“Your daughter ran away from you because you’re monsters,” Tamra informed them. “And came here. You can understand, then, how she must feel about you. So how about we sit down and settle this? I’ll be the one looking out for Raia’s best interests, and you two can pretend you are.”
Raia’s parents gawked at her.
She smiled at them, accentuating her scar. “Let’s talk.”
Inside her racer’s stall, Raia whispered to the black lion, “I’m a coward.”
He regarded her with his golden eyes, and she imagined he was telling her she wasn’t. You couldn’t be a coward and ride a kehok.
“But I am,” Raia insisted. “I’m letting Trainer Verlas fight my fight. I should be out there, standing up for myself, not in here with you.”
He shuffled toward her, then hit the shackles and let out a whimper.
“Oh, did I chain you too tight?” Raia inched toward him. “Stay calm while I fix it. Behave.” She focused on him and tried to ignore the voices of her parents and Trainer Verlas beyond the door to the stable.
He lay down like a housecat and stretched his paws forward so she could reach the clamp. She loosened it, giving him several more inches of slack in his chains.
“Better?” she asked.
He licked his paw, around where the shackle had rubbed against his fur. He no longer wore the chain net and hadn’t for a while. Just the shackles that chained him inside the stall, which seemed much more humane.
“You aren’t so bad,” she told him.
He gave her a look that seemed to say, Yes, I am.
She laughed, but the laugh broke and she felt tears on her cheeks. “You just want to run free. Like I do.” Tentatively, she reached toward him and touched his mane. He didn’t flinch. She stroked the metallic spikes. They were cool and smooth beneath her fingers. “Let me get you more water.”
She stepped out of his stall and halted. “Celin!”
Her—Raia’s mind recoiled at calling him her “fiancé”—he stood before her, filling the stable. He always seemed overlarge to her, even though she knew he was no larger than her father. He loomed when he stood, and his broad shoulders dominated the corridor between stalls. She knew she was supposed to think he was handsome—certainly there had to be something about him that had enticed his prior wife. Or maybe her family had liked his fortune too. A nice purse to go with nice hair, nice cheekbones, and an easy smile. He was smiling at her now, as if he could charm her.
“You’re here!” she yelped, and then wanted to smack herself for saying something so obvious and so unhelpful. What she should say was Get out or Leave me alone. Or she should scream and hope that Trainer Verlas came running.
He held out his hands, palms toward her. “Don’t be alarmed, Raia.”
She backed up against the stall door. “Why are you here?”
“For you.” He took a step toward her. “I’m here to offer you your dream future. I’m here to save you!”
She inched along the door, until her toes touched the hay of the lion’s stall. Save me? I don’t need saving! “I found my own future, thanks. You didn’t have to come all this way—”
“Your parents told me you were deliriously happy at our engagement. Those were their exact words, ‘deliriously happy,’ because after the augurs dismissed you, you had no future, and I represent a new future!”
Raia’s mouth felt dry, and her palms were slick with sweat. “I’m sorry this isn’t what you want to hear, but I don’t want to marry you.” In fact, she’d climbed out a window and fled into the night to avoid marrying him. You’d think he’d get the hint.
“You say that, but I hear your fear talking.”
Yes, you do. That was absolutely right. She was so full of fear that she felt her muscles shaking. She inched sideways into the stall with her lion. “Of course I’m afraid! I ran, and you chased. If you cared at all about my happiness, you would have let me go.”
“Raia, my dear, sweet Raia.” His voice was patient, soothing, as if she were a skittish wild animal. “You’ve heard hateful rumors about me, spread by hateful people, who want me to be miserable. And that’s why you weren’t thinking clearly when you fled!”
“You don’t know what I was thinking.” Her fear was turning into anger now. He had no right to call her “my” anything.