Stolen (Tribes #2) - Milana Jacks Page 0,4
hair whispers into the ear of the one with darker hair, who’s watching me, a small smirk lifting the corner of his lips. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something, holds it between his claws for a few seconds, then slips it back into his pocket. He mouths a few words as if trying to talk to me, but I can’t understand. Whatever he’s trying to say can’t be good, so fuck him too. He’s like all the others, even if he isn’t dressed like them.
Feli blocks my view, and when I look up, he reaches out and moves stray hairs away from my face.
“I will win,” he says.
“Win what?”
“The games.”
“Good for you.” Maybe Gur brought me here to watch a spectacle. Maybe they’re gladiators and not Vikings. Lord knows I have no idea where I landed or what’s going to happen to me. All I know is that I woke up inside a hole with a wooden door above me, through which I barely heard anything. For days, there was nothing but me and four wet walls about fifty feet underground.
“You’re not competing.” Gur walks by Feli and sits next to me, then takes my hand in his. I yank my hand back. He grabs my wrist and snarls. His upper lip peels back, showing long sharp canines. When he takes my hand again, I recoil but don’t protest.
Feli growls. “I am competing.”
Gur strokes the top of my hand. “Since you’ve guarded her so well thus far, you’re the guardian for the games.”
“I have entered the games,” Feli grits out.
“Un-enter.”
Feli bends at the waist so his face is inches from Gur’s. “You can’t ban me. All males can compete and are equal in the games.”
A growl from Gur’s chest is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. He releases my hand as Feli leans closer, their noses almost touching. Both males are growling, their upper lips twitching, and then their jaws drop, and the cheekbones move in a…an inhuman way. Slowly, I withdraw my hand from Gur’s and put my feet on the platform. I stand and move my chair away from them. Since Gur holds my leash, I end up only few feet away, but that’s better than right next to him.
“Psst,” sounds, and I snap my head in the direction of the pair of males, who’ve moved to the front. The one with darker hair holds something in his palm. I think he’s trying to show me what it is, and I glance at Gur first to check if he’s looking. He’s arguing with Feli, so I lean in a bit, trying to make out what the dark-haired male is holding. I shake my head. No idea what it is, and why is he trying to show me anything anyhow? Why would I care? He’s one of them.
I lean back and curl up on the chair again.
The male rolls his eyes so dramatically, he does a circle with his head.
Feli walks back to where he’s been standing the entire time, poking things in the air before him, things I can’t see but can tell they’re there. He appears displeased. I don’t believe he’s competing.
Gur walks to me and strokes my cheek. I want to recoil again, but don’t. If I behave like a snarling, snapping idiot, he’ll starve me and beat me, so no, thanks. Calm and cool like this, I might actually survive this ordeal until my brother comes for me.
He’s the man over at National Security, and I’m sure he won’t stop looking when I don’t return from my vacation. Hell, he might even already be looking since I didn’t call him when I arrived. It has been a terrible ordeal, but I haven’t lost hope yet and will keep myself alive until he finds me.
“Two hundred males,” Gur announces, and the crowds cheer. The two in the front shout along with them, so they’re all the same after all.
“Three days,” Gur says, and the two in the front pull something like charcoal from their pockets.
“Two nights,” Feli says.
The charcoal melts in their palms, and they draw lines on their faces, making me think of war paint. The one with dark hair flicks the paint in his palm. It splatters over my face. I flinch and wipe it off, smearing it all over my hands and white shirt. Like I needed more humiliating. Fuck you, I mouth.
He smiles.
Asshole.
“One winner,” Feli says as Gur pulls my chair back to him, bending to see the black stain