Dragon Kings could only be killed one way, but that didn’t mean they were immune to pain.

Leto shook his head to clear the last of Fam’s telepathic interference, just in time to see Silence swing her shield in a glancing swipe across Nynn’s mouth. Blood welled from his neophyte’s split lip.

Although Nynn didn’t stop moving—which was at least proof of her resilience—she only used hand-to-hand techniques. Silence, however, was thriving. Her reflexes and speed, sapped from Leto, outmatched Nynn at every turn.

“Dragon damn you, Nynn,” Leto bellowed. “Use your gift!”

She spewed curses of her own. The warriors surrounding the Cage laughed and hooted. He’d seen her practically explode with concussive force—the promise of undeniable victory.

Then it was too late. The collars reactivated.

Leto growled his frustration. He always felt bereft when his gift was curtailed. His energy, potency, even confidence took a dip. He shrugged off that split second of weakness, knowing the others felt it, too—the cruel switch from gods to the pitiful equivalent of humans.

He hauled the mace’s grip back and away from his body. The chain snapped taut. A quick yank spun Fam onto his back. The ball of the weapon swung in an arc that Leto controlled with long practice. He twirled in a sharp circle. The spiked spherical head slammed dead center of Silence’s shield. She staggered back.

At the corner of his vision, Leto saw Nynn grapple with Fam. The latter was bleeding from his shins and calves. He’d dropped his sickle after Leto’s attack, while Nynn still held her dagger. She didn’t need it now that the collars put her on equal footing. She was quick. Observant. Graceful. The softer, older Indranan man didn’t stand a chance.

The match continued until the stench of sweat was almost too much for Leto’s senses.

Collars off. Collars on. Again and again. Always random. Taunting. Returning and hampering his gifts.

With his powers back in force, he chose another strategy. Not Silence. Not Fam. He attacked Nynn. Their eyes locked just as he swung his mace. A moment in time caught between them. So clearly, he could still see every detail. Her narrowed ice blue eyes and distinctive freckles. Damp honey blond hair streaked across her forehead. He even caught the tiny lines creasing her top lip as she pinched her mouth.

She raised her shield just in time to save her skull from the arcing smash of his mace.

Leto didn’t stop. He kept at her, again, again, trying to provoke her. Only when the mace caught her inner thigh did he relent. She sprawled on the Cage floor among shouts and groans from those gathered to watch.

“Enough!” He signaled that match’s Cage operator to shut it down. The spotlights on each octagonal post dimmed to half intensity. Leto’s collar resumed its damping properties. “Well done,” he said to Fam and Silence. “We’re finished for today.”

Some good-natured heckling accompanied the Indranan as they left the Cage. Fam had a slight limp. He would be in pain for the next few hours, but with a Dragon King’s physiology, he’d be back in fighting form in mere days.

Disgusted, Leto knelt where Nynn lay in a sweaty heap. She clutched her thigh. A massive contusion turned her thigh ugly colors. Welts and spots of blood showed where the mace had bit her skin.

“Idiot.” Her lips curled back in a hateful grimace. “No armor for thighs. Why not?”

“It limits mobility and encourages speed. If you’d done your job and fought back, you’d be standing as victor. Not lying here defeated.”

“You wanted this. To teach me another bathatéi lesson.”

“That was last week. And the week before. Now, I’m pissed. I’m two days on from a Cage match with a piece of lab filth who won’t use her greatest asset.”

“I can’t.”

“You did. And you sure as hell remember it.”

“But control it? Make it happen? No way.” She waved an unsteady hand at her bruised thigh. “This should be proof.”

Leto grabbed her chin with wrenching force. She gasped, struggled. He held fast. Her ragged breathing heated his skin. He could make out every blond lash and each delicate freckle.

“Do you want to lose?”

“I wouldn’t be working this hard if I did.”

“Do you want me to lose?”

“What the hell does that matter?”

“If you do, if you want to show me up, if you seek revenge for these weeks, then I will kill you after the third match.” Her jaw clenched beneath his gouging fingertips. “Do you understand me?”

“What, no ‘lab filth’ on the end of your threat?”

He pried her hands away to get a better look at her wound. Rather than apologize or even assess the need for medical treatment, he raked taut fingers over the damaged skin. Nynn screamed. She whirled her good leg in a well-aimed arc. Leto caught her ankle, threw it away from his body, and felt only disgust. She lay gasping on the Cage floor.

“Nynn of Tigony, I can’t think of an insult strong enough to justify your failure.”

♦   ♦   ♦

Audrey crawled onto all fours. The welt on her thigh throbbed as if on fire. The sharp points of Leto’s mace had cut a stippled pattern in her skin. Just as disturbing was the way she could still feel his blunt fingernails dragging across her marred, trembling muscles.

Fucking sadist. No wonder he was heralded.

Body, mind, soul—stabbing pains became the full measure of her world. Only that wasn’t true. Somewhere beyond these cavernous burrows, her son was in pain. And in a place she had never seen, her husband lay dead in the ground. Who had arranged his funeral? Probably his parents. She’d always told them she was an orphan. Because she was. She’d just never told them that she was an orphan born in shame, high in a fortress in the northern mountains of Greece.

Dragon Kings adapted. That had been the key to their survival for so many thousands of years. She wondered how many, if any, had envisioned such a fate for their race. Hiding among the humans. Retreating to spend isolated lives in clan strongholds. Grasping at any chance to bear a child.

The woman she’d fought still stood in the Cage, in a pose that reminded Audrey of Leto. Arms crossed. Leaning against one of the eight support beams. She had black-on-black eyes and spiky, luminous silver hair. Tall and thin, her limbs were like those of a track-and-field athlete. Maybe a high jumper.

Here, she was every inch a warrior.

Silence, she was called.

Even her expression was silent, if the word could be applied to a set of features. She revealed nothing as she stared at Audrey. No disdain. No pity. No empathy. Just . . . staring. The only thing Audrey might discern was curiosity. Why else would a person stare so long?

The Indranan man, Fam, fell into limping step with Leto outside of the Cage. He looked like a puppy trailing after the alpha of the pack. Perhaps he had been fighting for some time, but Fam carried himself with no grace and little authority, especially considering the wounds on his shins and calves. Had Leto trained him? Instinctively, Audrey knew that wasn’t the case. He possessed few of the traits and skills Leto had been droning on about since her arrival.

Yet Fam was popular. Fellow warriors greeted him with ribald comments and slaps on his bulky back. His only strength came from the gift the Dragon had inexplicably bestowed on the Indranan. Telepathy. She shuddered at the remembered feel of Fam’s mind plundering hers. That eerie feeling stayed with her long after the contact. A slithering familiarity.

No wonder she resisted contact with the Heartless. She . . . Dragon damn, she’d lost something. What if getting it back was even worse?

When Fam embraced Hellix in that masculine football player way, her respect sank even further. He was sloppy and cocky. He was soft. Yet she was the one still breathless and quivering on all fours. Pride pushed her to her knees, then to unsteady feet. A stumble. A hearty laugh from those who still watched.