A wave of protectiveness washed over me when I saw who 152 was looking at: me. And I saw Master’s livid reaction to who held her gaze. This time when he looked at me, there was a new fire in his stare. He had given his mona to me—but he didn’t want her to want me. He wanted her affection all to himself.
My cheek twitched as I fought the smirk threatening on my lips. Master caught it, though. His knuckles became white as he gripped the arms of his seat. He leaned forward, his hard face showing how much he wanted to order my death. For a moment, when he rose to his feet and the crowd quieted down, I thought he would see through his biggest wish.
Then a darker man, dressed in strange clothing, stood beside him and shook his hand. The male was smiling wide, nodding his head at something Master said. As I glanced to the dead male beside me in the pit, I saw the similarities to him and the strangely dressed male. It was his Master. The one my Master had needed me to win over.
I had done as Master planned.
The crowd grew restless as the males talked. When Master finally looked back my way, he dismissed me from the pit with a quick flick of his wrist. Turning on my heel, I jogged out of the ring and down the warriors’ tunnel. I forced myself to look unaffected. But when the tunnel darkened and I knew I was out of the spectators’ view, I drew to a stop and clenched my teeth at the pain stabbing at my body. I glanced behind me and saw my bloodied footprints on the sand. I raked my gaze over my body and growled low when I saw I was littered with gashes, deep slices showing more than a few hints of open flesh.
I hadn’t been touched in five years. Hadn’t sustained a scratch since I became champion and simply decided that no opponent would ever touch me again. I knew this match had just made the excitement for Master’s sick spectators that much stronger. The champion, the Arziani Pit Bull, had just been wounded in the show rounds.
It would raise expectations. More investors would join, eager to have their champions bring me down once and for all.
I heard the guards beginning to move in behind me. I kept going, struggling to walk all the way to my cell. As I passed 667’s cell, I heard a high-pitched giggle drifting into the hallway. I stopped dead as his mona laughed again. The sound cut through me like a knife. Not because I couldn’t stand the sound, but because I’d rarely heard that sound in my entire life.
As his mona laughed again, 152’s beautiful face came into my head. I saw her tears, I saw her fear … I didn’t see her laugh. My heart stuttered as I envisioned her smiling at me or laughing at something I’d said. I couldn’t breathe as I was trapped in that dream.
It fell apart when I caught 140 moving to his cell door. He stared at me with his vacant, lifeless eyes, as his arms threaded through the bars and hung across the horizontal bar.
When 667’s mona laughed again, 140 moved his attention to the other champion’s cell door. He spoke without looking at me. “It’s only a question of time,” he said coldly, his body still bathed in his opponent’s blood. “When Master feels like it, needs something, or simply wants to fuck with his mind, he’ll kill her.” 140 pointed at 667’s cell. “He’ll start by taking her away from him every now and again. He’ll expect her and she won’t arrive. When she does, she’ll be hurt and bruised. She’ll be quiet. He’ll bring her to his cell door or have him brought to the mona quarters. Then, with 667 restrained, Master will take her or stand by as he orders another warrior or guard to do it for him. 667 will slowly begin to break, seeing his female being forced to take another male’s cock.” His hands moved to tighten on the bars, then he bit out, “He’ll kill her in front of him. And he’ll die along with her.” He looked to me, but I knew his eyes were still locked in the past. “Only he’ll be forced to still live in this pit, waking each day and fighting some other man-made animal he doesn’t give a shit about in the ring. And the worst part is, Master won’t even think of it again. He’ll move on to play with another warrior’s head. Because that’s what he does. He created this empire to toy with us, his slaves.”
667’s laughs came from his cell, and my eyes drifted to fix on his door. “I have been here since I was ten. I don’t know how many years have passed—Master makes sure we don’t know, doesn’t he? But I guess that I am in my twenties. I got my mona, I think, about two years ago.” I glanced back to 140. Now he was staring at me. “In all of the years I have been here, I only remember those days I spent with her. They are the only memories I have. I don’t remember much of my childhood, because of the drugs. I don’t remember my fights, because I have killed too many, too often. But I remember every second spent with her.” His face flushed red. “And I remember the gleam in Master’s eyes when he slit her throat as my punishment for not being effective enough in the pit. I received a blow to my arm that the Master thought made his warrior—me—look inefficient. So he killed my heart.”
“He is an unworthy male,” I responded.
140 laughed a humorless laugh. Then his face hardened back to a deathly expression. “Since my mona died, I have been thinking every night: Why are we here? Where did we all come from? Why did Master create this Blood Pit?” His face contorted. “And why the hell are we all obeying? We are all warriors. We kill. That is all we do. We kill every day. As children, we killed. As males, we kill. Yet we do not kill them.” He meant the Wraiths. “We don’t ask questions about anything, we don’t rise up. We only know this life. And we accept it.”
“Most of the male fighters are drugged more than we are. We are on special privileges because we are champions,” I said.
“The chiri give us our drugs every day. Every person in this pit. The monebi, the Ubiytsy, the fighters, us. Why? Why do we all do it? If the chiri were to stop the injections, the males would fight with clear heads. We could save the monebi, whose only purpose is to spread their legs and then be killed. We could be free.”