Baited (Gladiators of the Gryn #2)

Blayn

BLAYN

K lynn rains blows down on me, hacking at my sword as I attempt to slam him in the head with a wing. Something I eventually manage and hit him hard enough he moves back, shaking his head.

“Vrex you,” he snarls, raising his sword and coming for me again.

I dodge him, beating into the air over his head and shoving a foot in his back, sending him sprawling forwards with yet another bout of swearing. I stand back, admiring my handiwork as the captain calls for weapons down.

Something Klynn ignores, even in training, especially in training. He rises with a roar and barrels toward me. I sidestep and flare my wings.

“Don’t do it,” I snarl at him. “You’re beaten. Stay down.”

“I’m never beaten.” He heaves with the desire to get to me, but Maxym has stepped between us, and he’s like running into a wall.

I should know, I’ve hit him enough times…along with walls. I know the difference and as up for the fight as Klynn always is, he won’t take on Maxym.

“Save it for the dome,” he rumbles with an evil glance at both of us. “Bathing time.”

I hear Klynn mutter something about him not being our leader, but then he said that about Sylas, a Gryn who found a mate and left the dome.

I shake out my wings. My feathers are soft from the gentle water at the pleasure house where my Izzy lives.

With a flick, I’m airborne once again, to the annoyance of the captain, who bellows from below as I take a spin around the training arena until the sound of a plasma whip has me descending, shooting past him and clamping my wings to my sides as I fire through the corridor, sending the Zarvu guards sprawling before I end up in the central vaulted passage and get ahead of Rych near the bathing area.

“You’re keen,” he says as I land ahead of him. “But then you are cleaner than usual. Something of the pleasure house must be rubbing off on you.”

He shoulders me aside in order to claim his preferred pool in the complex of individual baths, each one a deep depression filled with rolling, warm water.

“,” Maxym rumbles from behind me. Klynn is nowhere to be seen, presumably having gone back to his quarters. “You did some good moves in training today. You’re looking good.”

I shrug. “I want a pass,” I suggest.

His eyes skim my body. I don’t have too many places left for tattoos.

“A pass as well as time in the pleasure house?” He raises an eyebrow.

I stare at him.

“ isn’t in the pleasure house for pleasure,” Rych calls out. “He’s there for punishment.”

“No touching,” I growl under my breath.

“They sent you there to be touched?” Maxym furrows his brow. “That’s not acceptable.” He raises himself to his not inconsiderable height.

“NO.” I growl.

“No?” he queries. “You want to go back?”

I don’t know how to reply, what to say, other than I want to see Izzy again and…

Maxym leans closer to me, not too close. “Have you found a female you like, ?” he asks quietly.

My heart pounds in my chest and my head feels light. The darkness is hovering, but the light is there too, bright, painful, needy. I blink hard. Izzy is mine, I know it. If I speak about her to Maxym, he might try to take her.

“A mate?” he suggests.

“Mine,” I snarl. “Do not touch.”

He lifts back from me, an enormous fanged smile on his face.

“I won’t touch you,” he says.

“Not me, her. Mine.” I’m struggling to make any form of sense around my fangs.

His smile broadens.

“You don’t need to mate with the first female you see, .”

I simply snarl at him, feathers bristling.

“Not your first female?” he queries.

My feathers slick against me. It’s not a question I know the answer to. But Izzy is the first female I’ve even been in the same room with as far as I can recall.

“She is your first?” he murmurs.

I don’t reply.

“This is going to be interesting,” he says with a snort of breath. “Do you know anything about females, gladiator?”

With a grimace, I shake my head and then delve in my pants to pull out the trinkets and the ribbon I nearly gave to Izzy yesterday.

“Vrex,” Maxym grinds out. “You’re nesting? Already?”