Page 51 of Gladiator's Captive
If I didn’t use the necklace to pay for our passage, it still left me with one option to win the large sum we would need in the shortest amount of time. I glanced down at my hands, flexing my fingers in the empty air.
I can do it for her. One last time.
If there was one thing the Breath of Death could do, it was to galvanize the crowds. What was one more fight?
Chapter Twenty-Five
––––––––
Serena
I woke up with my bones aching, but I was warm and my throat had lost that dry, scratchy feeling. As I twitched under the blankets, a familiar weight shifted between my breasts. I blinked in confusion, thinking it was just a dream, but the weight stayed put. My fingers reached down, pulling up the star ruby, glinting softly under the low artificial light. I exhaled a shaky breath as my fingers traced the light colors spreading under the polished precious stone in wondrous, unique patterns.
Emotions choked me as I realized what Rager had done. He was giving me back the necklace, the only possession I had left from the only person who had ever loved me. The only one before Rager, that was.
But how is he going to pay for our passage?It didn’t matter. We would find a way, together.
The thought hovered in my mind for a few seconds, then I sat up in the bed. I vaguely remembered Rager leaving. He wasn’t back yet and I had no idea how long it had been.
My stomach grumbled and I got up, then went for an inspection of what was our new home. It was small and sparsely furnished, but cozy enough. I wandered around for a while then stopped, clamping a hand on my stomach as another grumble twisted it painfully. I was definitively hungry. What time was it? There was no sunlight, no way to see the sky, even. But I didn’t need the sun or a view of the outside to tell me it had been hours. My stomach was more reliable than any clock could ever be, anyway.
Where the hell is Rager?
A sudden feeling slithered up my spine and wrapped around my throat. Something had to be wrong for Rager not to have come back to me. And many things could go wrong in a place like Tartarus. The memory of Wylder’s resentful, hostile glare came back to me and with it, a somber premonition.
Before I realized what I was doing, I was at the door and out in the long, empty hallways. My eyes wandered to one side, then the other. I didn’t remember the way from the clinic so I had no idea where to go.
Just when I thought I would have to select a direction randomly and wander around for a while, a short figure emerged in the distance. I waited for Doc to come closer, not speaking until she was close enough.
“What is it?” I could barely get the words out through my closed-up throat. “Is it Rager?”
Janet’s large hazel eyes set on me and she didn’t need to answer.
“Is he okay?” My voice was pinched, just like my chest. “Is Rager hurt?”
Janet pursed her lips in a dubious and furious grimace, a weird combination that worked anyway on her rounded, harmonious features.
