Hunted Warrior Read online

  Only, his anger dimmed. His skin no longer crackled in preparation for attack—or in retaliation for her mockery of his fine clothes and the injury she’d struck. He merely lowered his arm. “With your next words, you will explain yourself,” he said with deadly calm. “Or by the Dragon, I will walk out of this maze with another murder to my name.”

  *

  “Malnefoley, the Honorable Giva,” she said smoothly, smiling. “I’d say how honored I am to meet the real you, but I believe you’re in the mood to rip me inside out. So hear this. Cadmin was a fetus.” She turned and spoke over her shoulder. “You’ll come with me if you want to hear the rest.”

  Mal waited two heartbeats, so that he could discharge the flaring burn gathering in his fists. He shot it into the ground, which liquefied mica and shale. Liquefied minerals would cool into rough glass. Better to refashion the earth than to make good on his threat.

  The Pet was a surprise. She had no rules. No order. She’d used his shirt to clean her knife—a knife streaked with his blood. She’d done it so simply, as if such a thing happened every day. She was dangerous, not because of what information she withheld or the allegiances she maintained, but because she spoke to him in the rough language of violence and spontaneity he’d long thought he had under control.

  Polite political savages would just as soon scoop out his eye with a dessert spoon rather than speak plainly. He knew that every time he walked into the Council’s meeting room in the Fortress of the Chasm, high up in the Himalayas. Sideways moves and plots within plans had been his language since childhood. The ultimate game of chess.

  Sometimes he wanted to swipe an angered fist across the board and send the pieces flying. The Pet left him more tempted than ever. Few had ever heard him make threats. She now ranked among a rare assembly of people and Dragon Kings, most of whom were dead.

  Mal followed her until he caught up, and they traversed the labyrinth side by side. She flinched, pulled away.

  A flinch? What had happened to the woman who’d attacked him and crouched on his chest like a gargoyle in combat boots?

  “There were many,” she said, sounding as distant as the winds on the plains. “Fetuses. In the Asters’ labs. And there were women. They’d earned the right to conceive—through their own actions, or because of a loved one who won Cage matches. I held the mothers’ hands and looked into the years ahead. I told them the good and, if necessary, the bad.” She stopped and crouched, tossing a few brambles aside from where they caught in a corner crevice. “For reasons I’ve never understood, those babies were born more robust and had a higher survival rate. My only explanation is that those glimpses of the future helped the mothers and fathers have more faith. They could do more than conceive. They would become parents. It gave them hope that was literally life sustaining.”

  “By looking into the years ahead?” Mal’s head spun as he aligned the new information. “That’s how Aster managed to achieve such a high percentage of healthy births?”

  “Yes.”

  “No science? Just you? And … faith?”

  She looked up at him with a sardonically arched brow. “Just?”

  “This is more than you revealed in six months.”

  “Perhaps you weren’t ready to listen.” Standing, she shrugged. “We’ll never know.”

  They continued through the labyrinth. Mal had thought the process of getting clear of the wreckage would be easier. He’d waded into the maze, having seen her petite form from across the plain. Now he was stuck with her in what should’ve been as simple as a child’s toy. He loathed tasks where the details weren’t his to orchestrate.

  “Go on,” he said. “Or you can tell me what we’re looking for.”

  “You don’t believe in the myths, so I won’t.”

  “Back to the Minotaur? We seek his horns, maybe?”

  She shot him a glare so sharp and cold that he forced himself to keep from looking away. She had green-gold eyes, as mercurial as a cat’s, with a touch of frost that made her even harder to read. A wild, distant creature who moved like water, she held herself small and close, and spoke without pretense. Only subtle movements from those slashing brows gave him a clue as to her inner turmoil.

  “Cadmin was not my first,” she continued, apparently answering his barb with only her glare. “There had been dozens of others before her. I caught pieces of their lives. The Eiffel Tower. A bicycle accident. A first kiss. A rape. Tasting alligator meat for the first time. Anything that specifically hinted at a future meant they were viable.”

