Caged Warrior

That lazy gray gaze returned to Nynn. “Greatly changed.” Aster wiped one of her tears, then touched his finger to his tongue. “But still broken. I like to see even our champion hasn’t been able to change that. Although you have tried, haven’t you, Leto?”

“Yes, sir. She’s a good fighter.”

Dr. Aster stared directly into Nynn’s eyes. Leto could almost feel the earthquake her hatred was going to rip open beneath their feet. Had she been free of the collar, she would have done just that. “True. But alas, her son . . .”

She shrieked. Leto’s arms were beginning to burn. They’d both have bruises from how roughly he needed to keep her contained. And all the while, his anger lifted to new heights. Nynn was his neophyte. This mental and emotional torture would set their training back by weeks. Possibly longer. He’d only just determined that her anger stood in the way of greatness. Now the personification of that anger was playing marionette with nightmare thoughts of her son.

“Maybe that isn’t such a welcome topic,” the doctor said. “I’ll leave talk of young Jack for another time.”

More salt water against Leto’s hand. This was a torture he’d never experienced.

What was right? Dragon be, he couldn’t tell.

Dr. Aster smiled. “And you remember my companion, I assume?”

He turned to beckon a young woman forward. She walked with slinking grace, moving with a cat’s animal ease. Only when she reached Aster’s side and he snapped his fingers did she squat by his side. Her twisting elegance was unnatural, if only because she retained an air of dignity even when kneeling. She curled against the doctor’s upper leg, as if a part of his anatomy, not a separate being.

Leto shivered.

The Pet.

Leto’s interactions with Dr. Aster had been limited, but his contact with the Pet was entirely new. He only ever saw her from a distance. She was the doctor’s constant companion. No one knew who she was or how she’d come to be more animal than woman.

A beautiful woman.

“Up, Pet.”

Dr. Aster’s voice was as deliberate as his slothful gaze.

She stood. An agile unfurling. Leto thought of petals opening—something his mother had described. A blossom went from tight and closed to radiant and ready to receive. In this case, to receive instruction from her master. She eyed Leto, then Nynn, but everything about her posture said that her true attention was riveted to the doctor.

Beautiful, yes. But eerie.

Leto had never seen a Dragon King so pale. He’d never known it possible. She was white. White like marble struck by floodlights. Her hair was just the opposite. Stark, incomprehensibly black. Her eyes blazed green and gold. She wore clothes made of what looked like latex, as black as her hair and as shining as her unsettling skin. Elfin features. Narrow shoulders. Tiny, tiny mouth.

Beyond strange.

Rumors abounded about her.

Lobotomized. A failed experiment in the doctor’s lab. No one knew if she had a clan, if she had a gift, or if she was even a true Dragon King.

Of all the rumors, Leto couldn’t believe in the possibility of a lobotomy. In contrast to her master, her eyes were shimmering, keen, cagey. An unsettling aura pulsed from her in chilling waves. She stared at Nynn. Stared outright. She even frowned—the touch of a crease between her dramatic black brows.

“She hates you,” the Pet said to her master.

Toneless.

Leto half expected the doctor to smack her for such a blunt assessment. He only stroked her nape. “Of course she does. And we’re not even through with the evening. Leto, bring her with us.”

After taking a deep breath, he grabbed the chain that dangled between her arms and pulled. Nynn was shrieking like a Pendray priestess. Long-forged habit demanded that he exert his dominance, especially in front of Dr. Aster. Leto was their champion. He did as he was ordered—but not with the violence he would’ve used on anyone else. She stumbled as she fought his hold. He pulled her up and into his embrace, then tightened his arms.

Holding her.

Curses forged with fury and hurt were the most vicious Leto had ever heard—and he’d heard the worst dying men could spew before taking their last breaths.

“Save your strength,” he whispered against her temple. He couldn’t save her, but he could do as he’d always done: teach her how to survive. “Nynn, hear me. You’re going to need it.”

It galled him to realize that was all he could do: offer her words. He couldn’t do a Dragon damn thing but carry his neophyte toward the training arena. Two guards fell into step with the doctor. The taller of the two pulled a Taser from his belt.

“Let go of her,” he said to Leto.

Reluctantly, enraged by the frustration that he could do nothing more, Leto dropped the manacles and let Nynn slip to to her feet. The guard shoved her down and kicked her in the stomach. She jackknifed. He wedged the sole of his boot between her shoulder blades, then pushed the Taser against her left ribs. The Tigony could wield electrical impulses, and even generate their own electrical currents by hauling energy out of the air and amplifying it.

That didn’t mean they were immune to its effects.

Nynn screamed, vibrated, slumped. The guards hauled her off the floor, working together until all six of them were locked inside the training arena. Leto was the last to enter. Everything he’d known about life in the complex—his home—had changed in the span of a few hours.

There, on the far side of the arena, waited the whipping post. As did Hellix and Fam.

“Dr. Aster, what is this about? She’s my neophyte. She makes her debut in two days and needs her focus.”

The doctor looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t stop his deliberate walk toward the whipping post. “She also tried to escape tonight, did she not?”

“She did.” Leto decided on complete honesty. No telling how Dr. Aster had learned what he did. Lying would only hurt them both. “I dealt her punishment. That’s my right as her trainer.”

“Oh, I saw your punishment,” the doctor said with a smirk. “Very entertaining. You’re still reeling from that one. I know it. So close to taking what you wanted. Yet so good and loyal, trying to teach her what’s right.” He looked down at Nynn, where she slumped between the two guards. Nothing about the woman Leto had trained remained in her eyes. “She’s very, very stubborn when it comes to learning lessons. Now it’s my turn.”

Dr. Aster reached the whipping post. The Pet curled up at his feet, holding his calf with one hand and the base of the post with the other, so feline and watchful. Unlike the doctor, she didn’t smirk or smile, only assessed the scene. Leto found no hint of judgment in her expression, or pleasure. Whoever— whatever—she was, the Pet was not a sadist made in the doctor’s image.

She looked up the length of the whipping post and exhaled. Leto barely heard her say, “Inevitable.”

Crystal clear memories still twitched across his back. He bore scars from combat—honorable scars. He also bore shameful ones. Whip marks. Welts had lifted from strike after strike of chains hurled at full force. Sometimes Leto’s trainer had administered punishments for youthful disrespect. Sometimes it had been Leto’s own father, under orders from the Old Man. Another lifetime, yet he was as helpless now as he had been at fifteen, still learning what it would take to become a respected, respectful warrior.

The guards pulled Nynn forward. Hellix reached far overhead and inserted a hook through a link from her manacle chain. Her toes barely reached the floor, with her arms stretched taut overhead. Her collar pressed upward on her throat. Sweat dampened her brows. The doctor grabbed a hunk of hair at her crown. He lifted until her eyes were level. Leto had come to expect fight and fire.

She was blank.

Dr. Aster pushed the Pet from his leg and faced a selection of whips and chains hanging from a pegged board. Perhaps the concealment of shadows had prompted the Old Man to have the whipping post erected in that