hear her. He whirled towards the sound of her voice, saw the axe and ducked, lifting one of his blades in the same moment to meet the flying axe head. The ring of metal on metal sang through the Arena. The axe flew aside, deflected, and as Vega straightened the red-scaled cursu charged him.

Alaina watched, heart in her throat, as the other three cursii of House Chara followed the red-scaled cursu, lunging for Vega from all sides, weapons drawn. But Vega was a maelstrom in the middle, turning, deflecting, knocking hit after hit aside, even as the crowd screamed and Alaina heard the Master of Games call for them to cease. They did not.

The guard grabbed Alaina by the arm, hauling her back from the gate.

“No!” she cried. “Wait—”

But then the gate itself rose again, and so did several of the other gates, guards pouring through them to surround the fighting cursii. Sand kicked up, clouding the clump of them, and Alaina couldn’t see until it settled. The guards had the other cursii pinned to the ground and were disarming them, binding their hands, and one of the guards was helping Vega up from the sands to the wild, blood-crazed cheers of the Arena crowd. But Vega was limping badly, and Alaina could see the silvery Errai blood smearing his side. She could tell from the way he held himself that it was his. The other cursii were dragged out of the Arena and through another gate, probably off to suffer some kind of punishment for their rebellion, while the one guard helped Vega back to the pit.

Alaina scrambled away from the guard, grabbing the medical bag, and hurried to meet Vega as they helped him beneath the gate. She didn’t hesitate, just touched his side to inspect the wound, and his blistering litany of curses told her it was bad. Her hand came away covered in the shiny silver of his blood. She looked at the guard carrying him.

“I can’t help him here. I need somewhere clean.”

“You’ll help him where I say you’ll help him,” the guard replied gruffly. Then he let go of Vega, and the cursu went crashing to the sands at their feet even as Alaina tried to catch one of his arms. He was covered in smaller cuts, and she thought now that one of his ribs was surely broken. He’d been wounded worse than just what she’d seen through the gate.

“This is Domina Lennai’s favorite!” she shouted angrily at the guard. “And she told me to save him before all others! Do you want me to tell her he died because of
you
?”

The guard started, shoulders straightening, and then grumbled some more before he bent down to haul Vega up by the arms and hoist him over his shoulder.

“This way,” he said, and turned towards one of the other gates leading out of the pit. Alaina hurried after him, clutching her bag, and watched the color drain from Vega’s face as the minutes passed.

Vega’s world was a haze of pain. Fucking Lohar. Bastard couldn’t just let it go, had to make it personal. Vega could probably have had him put to death last night for that business in the barracks with the donara, but he didn't. And for his trouble, Lohar turned his brothers against him. He would have to remember to thank Bathari for the warning. Except…

Except it was the donara’s voice echoing in his ears.

The way she’d cried out to warn him. The way she’d cried out his name.

Even through the pain, he heard her. At a distance, but he heard her. Over and over again, calling out to him across the sands, saving his life even beyond the reach of her healing hands.

He was vaguely aware of being carried out of the Arena. He knew the crowd had been screaming. He knew the Master of Games had been screaming, and likely so had Domina Lennai. But all he could hear was the donara screaming his name. And as the pain in his side, and all over his body, throbbed loud enough to drown out the screams entirely, he’d passed out. Somewhere, he guessed, between the gate and the pit, he’d lost all sense of himself, tumbling into darkness.

When he came around he was still in pain, but it had drastically receded. The fog in his mind lingered, and there was a swirl through his vision as he took in the soft glow of the overhead lights, how they illuminated the small surgery connected to the pit. It wasn’t used often, because few cursii who came off the sands in a condition for it survived more than a few minutes. And there had rarely been a physician droid to tend the room. Yet there he was, and as his field of vision widened with his growing consciousness, he took in the sight of the donara standing above him. No, kneeling, because he was lying in the cot and she was at his side, sewing shut a wound in his abdomen. It should’ve hurt more than it did, he realized. He was drugged to his teeth, no doubt.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“No, I’m making it up as I go,” she muttered, pulling a stitch tight.