  “Even if you saw a rape?”

  “It’s life. Who was I to choose which lives should be lived? Only good ones? No. I only let it be known if it was possible. The parents, with all their love and devotion, did the rest.”

  The Pet veered to the left, then right again, as if she knew the way through the tangle. Her closed-off posture and quick yet graceful movements were unnerving. She walked with her head down as if someone might hit her if she looked to either side. Was that normal, or was it a result of Mal’s presence?

  “Here,” she said. “This way. I know this wall.”

  “It looks like the rest.”

  “No. Here.”

  She ran her fingers along four grooves that traversed the length of the longest passage they’d found. She kicked aside a pyramid-shaped stack of rocks. “A funeral cairn. It’s this way.”

  “If that was a cairn, why did you just destroy it?”

  “Afraid of ghosts and lost souls, Giva? Are those acceptable myths?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Why did you do it?”

  Those frosty green eyes roamed over his body, his face, but never reached up to find his gaze. “Do you feel like you’re learning me yet?”

  “No.”

  “That’s why I did it.”

  “By randomly kicking the graves of the dead? That only adds evidence to the common wisdom that you’re insane. Talk of soothsaying and reading the futures of unborn children doesn’t help your case.”

  She touched the grooves again. “These were made by fingers,” she said, apparently talking to herself. “Years and years. Centuries. It wasn’t a prison but a means of execution. The archaeologists have it wrong. The walls were never high enough to support a ceiling. It was always like this. Just enough freedom to drive the prisoners mad. They were told of an exit that wasn’t a door.”

  “Death?”

  She nodded. “They walked and searched, marking places where they’d been, marking them again and again. They ate the dead and left cairns where bodies should have been laid to rest.”

  Mal leaned against a half wall and crossed his arms. Goose bumps rippled under his shirt. The picture she was painting was eerie. He could see the edges of their enclosure, but he couldn’t escape it—not without dragging the Pet across the jagged spikes. He might consider it if they stayed any longer than another few minutes. He didn’t like to be confined. To be trapped in this place when it was replete with a full array of defenses and entrapments … Yes, a man would go mad.

  Tired of the riddles, he looked down at his shoulder. The pain was a numb throb. Drying blood stuck to his shirt.

  The Pet stopped roughly ten feet away, her head bowed. She looked so vulnerable—tiny, slim, eminently feminine, and such a wonder of contrasts—but Mal knew better. Whatever she’d endured with Dr. Heath Aster had made her leather-tough and resistant to what would’ve crushed other people. He could try to overpower her again, but he’d come away with nine fingers and a woman without brains enough to speak.

  More importantly, if she really was responsible for the Asters’ high success rate, she was invaluable to understanding why Dragon Kings couldn’t conceive. Generation after generation, the number of children brought into the world decreased to the point where desperate would-be parents sank into the realms controlled by the human cartels who promised the miracle of life—for a price. Otherwise obscure Dragon Kings trained to become Cage warriors and fought bouts for the entertain
ment of elite patrons and guests of the cartels, with the strongest granted the gift of attempting conception. Of the three largest cartels, the Asters had a tremendous advantage regarding success rates when compared to the Townsends and the Kawashimas. Most believed that high success rate was to Dr. Aster’s credit.

  Perhaps he had little to do with Dragon King science other than enacting hideous experiments on the weak, the infirm, and the losers of the Cage bouts—such a high price for wanting nothing more than a family.

  That was if the Pet could be believed. There was no one else like her. Mal couldn’t kill her. He could humor her a little longer, until retaking her into his custody didn’t mean additional fighting.

  Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t have been an issue. He lived in the straightjacket world and forced his baser nature to obey the rules. Having unleashed spikes of his energy on the Pet, however, left him edgy and ready for more violence.

  “How do you know so much about the ruins?”

  “Cadmin showed me,” she said.

