Alex

ALEX

I 'm in the shadow of the dome, and I'm sweating. It's mid-afternoon, and the heat is at its peak in Tatatunga. A dry wind whips up the red dust which settles everywhere and sticks to my skin.

Somewhere, Ixor is watching me, so I have to get back into the dome or he'll make sure I regret defying him.

One beating is enough to confirm to anyone who is the slave and who is the master. As much as I've plotted Ixor's demise often enough, it hasn't come and he owns me.

I flick up the hood on my jacket and sidle around the vast exterior until I reach the sewer cover. Looks like I'm never going to be rid of eau de alien excrement from my clothing.

With a swift movement, I have the cover up, and I'm inside again like before.

As I pick my way through the unmentionables, following the map, I consider if I could simply tell Ixor I couldn't find Sylas.

Only I know he'll send me in again and again until I do. Which leaves me with only one option. Tell the seven foot plus alien killer what Ixor wants and accept the consequences.

If he rips me limb from limb, so be it. I don't want to see any more dead things, I've seen enough. As I climb the ladder out of the sewer into the dome my fate is very clear.

One way or the other, I'm done with this life. When what I am impacts a complete innocent…or at least another sentient being, given I saw what Sylas did to that worm thing he's hardly innocent but I have to do something.

Being passive isn't enough.

Inside the dome, I'm met with the same male locker room smell. I could follow the map again, see if I can end up back where I was when I first met Sylas, but I'm unsure. Are the gladiators kept in cages when they're not fighting?

A selection of grunts followed by a low growl a way down the sweaty corridor have me pressing myself back into an alcove. I peer out carefully to see a set of black clad Zarvu stomping towards me with a different Gryn in front of them.

Zarvu are the go-to for any species in the galaxy if you need grunts without a brain to act as hired muscle. Their presence in the dome doesn't surprise me, but the gladiators are not prisoners here, surely? They have a presence in Tatatunga, they have agency…don't they?

Except I saw Sylas in a cage. Someone caged my big beast. Someone wanted him contained and yet…he didn't belong in there any more than I belong in the hands of Ixor.

But here we are.

The Gryn who isn't Sylas swings left into an opening and is followed by the two Zarvu, who almost as quickly beat a hasty retreat.

My body is shaking with fear. I flatten myself against the wall, taking one sliding step at a time, my eyes fixed on the entrance.

Where there is one Gryn, there has to be others. Others that might eat me alive before I find Sylas...or, if I'm lucky, tell me where he is.

"Hello there, little feather," a rich, dark voice, filled with the night and sin, rasps in my ear.

I go to bolt, not even wanting to check what I've got myself into, but the owner of the voice has hold of my hood, pulling it free of my head, my long hair falling out, tumbling round my shoulders.

"Let me go!" I shake and squirm in his grip.

"Never, not when I've found you again."

I risk a glance back to see I'm caught in the claws of a vast Gryn gladiator, one who is covered in scars, has muscles which go on for days and eyes I could drown in.

"Sylas," I wheeze because my lungs are no longer working properly.

"That's my name," he rasps. "But"—he puts a claw under my chin and I have no option. I must lift my head until his strong, dark gaze meets mine—"I don't know yours."

I'm lost, shipwrecked and sent to the depths in the pools of his eyes.

"," I croak. This enormous creature has stolen my voice as well as my ability to function.

Sylas is huge. I might have thought he was big in the cage, but here, with his body slicked with sweat and…I don't know what else…he is a wall of flesh and feather who smells like…cinnamon?

"," he murmurs, rolling my name around his mouth like he's sampling a fine wine, the clawed finger lifting me a little higher so I'm pulled onto my tiptoes.

"A human," I squeak, possibly unnecessarily.

"A human," he rumbles. "A female," he adds, and the way he growls my sex sends a strange wave all the way through my body, pooling just under my stomach.

"I'm unarmed," I add.

"You are even more deadly that way," he replies, the corner of his mouth hitching up to show a white, sharp fang.

"I'm not…I'm really not," I jabber.

He leans into me, eyes studying my face closely, as if he's trying to stamp it on his retinas.

"You've already floored this gladiator, little feather. How much more deadly could you be?"

"Sylas." I manage to make my voice work, and I have to warn him about Ixor and his plans. "This is…"

His lips hit mine and time stops.

Everything about this is wrong and right at the same time. Sylas could do anything to me, he could probably destroy me with a single flap of his wings, but instead he is kissing me.

And this alien really can kiss, tongue dominating mine, taking what he wants until I'm not sure who I am anymore.

At least, that is, until the explosion blows us both off our feet.