Page 4 of Down to One
“Katann! Enough! You don’t have to kill him.” Is that Mistress trying to reduce my punishment?
I wish she hadn’t said that. It will fuel his jealousy, enrage him, and spur him to keep going even though his arm is tiring.
I lock my knees and breathe deeply as Master pauses to argue with his mate.
“Perhaps you’ll remember this the next time you want a gladiator cock between your thighs,” he seethes.
“There’s another way, Katann. The show. The Game.”
I’ve honed my senses through training, or maybe the hype about me is right. Perhaps I have heightened perceptions. Although I’m facing forward, I know behind me his arm has fallen to his side and the whip’s thin black straps dripping with my flesh and blood are dragging on the tiled floor.
“The show,” he elongates the words, his tone is thoughtful.
“Two birds?” Mistress says. “One stone? Why waste good fighting flesh? Let the planet see what happens when a gladiator misbehaves in the house of Hahn. Although we don’t need the paltry fee that goes to entrants’ next of kin when they die, the show will get a boost in the ratings because one of its producers has an entry in the game. I apologize. I was selfish. But let’s find a way to turn a profit on this, shall we?”
“What about the interviews, Gilina? Unless he’s killed in the first wave, the producers will interview him. What will he say when they ask how he earned those fucking stripes on his back? I don’t need your indiscretions to damage my sterling reputation.”
“Look at him. If he wasn’t holding onto the showerhead, he’d be slumped in a heap in the tub. Look at all the blood,” she says. “Do you really think he’ll survive the first wave? Don’t forget, if he does survive the first wave, his flesh heals fast. All his species do.”
The whip falls to the floor and he steps out of the tub.
My brain did its job keeping the pain at the edges of my awareness during the thick of things, but now that the onslaught has stopped, all my senses are coming back online. Fiery agony skates along my skin, not just the shreds of my back, but everywhere. My pain receptors have gone berserk, randomly flashing me signals of torment from my fingertips to my nose.
Master is on his wrist-comm with his production studio, his mate at his side. I’m not forgotten, standing in a puddle of my blood in the bathtub. I’m certain Baston still has his laser pointed at me.
It takes me a moment to unlace my fingers and several more for the blood to rush back into them. Slowly, I let them fall to my sides. I’m suffering now that I’m thinking more clearly, and even though I try to keep standing, my knees finally give out and I slip to the floor.
The tiles under my cheek are blessedly cool and wet. They were dry when I stepped in. I must be lying in a pool of my own blood.
I wait, eyes closed, for Baston’s laser blast, but it doesn’t come. Through a fog, I listen to Master’s barked instructions into his comm.
“He’ll be there in two hours. Put him in the lineup.”
He makes another call, instructing his assistant to place a 25,000 credit bet on my demise within the first five hours of something called The Game where I’ll be battling lowlifes for entertainment.
His final call is to his family physician. “He’ll need medi-glue, plas-film, and a strong painkiller… injectable.”
Beat me, dope me, and then send me into combat with the roughest scum in the galaxy for a life and death battle. I’d bet against myself, too.