  “A fetus showed you an ancient prison?”

  “You asked.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  She shrugged. Her purple linen shirt seemed an out-of-place touch of softness. She was blade-sharp in her thinness, as if her heavy industrial boots were all that anchored her to the ground. “No, I don’t. That’s not your job, Giva. Your job is to recapture me and ask a couple hundred questions—the wrong questions. None of that will happen.”

  “You know that? As fact? As a …” He smiled, unable to hide his condescension. “As a soothsayer?”

  “As a soothsayer, I admit you possess too many variables. The more volatile the person, the more difficult it is to see his path.” She angled a glance that was nearly teasing. “And you, dear Giva, are the very definition of volatile.”

  “Then how can you be sure I won’t take you into custody?”

  “Once we find Cadmin’s weapons, you won’t want to.”

  “Did you ever even see her?” Mal pushed away from the wall on a surge of energy. “Do you even know if she was born?”

  “I never met her, but I know she was born a few months after our minds touched. I didn’t need to meet her in person. She was … different. She was magic.”

  “We’re Dragon Kings. The majority of sentient beings on this planet would call us magical.”

  “No. We’re just us. She was magic.”

  The Pet arched her neck and unexpectedly challenged him with her gaze. It was unwavering and fierce. But beneath the challenge was a sense of imploring. She wanted to be taken seriously, to be believed.

  Mal couldn’t do that. She was either insane or criminally clever.

  Or she possessed other powers—perhaps along the lines of the Indranan’s ability to read minds—and she was using his fears and hatreds against him.

  All of her talk about the old ways, the ancient myths … He wouldn’t tolerate much more. As a young man, Mal had inadvertently liberated his clan from its last, most hideous holdover from the times of gods and goddesses. He’d done so by losing control in the way he loved so much, sweeping the chess pieces to the ground. Only, he’d done that with living, breathing people. They hadn’t been breathing when he’d walked away from Bakkhos.

  “She showed me the past,” the Pet said. “This place. She showed me the long-ago times. Don’t you know? What was once will happen again.”

  “And that’s predicting the future?”

  “Of course not. But ask a Sath elder if I’m lying. They keep secrets not even you know, Giva. What was once will happen again.”

  “You’re a charlatan. This ends now.” He grabbed her arm and began to drag her. “We’re going back to Greece.”

  The Pet snarled and fought, clawing his hands with her nails as she transformed from an imploring young woman to a fiend in the span of a blink. “You’re a fool! A fool. It’s here. Half of Cadmin’s weapon is here.”

  “A weapon for an unborn baby who told you about a Minotaur and an ancient insane asylum. You need your own padded cell. I’ll have one made up special for you.”

  She turned toward him as if he’d been leading a dance. Suddenly she was twirling beneath his arm. With her back to his chest, she reached up and dug her fingers into the stab wounds on his shoulder. Mal roared in pain and flung her away. The Pet sprawled on the rock. She sputtered on a mouthful of grit, then shoved black hair out of her eyes. Her shredded palms left a smear of blood on her temple.

  “Do you know where the next Grievance will be held? Or when? Hm? Has anyone decided to share that with you, oh powerful Giva?”

  Mal blinked. The annual Grievance was an all-out Cage match between the best warriors the human cartels had to offer—the days of gladiators made new again.

  “No,” he said, the word holding all of his suspicion. His pulse was crash upon crash of thunder. “My best spies haven’t been able to learn that.”

  Neither had the underground rebellion of Dragon Kings who were slowly assembling across the world to battle the human cartels. To disrupt the next Grievance was their primary objective, but he wasn’t about to share knowledge of their existence or purpose. Friends and even family were among their ranks.

