Page 3 of Chained to the Champion
Vega wasn't waiting. She moved with human unpredictability—duck, jab, elbow, stone to temple.
Messy, glorious.
A blade swung past my face. I barely saw it, senses blurring as something flared deep within me. For half a second, scent and movement tangled, Vega’s blood and heat dragging my feral instincts to the surface. I almost turned toward her, to shield rather than strike. I caught myself.
Focus!
The largest Ignarath charged. My left wing screamed as I tried to launch myself into the air, no flight, no leverage. I pivoted, jaws snapping, let his momentum carry him into my open claws. My fingers sank deep, blood washing over knuckles.My legs shook. Vega, to my right, smashed an Ignarath’s knee, then drove a sharp rock into his gut; the man folded with a sob.
“Zarvash!” she barked a warning. One wounded captor staggered to his feet behind her, blade glimmering. Through haze and agony, I lunged, windpipe seizing as I forced my ruined wing to move, damn the cost. My claws locked on his arm. I twisted, feeling bone break beneath my grip, and buried fangs in his throat. Heat, thrashing, then limpness.
Vega had already finished her opponent, her arm streaked red to the elbow, eyes fever-wild, blood-red hair stuck to her brow in a tangled riot. Her gaze raked across me.
I wanted, against all reason, to drag her close, to scent her hair, to guard her as if she were mine.
I hated that I wanted it.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Her words cut sharp. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, grip still white-knuckled on her stone. “You look like you want to eat me.”
The accusation snapped me awake. I stepped back. “If that were true, you’d be dead already.”
She paced a wary circle, not turning her back to me. She eyed the Ignarath bodies, tensed like I might attack next, practical, not personal, which was almost worse. I wished I didn't deserve the distrust.
I crouched, rifling through the pockets of the dead for weapons; she mirrored the motion, taking her own loot, grabbing and testing a knife as insurance. The sun seared us. My wings ached, hot, useless weight. I tried to unfurl them.
Agony lanced up my spine, blind spots flickering my vision. They nearly cost me my life, twice now. I reminded myself to stop pretending they might miraculously heal in minutes.
“You fight like an amateur,” I said, forcing my voice into something casual. “Messy, reckless.”
She smirked, wiping blood from a split lip. “I’m alive. I’ll take messy.”
Complicated, this one. Not friend, not safe. I watched her shoulders, her hands on a looted flask, swigging the lifegiving water. Good. Smart. She tossed it my way, and I drained what I dared, reflex making me watch for a flinch or double-cross. None came.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The air sizzled between us, within me.
“So.” Her tone was iron. “Where the hell are we?”
I scanned the horizon. Sand, stone, burnt desolation. Trackless, unfamiliar. They'd carried us for days in a rough sack, only setting us down in the dark until today. Heat-sheared rocks, unfamiliar glyphs scratched by claws I didn’t recognize. We were nowhere near Scalvaris, that much was certain.
“I don’t know.”
Survival demanded discipline. I tore my attention to inventory: two water flasks, three knives, and one sidearm with two charges. Not enough for what was out there.
A shadow skittered on the ridge, something watching, waiting.
“We move east,” I said, brusque, ignoring the ache in my wing, in my blood. “There’s shade. Unless you want to wait for whatever that is.” I nodded toward new tracks just visible in drifting sand: claws, wide-set, fresh.
She hesitated, but followed, knife steady in her fist, the closest thing to truce we had. Every step was cautious, uncertain, predatory.
Under Volcaryth’s harsh suns, nothing was safe.
And something wild within me wanted the human beside me.
Hells.
2
VEGA
