Page 62 of Bonded By Savages

I’m told the Arena of Blood has another name. The proving grounds.

What will it prove for us? I don’t know anymore. I’m hollow. This should have been one of the most thrilling moments of my life. I should have been trembling with nervousness and lust, imagining thousands of hungry eyes staring at me from the crowds while my two brutal protectors claim me publicly, showing the universe I belong to them.

They don’t own me anymore. My heart, they took, but they let go. They don’t own my future. I don’t love the men drowned in vengeance, who plan to shift from world to world, guided by a War-God with hatred in his veins. I love the men they used to be. The men who gave me hope in my captivity, the men I thought had come back when I felt a flash of them after the pleasure room, their protectiveness overwhelming everything as they chose me—if only for a night, the most magical, blissful night, until I was woken by those fists like battering rams on the gate that shattered my future.

We stand under the bridge, and I look up, space split by black stone. On either side, trillions of stars sparkle, uncaring of my fate.

I stand there a moment, looking up, and Damian steps closer to me. “If you do not wish to go through with this, we can return to the estate,” he says, his voice formal. It’s the first words he’s said since asking me if I wanted to fly or walk to the Coliseum.

“I will go with this,” I reply, my tone cold.

My hope is that his seed takes root, him or Tarak, and that I don’t have to spend the week before they go to battle mating them desperately. They won’t have much time for me. They’ll be at training drills and strategy meetings, leaving their Fated Mate at home. I’ll have desperate, sweaty moments with them, aching for them to leave me with something when they go.

Otherwise I’ll be alone. The Bond will torment me, until the two men are killed in battle or return, more distant than ever. It’s not the torment of the Bond I fear. It’s looking up at the stars and seeing only a baleful glare staring back at me, looking out at my huge estate and seeing only cold black walls, staring at myself in the mirror, aging slowly, so slowly, every year more purposeless than the last.

Another triad opens the gates under the Coliseum. They’re branded on their foreheads as well. The Priests have their men at every strategic point near the palace of their War-God. Maybe to protect him. Maybe because they don’t know what his next move will be.

Will I be safe here? What if his mad attack, leaping from planet to planet and penetrating the Aurelian Empire, fails? The Aurelian Empire may have weakened, but they’re still a fierce force. Would I be safe here? Or will even Obsidious be brought into the fray?

The three Fanatics keep their heads bowed, knuckles on their foreheads, until we walk into the dim hallway under the Coliseum. At the far end are the huge portcullis gates, like the maw of a dragon, and the muted noise of the crowd streams through.

I kick my sandals off my feet and stand, digging my toes into the fine black sand. To the left of the tunnel, there is a massive black cauldron that looms over me, with three long metal poles sticking up from it. That is how new Followers of Obsidian get the marks that made my stomach churn when I first saw them on Damian’s and Tarak’s chests.

More wolves for the War-God’s pack.

To the right is the towering, ornate mirror, ringed by black metal and gleaming black-blue Orbs. Three Aurelian Fanatics stand straight-backed next to it, protecting the ancient technology that lets triads of men go through space, facing the void under the guidance of the War-God himself.

I know I am standing under the dais where the Priests stood, and that at the top of the tower, Obsidian himself may be sitting at his throne, next to his half-men, half-wolf battle-brothers. Obsidian is terrifying, but he guided Damian and Tarak to save me.

I hope he guides the warships my men will be on safely through the void. I hope that they do not die as their battle-brother did. That death ruined my two men. If I felt their terror as they were ripped apart by the void, I fear I might lose the parts of me that are still good. If I am going to raise a son on this cold world, I need to be stronger than Damian and Tarak. I need to keep myself even if they’re cut down on a foreign battlefield, or ripped to shreds by missiles.

We pass the Fanatics guarding the mirror. They knuckle their foreheads, and a war horn sounds. The portcullis gates slide open. I keep my head up, staring straight forward, and the pleasure dress swishes with my steps as I enter the arena I was pulled into through that mirror-gate what feels like a lifetime ago.

The half-circle of the Coliseum’s walls rise before me. The stands are packed. Aurelian triads gleam white against the black stone, their marble skin contrasted to their black robes. All are branded. Some have the fierce half-filled-in brands that mark honored men, men who killed for the Priests and the Old Ways, men who want to earn their Mate as Damian and Tarak did.

I hope they keep her.

The cold balls of the auras of my two men follow me as I walk into the arena. Above are trillions of stars, and drones that hover, filming me to broadcast me to the universe. Every Aurelian of the Empire waiting for war will see the Followers of Obsidian rewarded with the one thing they want more than life itself, a Bonded Mate.

Those cold balls will never go from my mind, unless they die. I’ll learn to push them out. I’ll learn to detach myself from them, so I do not go mad when I feel them in battle, when I feel them braving the rift to travel through reality to strike the Aurelian Empire. How many planets do they have to conquer before they get to Colossus? How many times will they risk their lives, gambling for revenge?

I never wanted them to hurt again. Damian has fresh bruises on his chest from grappling. Tarak has a new cut on his wrist where his battle-brother’s Orb-Blade nearly took his hand off. They are training with live weapons, preparing themselves to go up against warriors of their own species.

I push that out of my mind. I have only one purpose here. To take their seed, so that something may grow. So that all this pain and fear could be worth something.

The crowd bays, huge warriors yelling in approval as they see the silver collar around my neck that proclaims me a holy, Bonded Mate. Slate-grey eyes fixate on me.

I turn. Damian and Tarak are standing like statues, waiting. Behind them are the open gates and the flat back wall of the arena. My eyes stroll up the black granite walls, until I get to the raised dais. It’s filled with priests. Even Priest Rataro is there, with a new triad of guards. They look down, some with thin smiles of approval.

Above them, at the top of the tower, the War-God stands. His two black shadows are behind him. They are in their Aurelian form, but I saw them first when they stalked in the arena, wolves bigger than horses as Obsidian kept the gate open long enough for Damian to return with five souls, five women who would have lived lives of torment on that horrid Toad planet if it wasn’t for the rescue.

Obsidian will lead these fanatical warriors, an army of wolves to crush the Aurelian Empire.

I must hope they succeed, for the sake of the two men linked to me.

The crowd cheers. Stoic Aurelian warriors raise back their heads and howl as I walk to the center of the arena.

How many men have died on these black sands?

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