Gentle Chains (The Eleyi Saga Book 1) (19 page)

But I could never make that mistake.

The vid screen shows a gorgeous girl, her hair a river of darkness,
shadowed by a burly guard. They seem vaguely familiar, as if from a different
life. Not as familiar as the Eleyi at her shoulder, backlit by the burning
fires of Cenktari.

I have imagined my brother a thousand places, a thousand horrible
owners. But this—to see him here, is shocking and painful. I blink back sudden
tears as a well of longing opens in me. Holy Eleyi roots, I miss him. I didn’t
realize how much, until this moment, watching them moving through the
devastation of a broken planet, a cybertulres rambling about Sadiene Renult and
her new consort.

Juhan has found a place of position, it seems. As a consort. Jealousy
bites at me, and I look away.

“Brielle?” Kristoff says softly, questioning. “Who is it?”

I motion at the pale Eleyi, his cold gray eyes—when have his eyes ever
been that cold?—his wings spread to cover his lady.
Why is he
there
? He promised
to come for me
. “My brother,” I whisper, and Kristoff’s eyes go wide. The
image flickers, and I cry out, a soft noise of distress that I cannot stop.

The arena is already forming, prepared for the ritual bows and the angry
dance.

I close my eyes and focus on my brother, a galaxy away.

“How long has it been?” I ask, my voice hoarse. “Since we were sold and
brought here?” Kristoff hesitates, and I open an eye to look at him, anger
simmering in my chest. “How long?”

“Four months,” he says.

Such a small window of time. And yet it feels like a lifetime. I close
my eyes and my brother is there, cold-eyed and protective behind his lady.
Protecting her instead of coming for me.

How is he called her consort? Don’t they know she bought him? A surge of
anger goes through me and I bite my tongue until I taste blood and the anger
begins to fade. But the questions remain.

“Brielle?” he asks and I shake my head.

“Don’t, Kristoff,” I say, my voice quiet. I can’t handle his questions,
not on top of the unexpected appearance of my brother. He quiets, pulling me
against his shoulder as the next match begins and I lose myself in examining
the gladiators dancing on the sands.

The premtha pride exhibition makes me sick. The cats explode out of the
pen, plowing into the fodder. I gag at the ferocious hunger from the cats
feasting on the fallen fodder. One of them still has a laser gun, and I squeeze
my eyes shut as he shoots, the searing bolt cutting one of the premthas in
half, spilling blood and intestines on the stands. Kristoff wipes my face when
I throw up. Even here, sequestered under the arena and the creatures, the agony
of loss and death hits me like a blow.

He forces me to stand as the emotions crash over me and the screams of
the surviving premthas come closer. “Come on. Watching isn’t doing you any
good, and I can help you get ready before I’m due to the holding room.”

I stumble after him, tears in my eyes. He retrieves my bag from Miwya’s
pen and pulls me into a private room. Shivering, I strip and pull on the silver
leggings that cling to me like a second skin. A small black half-vest that
fastens below my breastbone. A wide black belt with a hook for my whip and
laser harness, and then he helps me fasten on my wing tips. The weight is
unfamiliar for a moment, but I sweep them slowly forward and back several
times, adjusting. Kristoff stares at me, smiling gently.

“What?” I ask, self-conscious.

“You’re gorgeous.” He looks so proud it makes tears rise in my eyes
again. He kisses my forehead and his expression turns serious. “Promise me you
won’t watch my match.”

It’s a demand and it sets my nerves off, and I shake my head, silently.
 The warmth and affection leech from his face and he shakes me, just short
of violent. There’s my jackass mentor. “Brielle, don’t. You need to focus; you
can’t afford to be distracted. If it goes badly for me—” he breaks off, his
gaze distant. “Don’t watch.”

I can’t argue with him, not when we are both dressed for the arena, and
the crowd is screaming. I nod, and he gives me a sick smile and shoves me lightly.
“Go,” he says, and I do, tears blurring my vision. He doesn’t say anything and
I am absurdly grateful. If he were to call out a goodbye, I think I would
scream.

