Page 66 of Gladiator's Captive
Chapter Thirty-One
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Rager
The chains holding my wrists weren’t strong enough to contain me, but I didn’t break them. The ones around my mind, although invisible, were all that was needed to keep me compliant.
They had Serena, and it was all that mattered.
My back lay against the stone wall, its crudely etched surface grating my skin. The smell of ageless, dry dust filled my nostrils and sand itched my eyelids, but I had no way of wiping them clean.
I turned my head to scan the bare, dark cell in which Wylder’s men had thrown me. This wasn’t the cell Sayk used as a kind of jail for Tartarus’ most belligerent citizens until their fates was decided.
I had a strong suspicion that this was Wylder’s private dungeon, where he threw those who dared to oppose his power. And I also had a strong suspicion that those who saw the inside of those walls didn’t leave them alive.
I’ve lost everything. I tried and I still lost everything.
The thought imposed itself, hateful and full of fear. A fear that was as alien to me as the way my gut clenched and my throat pinched. Because for the first time in a long time, I was truly afraid. Not for me, but for Serena.
She was at the mercy of her father, a man who was unable to feel the most basic of love for his own offspring. I tried to focus, tried to find a way. Any way to fight back, to escape with Serena, or at least to win her freedom.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps against the sand. Voices mixed with the footsteps, angry and male, but too far for me to make out the words. Too far, or maybe it was just the sounds bouncing on the stone walls of the tunnels that mixed them into an unintelligible garble. Hard knocks and shouts followed, then more angry words.
Then silence. The footsteps resumed, but they were accompanied by the sound of something getting dragged on the sand. Something heavy.
The mystery was lifted when a silhouette appeared, dragged by two human men. I instantly recognized two of Sayk’s enforcers, new recruits that had started working for him in the weeks before our arrival in Tartarus. The man being dragged was unconscious, his head lolling limp on his shoulders, masking his features, but the gray skin and black hair were unmistakable.
“Sayk!” I called his name, but the Huugwor didn’t stir. “What have you done to him?”
The human men on each side of Sayk didn’t meet my gaze, but they shifted uncomfortably as they shackled him to the wall opposite of me. It wasn’t long before whatever they did to him began to lose its effect and Sayk shifted, pulling on the shackles as he shook his head.
The Huugwor lifted his face, his hard gaze meeting the men straight on.
“Marvin, Jakob.” Sayk’s voice was strong and full of the authority of a man who had led others for a long time and who was used to being obeyed. It worked, as the older, stronger of the two men turned to him, his face pulled in lines of guilt and shame, but his eyes hard as he met Sayk’s gaze. “I am your commander. Why are you doing this?”
The two men glanced at each other, discomfort clear on their faces. Discomfort, shame, but also fear. Sayk was not a man they wanted as their enemy, not even shackled to the wall.
“These are Wylder’s orders.” The taller, older man named Marvin finally answered him. His words were terse, guilt obvious on his face. “You know as well as any that we had no choice. You shouldn’t have tried to depose the chancellor, Sayk. You knew better.”
