“You are most welcome, my vanata.” He moved as if he were about to stand, but then paused. “Would you prefer to refrain from attending the duel? If violence offends you…”
“No, let’s go. I need to get out of this room.”
With a nod, he finished rising and held his hand out to me to help me rise from the chair.
I swear I will never raise my hand against you.
If only I could bring myself to fully trust that promise.
Chapter Ten
Eldron
“Tell me about this duel,” Mia requested as we made our way to the auditorium. “Who is fighting, and why?”
“You have been watching the Bride Games, yes? That is how you know about the spanking games?”
She nodded, her eyebrows drawing down in a frown at the memory. “I didn’t really get past that part on the vids.” With a sidelong glance, she added, “I did see the part where you told Natalie she wasn’t your mate. How did you know?”
“I could tell from her scent.” I considered elaborating, but when she simply nodded, I decided it would be better to explain the Khanavai connection between smelling and mating another time.
“Ah. Well, Cav and Natalie have chosen one another. But Tiziani, the third male in that luncheon—”
“The yellow one?”
“Yes, the yellow one. He accosted Cav in the garden and challenged him to a duel.”
“Even after Natalie chose Cav?” Mia’s voice turned shocked.
“Some males have very little honor.”
“That’s for sure.” Her murmured words were barely loud enough for me to hear, and I had to wonder if who had shaped her low opinion of males. Had one raised his hand against her? The mere thought of it sent a surge of anger racing through my body, and I had to fight to suppress the growl that rose to my throat.
I would kill anyone who dared touch her in anger.
But no such male is here now, I reminded myself when Mia flashed an anxious glance at me, as if she could sense my rising agitation.
She’s your mate, that same inner voice pointed out. She almost certainly can sense your emotions.
I gave her a reassuring smile and led her into the arena where Cav would, I assumed, thoroughly trounce his opponent.
As we took our seats, Vos’s face came on the screens—both at our seat vids and on giant ones hanging in the air above the arena—announcing this as “the biggest fight for dominance in all the history of the Bride Games!”
My inner warrior bristled at that. After all, we Khanavai were a dominant lot. But I was civilized enough to push the instinctive response aside.
Cav and Tiziani met on the stadium floor, facing off against each other.
Glancing around the spectators, I found Natalie standing and clasping her two assistants’ hands. The vidglobes zoomed around her, flashing her anxious face up on the screens all over the arena.
About half the spectators cheered for Tiziani. I had to wonder why. Cav stood taller than the yellow warrior and was obviously the more honorable male.
But they were both trained, one as a soldier, the other as a guardsman, and both handled the traditional Khanavai sword well.
On the screen in front of me, an offer to place a bet through Vos’s offices appeared.
“What is that?” Mia asked, leaning in closer to me.
“Gambling on the winner of battles like this is a time-honored Khanavai tradition,” I explained. “Bets on the Bride Games alone help fund Station 21. Would you like to bet on one of the warriors?”
She shook her head without taking her eyes off the contestants. “I wouldn’t want to risk wasting the money.”
I blinked, startled that she would assume I expected her to spend her own currency. “Allow me, then.”
“No, thank you.” Her voice was quiet, but I could almost taste her reluctance in the air around us, as if she feared being in someone’s debt.
Am I sensing her emotions now?
Quietly, I placed a large bet on Cav. If he won, I would gift it to the newly mated pair.
The two fighters began whirling around one another, their blades whistling in the air.
Tiziani was a skilled fighter, but Cav was larger and slightly faster, leaping across the mat, rolling on the floor and coming up under Tiziani’s guard, slashing at him once and then rolling away.
Tiziani’s fans gasped as he stumbled. Cav, overcome by his warrior’s instincts, lunged for him, but Vos blew his whistle, threw his hands into the air, and announced, “First point to Cav Adredoni.”
Tiziani held his hand to his side, and when he pulled it away, his hand was covered in blood. The cameras showed him snarling at Cav, who saluted him mockingly.
Mia watched with eyes like saucers.
“Cav needs four more points to win,” I explained.
In the next round, Tiziani scored a point by cutting Cav’s dominant arm, and beside me, Mia gasped.
“Would you like to leave?” I asked her, but she shook her head without taking her eyes from the fight below.
She’s not completely horrified by violence—this bothers her less than the spanking ceremony, I realized.
Tiziani gained a second point with a cut across Cav’s thigh, and onscreen, Natalie clasped her hands across her mouth. Next to me, Mia mirrored the other woman’s movement.
But when Cav used a ripped part of his chavan uniform to bind the wound, blew Natalie a kiss, and twirled around on the injured leg, Mia’s hands relaxed.
“I can’t stand the thought of Natalie having to watch this,” she said as Natalie called the Games Administrator over to talk to him.
“I have faith that the right warrior will win,” I assured her, reveling in the kindheartedness of my mate.
I had seen the expression on Cav’s face. He would not allow Natalie to be taken from him.
Just as I would never allow my beautiful Mia to be taken from me.
I was right, too. Cav swirled in on the power of his battle rage, spiked as it was by the