-How did life get so impossible to understand,
so damn fast?-
I ask, when I reach Miwya. The draken blinks at
me sleepily, and nuzzles his head against my chest, almost knocking me over. I
smile through my tears and kiss his scaly head as we listen to the screams of
the other beasts.

Miwya lifts his head when we hear footsteps, his golden eyes narrowing.
–
Prator,-
he says, soft and menacing. I shiver, glad that dangerous tone
isn’t directed at me, and force myself to stand.

“Come with me,” he says brusquely, and I glance quickly at Miwya before
following him out of the pen. He leads me to a lift, and I step in behind him.
I’m tense, standing as far as possible from him, but as the lift glides upward,
and he makes no move toward me, I relax by slow degrees. A few seconds before
the lift stops, he looks at me. “Brace yourself.”

The door opens and the noise of the crowd engulfs me. And the emotions.
It’s euphoric, the mass hysteria that feeds on itself, each nudge of excitement
building on the last. It hits me like a drug, and I gasp. Under the arena it is
filtered, all of the anger and hysteria without any of the endorphins. But here
nothing buffers me from it, and for a moment—in the heartbeat it takes me to
finish putting my mental walls in place—I don’t care. I don’t want anything to
buffer it. Prator’s hand is on my arm as I shudder free of the emotion, pulling
me along, and for the first time, I am grateful. I can’t look weak in front of
these people who will scream for my blood in only a few hours. And they are
watching, curious eyes drawn by my jakta colors and Prator’s familiar face.

“Can you handle this, on the sands?” he asks, voice low. I nod, paling.
If I had felt this for the first time on the sands, when facing a phalanx…I
shudder, shaking the thought. My death is too easy to contemplate.

“Come, Brielle. Patrons wish to see our new spectacle.”

I grit my teeth and follow him. The room we enter is crowded with
people, Pente mixed with Others, all seeming to swirl around Ja Argot. His eyes
dart to us as the door opens, and he smiles. “Ladies, gentlemen, I am so
pleased to introduce you to our new spectacle.”

Prator gives me a light push and I’m in their midst, the curious and
hungry gazes, the high-pitched voices and wandering hands glancing off me as
Argot draws me to his side. He positions me at his shoulder, just behind him. A
subservient position, even as he uses it to draw attention to me.

A bug-eyed Myeteran glides closer to eye me, bringing a Cenktari whore
who hangs on his arm. “What will she do? She’s a bit small to face the arena,”
he says doubtfully.

A surge of pleasure from Argot, and relief from Prator as Henri smiles
silkily. “Would you like to wager on her?”

I’m dismissed in the sudden interest of betting, ignored except for a
few assessing glances as one of the arena’s robots records the odds.

“If I lose, I’ll beggar the jakta,” I whisper, listening to them.

Prator laughs, and turns me away. “Then be sure not to lose, Eleyi.”

The sands are ready, and the furor dies as attention is called back to
the arena. Tension spikes and a service AI moves through the room, handing out
drinks silently. I wave it away when Prator offers, and stare at a distant spot
on the sand—the robots missed a splotch of blood when they readied the arena
this time.

“Watch, Brielle,” Prator says, steel and amusement in his psyche. I
glance at him, startled. He nods at the sands and I look down. There’s no
warning—my mental walls are too high for me to pick up on their pysches.

Two glads, both clad in the silver and black of the Argot jakta.
Kristoff is easily recognized, with his traditional Pente dreadlocks and
nervous swagger as he crosses the sands.

Jemes stands across from him, his familiar face pale.

I sway, watching them bow, and a patron murmurs behind me, “Argot is
fighting his glads against each other? Unusual!”

“But exciting; his are always so beautiful to watch,” a woman answers,
her voice breathy.

I feel my gorge rising and I choke it down, clutching the wall to keep
from falling. Prator is standing too close to me, and even behind my walls, I
can feel his psyche spiking, lust radiating off of him in unrelenting waves.

“Who would you rather live, Brielle? Both are there because of your
refusal.” He says it so casually, like he has not pronounced a death sentence
on my lover and mentor.

