Never.

“Enough.” He knelt, tossed her plate away, and grabbed her hair through the bars. “This has to go.”

“My hair?”

“See how easy it is for me to immobilize you? No weakness allowed.”

He unlocked the cage and dragged her out.

No weakness? Yeah, right. Her knees were liquid. Sleeplessness and the cramped cage had left her weak. Adrenaline had propelled her initial fight. That fuel was long sapped.

“Turn around,” he said, his voice a gravelly rasp. “Hands on the bars. If you so much as move, it won’t be your hair I cut.”

Audrey took a deep breath. Do this for Jack.

Other words began to coalesce in her mind. New words.

Vengeance. Judgment. Reckoning.

She liked those words—would live for them. For the first time, she had a goal beyond rescuing her son. She’d burn the whole place down for what had been done to her family.

She gripped the cold iron bars, blinking back surprising moisture. Caleb had loved her hair. Corn silk, he’d called it. He’d loved when she trailed it down his stomach on the way to sucking him into her mouth.

A lifetime ago.

She tightened her grip and heard the slide of metal being unsheathed. Was her captor so trusted that the Asters permitted him a weapon?

“Hold still.”

An inexplicable shiver danced up her spine. His voice was hypnotic. Just enough steel, just enough calm. That she could analyze it at all seemed a minor miracle.

The first cut was the toughest. She watched long, caramel-colored strands float to the grungy cave floor. He didn’t hack, but he didn’t take care either. Just another duty he performed without thought. More hair scattered on the ground.

He sheathed the knife and stepped away. “That will do.”

Audrey turned her back to the bars. She ran shaking fingers over where he’d cut close at the base of her skull. Choppy, uneven strands ran along her crown and temples.

Her mysterious guide down this dark rabbit hole stood watching her. Sizing her up. She would sketch his body using blocky shapes. Unapologetic rectangles for his limbs. Strong squares for his trunk and head. Yet a true representation would demand flowing arcs, too. Swoops. Supple curves. His muscles were that graceful, that prominent.

Charcoal and paper, she thought. With golden brown oil pastels for accents.

Her artistic training was making him into something impressive. He was not.

“We’ll train here in close-quarter combat,” he said. “But for now I want to see what you can do.”

“You already got a taste of that. I was brought up learning the martial styles of the Five Clans.”

“No. With your powers.”

Audrey’s heart beat with thunderous pain, which always happened when she thought about her lack of a Dragon-born gift. But why?

“Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time. I have none. Never have.”

“Lie all you want. You’ll still need to adapt. The more entertainment we provide, the better we fare.”

“I don’t care about that shit,” she said. “You know what I want.”

“Your son.”

“That’s right.”

The man rubbed a calloused hand along his hard, square jaw. “Regaining your son is your reward. You were promised.”

“I don’t believe it. Dr. Aster won’t give him up until he’s cut down to Jack’s marrow, dissecting him alive.”

“A Cage warrior named Honrovish won ten straight matches. As reward, the Old Man overruled Dr. Aster’s protests and released Honrovish’s brother.”

“Where’s Honrovish now?”

“Dead.” No inflection. No hint of emotion.

“What a waste.”

“No. His brother and sister-in-law lived. They bore a son. Their bloodline continues because of Honrovish’s sacrifice. Now, come this way.”

Always that long, confident stride. He simply expected her to follow.

“What’s your name?” The question jumped out of her mouth.

He stopped. Looked over his shoulder. His cropped black hair shone in the dim lighting. The serpent tattoo across the back of his skull looked alive—a representation of a warrior’s potency. And a slave’s captivity.

“I am Leto of Clan Garnis. But you’ll call me sir.”

She stayed rooted to the hard cave floor. Clan Garnis? Many believed them extinct for centuries, although Audrey knew they yet maintained a place at the Council table. Mal believed them scattered so far across Russia, China, and the Americas that they’d assimilated into the human population. They maintained no known government and no stronghold. The myths they had imparted to their human worshipers were scattered to the winds.

Clan Garnis were the Lost.

That explained so much. This man Leto’s admiration for his dead comrade was plain. Perhaps he intended to forge a similar path in order to perpetuate his scattered clan’s bloodline. Brainwashed or not, he had as much reason to step into the Cages as she did. The futures of their families depended on it.

The last thing she needed was a feeling of kinship with this brute.

“Come,” he said more harshly.

With her teeth gritted but her belly full, Audrey obeyed.

♦   ♦   ♦

The guards slapped manacles on Nynn’s wrists. Leto refused to think of her by whatever human name she’d taken.

She stared at her metal-wrapped wrists. “What the hell?”

“They don’t trust you.”

The guards escorted him and his charge down a bright, open corridor. This one led away from the human quarters and mess hall, toward where the Cage warriors slept in personal dorms, and where they trained. He enjoyed the familiar sights and sounds and smells of being among his colleagues. His domain.

“You’ll never be without escort,” he said. “Unless you prove yourself beyond doubt, you’ll never be without manacles.”

“What about our collars?”

“They’re never removed. Why would it matter? Topside, I’m a holdover from long-ago gods that no one believes in anymore. I’d have to hide like a coward, as you did.”

“You talk of hiding and cowardice?” She laughed—a hard, grating sound. “Marrying Caleb was the bravest thing I’ve ever done. You let human criminals lead you around by your throat.”

To so thoroughly deny her heritage by uniting with a human . . . What Dragon King could do that? “You don’t deserve the honor of fighting here.”

The guards led them to a wide double door made of reinforced steel and the same restrictive properties contained within a collar’s matrix. They couldn’t escape the main training arena’s room by using their powers. In fact, the matrix of the door was amplified to paralyze anyone who breached it.

He told Nynn as much. “Some have tried, the fools. They became drooling cripples.”

The guards removed Nynn’s manacles and departed, locking the door.

She scanned the large square facility. Leto looked as well, though he knew their perspectives would vary radically. He saw the basics: the high domed ceiling lined with sound-muffling materials, weapons along the left wall, the X-shaped whipping post in a shadowy corner. His back itched at that harsh reminder of past indiscretions. For the most part, however, he remembered moments earned, taken, beaten into submission. Those memories were more powerful than the cool air, the lingering scent of sweat, and the matrix’s buzzing ozone.

“Once locked inside the Cage, the collars can be deactivated.” He pointed to the mesh steel that comprised its ceiling and octagonal sides. “The training room’s doors keep us inside, but the reversed matrix of the Cage allows us free use of our powers. This floor is padded. Real Cages are twice as large, with brushed concrete floors with a five-inch layer of clay.”

“How does that affect fighting?”

Leto raised his eyebrow, surprised but gratified. “The clay is slippery. Makes for a tricky start. But it wears away. The concrete offers more grip. It also means the end to the fight is near. Combatants get tired. One wrong hit and bones are broken. Skulls cracked.”