Page 25 of Chained to the Champion
Control her. The word felt obscene. Alien. Break her spirit for this fat slug's amusement? Bile rose, hot and bitter. But the alternative … Ignarath justice. For both of us. The performance was necessary. Hating it wouldn't change that.
I stepped towards her. Close. Too close. Close enough to smell the cell-stink, the blood, and beneath it all, irrevocably, her. That sharp sweetness that drove me mad. Her eyes tracked me. Sharp. Wary. Calculating.
“Kneel.” The command scraped my throat raw. Felt like tearing scales.
A hesitation. Microscopic. Just enough resistance to be believable, not enough to be fatal defiance. Her gaze locked with mine.Trust me. Play the part.
Slowly, she sank. Shoulders tight with tension. Chin lifted, even in submission. Pride bent, not broken. Never broken.
The Master's scales rippled. Amusement? Satisfaction? “Better. But it lacks … conviction.”
He wanted more. A show of absolute dominance. My stomach churned.
Closer still. Looming. Playing the monster they expected. Hating every molecule of air I displaced. I reached out, a feigned strike, a harsh grip on her shoulder, enough force to sell the lie, not enough to inflict true pain?—
Then she collapsed.
Sudden, violent. Her forehead slammed against the filth-streaked stone at my feet. A brutal, absolute subjugation that ripped something cold and sharp through my chest.
“Mercy,” she choked out, voice carrying in the dead air. Hoarse. Desperate. “Mercy, Master.”
Master. Acid to my ears. This fierce, proud woman, groveling. Selling the lie with terrifying conviction. Saving us both.
My turn. I placed one booted foot near her bowed head. A conqueror's stance. “Silence, creature.”
She whimpered, and it felt real enough to make me want to hurl, either my breakfast or the Master against the nearest wall.
The Master laughed. “Perhaps you have tamed it after all.” He lumbered back to his desk, scratched another mark in his ledger. “You're confirmed for the tournament. Don't be late.” He paused, malice gleaming in his small eyes. “But first, the opening feast. Tonight, in the Blood Hall at sunset. All combatants are expected.” He paused. “Creatures are welcome.”
Creatures. Another trial. My claws dug into my palms, points threatening to break through my scales. “Where is this hall?”
“You'll find it.” Dismissive wave. “Now, get your pet cleaned up. It stinks.”
The word sparked like flint on steel inside my skull. I hauled Vega to her feet, grip deliberately rough, pulling her, stumbling, towards the tunnel exit. A performance of dominance. Her eyes, when they flickered towards mine, were full of fire.
In the shadows of the corridor, in the Master's view but out of his hearing, I leaned close. A threatening posture.
My whisper hissed against her ear, low, venomous promise.
“We're going to gut them all.”
11
ZARVASH
The city'sfoul breath clung to us both as I dragged Vega back through the labyrinthine alleys of Ignarath. Every shadow seemed to hold eyes, every flicker of movement felt like talons scraping against my scales, probing for weakness, for the slightest crack in my facade.
Her wrists, red and chafed, and the map of bruises blooming across her delicate face were a relentless war drum pounding against the fraying edges of my control with each step.
My grip remained firm on her arm, a calculated pressure, tight enough to sell the brutal ownership demanded by this cursed place yet consciously eased to avoid inflicting more pain. We were a spectacle, a master and his defiant property, and all of Ignarath had eyes. Eyes that reported directly to the Tournament Master, whose leering satisfaction was burned into my memory.
One misstep, one crack in the performance, and our lives were forfeit.
Finally, the warped wood of the guestroom door groaned shut behind us. I slid the heavy, rusted bolt into place, the grating sound echoing in the sudden quiet. I stood motionless, senses straining, listening for the shuffle of footsteps in thecorridor, the faintest whisper that might betray surveillance. Only when the silence stretched, thick and undisturbed, did I release her arm, the imprint of her shape lingering on my claws.
“Are you hurt?” The words clawed their way out, rough and grating like shards of obsidian scraping my throat.
Vega rotated her shoulders, a slight wince tightening the bruised corner of her mouth. “Nothing that won't heal.”
