Sylas

SYLAS

T he procurator is behind a large desk studying a handheld screen when I enter, guard on either side, manipulating the neck restraints. My wings are also bound at the shoulder, as are my wrists. It seems he's taking no chances with me today.

Good.

Disposing of an innocent creature like the ziggurag has settled in my stomach like sour meat. I would happily kill anything else presented to me, providing that thing was there of its own volition.

"You have a debt to pay, gladiator," he says without looking up at me. "It's a debt owed in blood but also credits."

He puts down the screen and clasps his hands together, his blank green eyes studying me. This is a lecture I've heard a hundred times.

"You owe me for all your training, your weapons, your feed, light, heat, bathing, and your medic attention." His lip lifts a little. "Of which you receive a considerable amount, given your particular…physiology."

"I heal fast. You shouldn't have bothered." I snort and turn my head away from him.

"You were made, . Made stronger, faster, with a greater pain threshold than even a zigurex." He looks down again at the screen on his desk. "You were made to fight, which is why you're different from all the others."

"I was made to be free," I say.

He looks back up at me.

"You swore the oath, . To me, when you were sent here as your punishment. Freedom is not an option, not any time soon." He shuffles the screen in front of him. "What is an option is to do your best in the dome. Fighting as per your oath and for your fellow gladiators. Make credits from your fame, make your peace with the nightly activities we arrange, make the crowd love you. You have a chance here, gladiator. Don't waste it in the hole."

I roll my eyes, shake my head, and lift my face to the ceiling. "Why should I do any of that?"

"Because you're going to be here a long time, . The chances of you being killed in the dome are still high, but we both know you won't let yourself die. Why fight the system when you can embrace it and make credits from it?" He has his long fingers entwined, his elbows resting on the desk.

His body is weak, unable to take on even the lowliest gladiator. But it doesn't matter.

He owns me.

I dredge up a snarl from the pit of my stomach, but then something stops me. Is it a scent in the air? I'm not sure, but in an instant, all I can see is the face of my female. The unknown creature who is my mate.

If I'm to have any chance to find her, I can't spend the rest of my days in the hole. I need to have what limited freedom we're allowed, and I need it now.

"Fine," I growl.

The procurator's middle eye flares with a brief surprise, the most emotion I'll ever see from him.

"And no more attempting to damage dome property?" he queries.

"No."

"Your vitals are off," he says. "Get yourself checked by the medic and then join the others in the training arena. They were terrible without you." He nods at the guards. "Release him."

I growl, but quietly as the restraints are removed and I can shake out my feathers, twirling my wings over my head and sending waves of air whistling around the room. The procurator can't exactly object, given my wings are my greatest weapon. His mouth sets in a hard line.

"Don't mess this up, gladiator. There are worse places than the hole."

"Like you need to tell me," I mutter as I exit his suite of rooms, rubbing some feeling back into my wrists and glaring at any guards who look my way. Down the bottom of the main passage, I spot the procurator's guard bots and give them a healthy snarl.

They do not move. Vrexing bots.

My fellow gladiators are not where the procurator thinks they will be. I find this out as I pass the dining halls. The one for the visiting gladiators is thankfully empty, but there is plenty of noise coming from the one used by the Gryn.

My stomach makes a growl to rival any I can produce in my throat, although discovering Rych stood on a table when I enter reduces my appetite.

"!" he shouts, loud enough to wake the dead, of which the dome holds many. "You got out?"

"No thanks to any of you," I growl, glowering around at the assembly.

Maxym grins at me. "Thought you could handle this one yourself, gladiator," he says, shoving a platter of meat at me.

Blayn is chewing on his rations. He looks significantly less buzzed than the last time I saw him, and he is also sporting a new tattoo on his neck. He gives me a lopsided half smile, which disappears from his face as quickly as it appeared, and all his concentration goes back to his food.

Klynn ignores everyone, picking at his platter and looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else.

"I was told you were training."

"Captain told us to come and eat, so we're eating." Rych laughs. The precious metal necklaces he insists on wearing jingle together.

I sit next to Maxym and take the platter, digging in with gusto to the protein.

"You still stink of ziggurag," Rych says, leaping off the table and dumping himself unceremoniously opposite.

"One emptied its bowels over me. Punishment for standing up to the overlords," I growl at him.

"We could have done with you in the games, not vrexing about with a space worm," he says, stabbing a piece of meat onto the end of a long claw and shoving it in his mouth.

"Ziggurags are not space worms. You really don't want any of those in the dome," Blayn says.

We all stare at him. Blayn isn't one for talking much, or at all. He was here in the dome when Maxym and I arrived, followed quickly by Rych and Klynn, neither of whom had seen another Gryn before us. It took nova-weeks for Blayn to trust any of us enough to even be in the same room, let alone prepared to spar with us, and it drove the captain to distraction.

"What do you know about space worms?" Rych chuckles. "You've never been off world."

Blayn shrugs and goes back to eating.

"What's the plan, ?" he asks.

"Kill them all and leave nothing but bone," I growl.

Maxym and Rych grin like idiots. Even Klynn briefly looks my way.

"The procurator wants a show. The dome wants to be entertained, so we entertain them." I make a brief check of the room, and there are no clerks present. "I have found a mate, and I intend claiming her, no matter what," I add. "So, we do this thing, and you're either with me or you're dead."

Rych leans back and scratches his abdomen insolently. "I'm down for anything which involves destruction. Blayn'll kill anything that moves, Maxym knows how to make things explode, and Klynn will create chaos out of nothing once he gets the scent of blood in his nostrils," he says.

"So, what you mean is every Gryn for himself?" Maxym queries, face shining with interest given someone mentioned explosions.

"As always," Rych rasps. "And if gets his mate, then there's all the more left for the rest of us." He bares his teeth. "If there is a mate."

"There is," I growl. "And if any single one of you even look in her direction, you will lose your wings."

Rych leans forward. "Say that to me again in the training arena, ." He stands, sending his seat skittering across the room. None of us have much in the way of an off switch, after all. "And we can decide who is tearing wings off whom today."

We are not a team, we are a disaster, but it doesn't stop me from following him in quick order because it's about time I had a sword in my hand.

And the feeling of violence in my veins.