  “Then your spies aren’t worth what you’re paying them.” She backed away from him. “I can find out. But only after we find Cadmin’s weapon. Some weapon. She’ll need it.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s eighteen now, and a Cage warrior. The upcoming Grievance will be her first … and it will be the last ever held.”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  The last one,” Mal said, unable to keep the incredulity from his reply. Incredulity—and maybe hope. If the rebels succeeded in their underground war against the cartels … But no, he couldn’t start buying into the Pet’s mad prophecies. She would say anything to keep from returning to Greece as his captive. “Grievances have been held for a thousand generations.”

  “By our people. The Five Clans. The Pendray stormed down from the Highlands to fight your Tigony followers for control of Europe. The Sath slinked off the African deserts to use secrets like weapons, while the Garnis appeared seemingly out of nowhere to prove they were not extinct. And the Northern and Southern Indranan proved to be as fractured as ever.” Her voice was rich with passion. “The Grievances held purpose to leech bad blood and keep the Dragon Kings sound as a species, no matter our differences. They’ve only been co-opted by the cartels over the last fifty years. Old Man Aster is very good at using tradition against us.”

  “And this girl has to do with it how?”

  “Fighting,” she said. That’s all I know.”

  “More variables?”

  The Pet shook her head. “No. The fighting is a fixed point. How it happens is a mystery.”

  “But it involves you and me being here?”

  “You? I couldn’t say yet. Me, however—yes.”

  She shrugged free of his hold and continued her careful trudge through the maze. The sun continued its slow slope toward the western horizon. The deepening gold and pink cast color over her skin and clothing, but her black, black hair absorbed the light. It was a tangle of spikes and twists that could’ve been intentional, or a testament to some wild disregard for the outside world. Aside from her ability to fight, she seemed to live exclusively in a make-believe place in her mind.

  Mal experienced a sudden flash of regret. He should’ve been at the Greek fortress to spend more time with her, to learn more about her. The Council had occupied his time, as had the bloody resurgence of the civil war between the northern and southern factions of Clan Indranan across the Indian subcontinent. Rumor had it that his late aunt’s brother-in-law, Tallis, the Heretic, was involved in the explosion of new violence. Mal needed to get back to civilization in order to deal with problems that could wipe out the Dragon Kings even faster than watching each generation wither and flake away.

  But now, the Pet had quickly rocketed to the
top of his list of priorities.

  “We’re not going to make it to the nearest village before sundown,” he said.

  Her back was straight, but the furtive way she moved made her seem on the defensive. Although she stood at her full yet diminutive height, she gave off the appearance of crouching and readying for attack, that appearance of crouching and making herself seem smaller. Had life with Dr. Aster developed that means of self-defense?

  Why did that idea twist in his chest? She was powerful. She was formidable. Yet, how many years had she spent watching and waiting for the next blow?

  “I won’t be heading into a village.” She turned a corner, then another, and another in quick succession.

  Mal could still see her head, but the path to follow was quickly lost to him. He had to double back when a dead end barred his way. He balled his fists, ready to punch solid rock. Had he wanted to, he could use his gift to disintegrate the walls into smoldering, charred heaps, but the Pet had reason to be there. Hauling her back to Tigony lands would be more difficult if he intentionally pissed her off—no matter her insane claims. Humoring her might be the better course until he was given no other option.

  Some excited noise, or the closest to it the Pet was likely capable of, drew his attention. She must’ve ducked low, because he could no longer see her.

  This damn maze.

  “Over here,” she called.

  Eventually he was able to follow the sound of her voice and meet her at yet another dead end. “Tell me you’ve given up.”

  “No need. I found it.”

  From under a cover of rock and chalky dust, she pulled a slender quiver made of boiled leather. From the Dark Ages? Even older? A shiver worked up from the small of his back. The Pet pulled out an arrow. A flash of dying sunlight caught on what must’ve been gold. The dull, yellowed light glinted across her face in quick patterns. Her eyes were large and her mouth was tiny, but both features became more exaggerated as she examined the arrow. Eyes wider. Lips slack with apparent awe.

  Mal crouched beside her. She edged away—from what seemed to be habit, not enough to put real distance between them. “May I?”