looked at her with a smug expression. She knew the expression well, and it rubbed her the wrong way.
“How many did you get?” he asked as Alchan watched. “You got back first, so I’m going to assume it didn’t go as well for you.”
“Five,” she answered. “A little better than your four. Obviously, not only did we bring home more victory, we moved faster.”
“Behave,” Alchan growled at them both with a smile. “The village is going to celebrate, and if you two go at each other’s throats, they’ll notice and get worried.”
“Forgive me. It’s just a friendly rivalry,” Kenav said softly.
“Yup.”
“Like anyone fucking believes that,” Alchan snapped. “Kenav, let’s talk quickly about the numbers. I need to know how many are dead, severely injured, or minorly injured. Once we’re done, you can enjoy the revelry.” He grabbed his cousin and pulled him away.
Mave leaned into Bryn, who had taken a silent place at her side as Kenav rode into the village.
“He’s an asshole,” Bryn said softly. She knew he could feel her tension and sense her mood. “But he did well. You can’t fault him that.”
“I didn’t fault him his victories. I got mad when he tried to make his success into my failure. I didn’t ask for it. I was standing at my king’s side like I’m supposed to.”
Around them, the village was a whirlwind of activity. Mave wasn’t in the mood for it this time, even if she was glad to see it. It was a conflicted feeling for her. Kenav doing well on his campaign was good for all of them.
It was also fucking Kenav, a piece of shit she had known for all her years in the pits as a gladiator she called Seventy-Two, from the number on his ear tag. He was a great leader. She now had to witness twice over how he could win lower-ranking Andinna to his side, with well thought out arguments and playing to their emotions. He hadn’t led all the gladiators, only enough of them to make her life a little more dangerous than it needed to be. He’d never tried to rape her or anything like that.
He’d just wanted her dead.
She knew things done in the pits were the extreme. Kenav, other than being a bit of an ass to her now, wasn’t an enemy of Alchan. He wasn’t an enemy to the Andinna or the rebellion.
However, they would never like each other.
“I hate him,” she whispered to her husband as they walked out of the crowd.
“I could fix it for you,” Bryn whispered, leaning in to put his lips on her ear. “He could not wake up after a long night drinking, and you’d never have to see him again. Well, unless you go to his funeral pyre when the body is burned, so the ashes can be spread.”
“Don’t talk like that. If someone hears and something happens to him, they’ll blame you.” It wasn’t that far off to accuse Bryn of something like that. He was training scouts now, but he was very good at solo missions, which is why he was so good at moving alone and cleaning up the trail—get in, kill a few people, and open the right doors for the rest of the Company.
And sometimes, assassinate a target.
“No one in the Company likes him,” he said quietly, kissing her cheek as they finally left the crowd and were free to make it home. “Sure, we can reason with why he did what he did, why he hated you in the pits, but it doesn’t mean we have to agree with it. Just say the word, love, and I’ll fix this.”
Mave listened to those words. When she had met this dangerous male, she would have taken him up on the offer without thinking. Now, she considered everything in her brutal past. She was acutely aware she wasn’t the only victim or the only one who had to fight every day to survive.
Shadra had played her games well. She knew what the pits would do to me and the gladiators she put me down there with. She knew from the very beginning.
“I hate him, but looking back, I can see the chain of events that led to him and me. From the moment I was thrown into the pits, the wheels began to turn,” she said softly. “At the time, Seventy-Two wasn’t in charge of many. As word got around who I was and what my part in the War had been, which was