Stolen (Tribes #2) - Milana Jacks Page 0,24
way to the platform already, but the ones who stayed in camp whistle at her, making me want to bite their heads off. I sear them with my gaze instead, making a mental list of potential sacrifices, though if Mae wants them all as sacrifices, she won’t need to ask me. She’ll burn through this camp all on her own.
Mas nudges my elbow and whispers, looking around for eavesdroppers, “Securing a win wasn’t smart. Gur will target you if you win, and me by association.”
The shouting from a group of males doing an ongoing training on the left provides cover for our conversation. “You scared?”
“Of six hundred hunters against two? That’s certain death.”
“It’s not six hundred. Don’t be dramatic.”
“You haven’t seen what’s coming.”
“What’s coming?” I stop to hear him out.
Mas stops too, and wipes his face. The rain has picked up again. “Lor plus two hundred.”
Lor is the neighboring ruler Gur separated from when Ark gave Gur a piece of land, thereby making him an earl. “Is that what you did last night?”
Mas nods. “Reconnaissance. And what did you do?”
I push him, and his feet dance as he slips in mud.
Mas laughs. “Hookhole.”
We keep walking toward the platform. “How long till they get here?”
“At the current pace, two spans.”
At the end of the games. “Gur timed their arrival for the night of the endgame, when we know the winner.”
“Maybe that’s when he plans to break the truce,” Mas offers, a hand at the back of his neck, head down so I know he’s thinking. “If you were to break the truce, how would you do it?”
“Provoke Gur so he does it first.”
Mas grunts an affirmative. “How would you provoke him?”
I purse my lips. “Win his games.”
Mas nods. “Then you win.”
I chuckle. “I thought we weren’t gonna win or even compete?”
“You changed your mind, so I have to adjust the plan. You secured a win, so now you need to secure a way to provoke him so you can kill him, preferably quietly, though I don’t believe that’s an option anymore.”
“Risky business,” I conclude. Killing Gur out in the open could make the entire Ra tribe come after the Ka again, though we have some leverage inside the Ra. Ark, their tribal Alpha, asked for the kill.
“Any more rain and we’re gonna sink,” Mas says as we reach the platform. The female stands before the steps, seemingly unwilling to climb. That makes two of us.
I bend to whisper in her ear. “You and I made a pact. I will honor my end.”
She nods.
“You can’t accept anything from anyone. Not food, not water, not shelter. Nothing.”
“Got it.”
I turn her by her shoulders to face me. “At sundown, if I’m not back and Mas returns, you go with him.”
“Why wouldn’t you return?”
“Because I’m dead.”
Her eyes widen. “Are these games deadly?”
“Not always, but they will be today.”
“And if neither of you returns?”
“You do what you must…and sit by the fire. Mae will take care of you.”
“The goddess?”
“Of fire and lies.”
Soaked and sad, the female takes a seat at the platform, and something in my chest tightens. I dislike seeing her unhappy. I dislike forcing her hand to accept my seed, but I can’t back down either. I cannot let the Ra control the females. It’s a death sentence for my tribe. We have to breed young, and we must do so soon. My brother knows this, and damn him for marking the one at home. A goddess, no less, tied to him forever so she can’t breed with anyone else.
What he’s done is tempting. Very tempting. I imagine the thrill of having a female all to myself. Marked and mine, only mine. Selfish of me to want to mark one. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it. I shake my head, as if it will shake off my thoughts.
Mas grabs my belt and practically drags me over to the side.
His gaze is on Feli as Feli manipulates the portal controls, and I’m sure Mas is thinking what I’m thinking, because his hunter rises to the surface, making his jaw expand, making my skin itch, my hunter also rising to the challenge. Feli set up only five portals for ninety-three males. This means they plan to herd us, forcing Mas and me into a small area where they can surround and defeat us easily.
Feli nods at someone behind us, and I turn to see a group of Gur’s males. Before the starting whistle sounds, a portal pops open, and the group rushes at us, pushing