Who would I see live? How can I make such a decision? I open my mouth,
ready to beg, and I see his eyes—the hunger there. The expectation that I will.
Close my mouth again.

I lick my lips, and the bell rings. Jemes’ trident flashes in the sun,
and Kristoff steps away, drawing his attack. Without hesitation, he follows.
Blessed tears blur my vision as they fight. A shrill whistle, and a high spray
of blood—first blood goes to Kristoff. He’ll win. There is no doubt, not
watching how Jemes overextends himself, how he overcommits to an attack even when
Kristoff would give him a chance to rest.

One of them will die, and I’m not ready for another loss. I shudder as a
sharp breath goes through the patrons, and Prator’s interest sharpens on me.
The fight drags on for an eternity, and I want to scream as the patrons begin
to exchange bets, laughing and gasping, watching the men dying in the arena. I
begin to turn away and Prator catches me, forces my gaze back to the sands.
“Watch,” he hisses. “This is your doing, and you will watch. You will see what you
have done—and you’ll remember, the next time I ask.”

Guilt rises in me. Kristoff is bleeding now. Jemes is staggering from a
blow to his leg that is gushing blood. Kristoff glances up, and something
changes in his eyes.
Sorrow
. He moves
fast, faster than I can watch, his ax swinging up and around and the crowd’s
scream drowns out my own as Jemes collapses, his head spinning with a spray of
hot blood. I stumble, almost falling. Grief and guilt—mine and Kristoff’s—slam
into me, and my walls aren’t strong enough to keep the emotion out.

Prator catches me. I shriek again, but the sound is lost in the babble
of the patrons. Argot nods sharply at his brother, and I’m pulled from the
room, dragged across the halls. Back to the beast pit, back to my waiting
draken. Who are with the others, now? Who will tend them, if my aide, my Jemes
is dead? I sob, and as we enter the hall leading to Miwya, Prator backhands me.
“Enough.” He snarls, “I gave you a choice and you made it. This is the
consequence. You don’t refuse my bed for a service slave and expect him to
live.”

“He wasn’t bought for the arena,” I gasp, choking on the words. “You
killed him and he was never meant to fight!”

I throw myself at him with a scream, and he catches me, shaking me with
a teeth-rattling force, my head slamming into the wall.
 
Prator grins. “Easy enough to send a few
extra creds to his father.”

Anger flares in me, white hot, drowning out the grief, and I scream,
clawing at him. He expects it, though, and shoves me down, kicking me in the stomach.
My breath explodes from me in a hot rush and I gag, throwing up in the hall as
Prator stands over me in disgust. Even after I can breathe again, I slump
there, sobbing. “Get up. Clean yourself. You’re due in the arena in an hour.
You’ll fight, you’ll put a damn good show on, or so help me, Brielle, I’ll have
every draken killed, every Eleyi in the jakta,” he spits, anger surging in his
psyche.

“I don’t care,” I snarl from the ground and in this moment, I don’t—kill
them all, kill Kristoff. None of them, not even my brother, has taken care of
me. Only Jemes and now he’s dead.

“I’ll kill your brother.”

It makes me stop, and I stare at him, stunned.

“You fight. Make the patrons believe it. Or I will send assassins for
your brother.”

Then he turns, stalking back to his brother, leaving me a weeping mess
on the floor under the arena.

I fight, because I am terrified of what he will do if I don’t. The
manger’s underling bustles around me as the sands are prepared. Miwya hisses
when someone comes too close to me, and he clucks at me. “Control your beast,
girl. And remember, when you open, he’s meant to be attacking you.”

I nod, and Miwya nuzzles me. -
You have to fight well, little Le.
He’ll kill the drakelings, if you don’t.-

The hatch to the arena floor opens, and I nudge him. -
Go. I’ll give
them their show.-

He hesitates for a long moment, long enough the crowd is beginning to
become restive, and then throws himself through the hatch, into the air above
the sands.

The audience goes wild. With my mind open to Miwya, there is no filter,
and the emotions, the rush of energy, hits me like a fist, leaving me reeling.
I shudder, stumbling, struggling to get control.