Wrage (Galaxy Gladiators #11) - Alana Khan Page 0,51
pull him away from me.
He didn’t say it outright, but I think he was releasing me from my vows. Not the bullshit vows that were said over us during the branding ceremony back on Paragon. I don’t remember them, my arm hurt like hell.
No, he was releasing me from the bond we’ve forged since then. I think he’s telling me to do what I have to do to tolerate Sooma Ryone’s reptilian touch. By the look in his eyes, I think he was giving me permission, when it becomes intolerable, to 'leave' in the only other way I can.
Not that I need his permission, but somehow as maudlin and dramatic as it is, I’m comforted by it.
“I love you Elyse,” he shouts over his shoulder, making sure I hear it over the roar of the crowd.
He and I are on one side of the cage. His opponent is walked to the doorway on the opposite side. My eyes round in my head as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
What is walking toward the opening across from me is not a humanoid. I’m not even certain it’s sentient. It’s pulled by two huge guards with chains attached to its collar. There are six other guards with laser rifles pointed at its head.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
I think back and remember overhearing two businessmen talking a year ago on Aeon II. They were discussing planet Primitiff. The way they described it, it was teeming with animals that would be at home in Jurassic Park.
They’d said the animals’ brains were implanted with some kind of tech that could stop them in their tracks if they started attacking the parks’ patrons. Sooma Ryone must have called in some big favors to get this bad boy to show up on Rhoid.
This is a different species than the Earth reptile, because he doesn’t approach the forty-foot height of a full grown T-Rex on planet Earth. Too bad, because if he was that tall he couldn’t fit into the cage.
He’s mottled green and blue, his teeth are six inches long, and the stone beneath our feet literally rumbles as he walks. He balks when he’s prodded into the cage by the handlers at his back.
The animal shrieks. The sound is so loud and piercing I slap my hands over my ears. The smell of his breath is like rotting garbage.
I scold myself and turn my emotions off as if they were controlled by a switch. If I can think, I might be able to help.
Although it wasn’t fashionable for girls to go through the same fascination with all things dinosaur as boys did, when I was in fifth through seventh grade, I considered myself a dinophile—dinosaur lover. I made up the Greek name because it seemed so much more sophisticated than describing myself as ‘obsessed with dinosaurs’ like my male classmates. It amused my friends and family, too.
I try to remember everything I ever learned about T-Rex, although I disdained that species. I thought it was too pedestrian since it had been popularized by the Jurassic franchise. I was more interested in the lesser-known species like the Carnotaurus.
I stand, still as a statue, as I completely tune out the noise of the crowd, the shouting guards trying to bully the five-thousand pound beast into the cage, or the terrified emotions swirling through me.
Closing my eyes, I breathe and try to go back in time. I am the ten-year-old girl who sat at her computer hour after hour learning about her favorite giant reptiles. I never thought I had a photographic memory before, but maybe necessity really is the mother of invention, because I try to re-watch the YouTube video of a silly scientist telling random viewers how to kill a T-Rex as if it’s the funniest proposition ever. Well, it’s serious as a heart attack now.
Someone pushes me in a direction and I allow myself to walk where I’m directed without opening my eyes or stopping my train of thought. I’m watching fifteen-year-old YouTube.
Holy shit! I remember everything he said. He had many hilarious suggestions that would never work, but one will.
“Wrage!” I scream to be heard over the beast. “Cut the Achilles tendon!”
He shakes his head and lifts his shoulders. Right. How could he know what an Achilles tendon is? Somehow I manage to lift my leg high enough to show him where it is on my own ankle. He nods as he looks at his