Moro's Price: The Lonhra Sequence

By M. Crane Hana

Crown Prince, techno-geek, and secret sadomasochist Valier has lusted for years after the gorgeous gladiator called "The Diamond." Meeting the escaped slave on a skyscraper rooftop, Valier discovers Moro Dalgleish wants suicide before his former masters can reclaim him. Infected with a deadly symbiont, Valier proposes empty sex to satisfy his urges and grant Moro's release from a horrible life. Neither man plans for Moro to survive, or how the morning after will shake three interstellar empires to their foundations.

 

This is a revised 3rd edition of a previously published work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crane Hana Books
• Release date: Mar 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393894971

M. Crane Hana

M. Crane Hana writes erotic romance and space fantasy. As an artist, she's known for jewelry design, book art sculpture, and fiber arts.

Book preview

One

Athousand spectators watched Jason Kee-DaSilva, the Leopard of Saba, ruin his career the day of his comeback victory.

The Golden Cage Arena spanned the top floor of a gaudy casino skyscraper in south Cedar-Saba. At the center of the domed auditorium, a thirty-foot circular steel floor slowly revolved to the right. An airy dome of gold-plated steel filigree mesh arched thirty feet over it. The mesh was stronger than a spaceship’s skin. Two gates led into the Cage. Once a fight began, they’d stay locked until one man lost and yielded to the other.

DaSilva had broken two men already tonight: two in credits, the last in flesh.

The deceptively delicate dome had just lifted from the bloodstained circular steel floor to let a cadre of medics through. Huge holo screens in the dome played highlights from the first rounds of battle or lingered over shots of the Leopard swiftly claiming his last victim. He hadn’t been brutal, merely thorough. The orgasm he’d wrung from the other man had been as much a symbol of victory as the final punch-down.

In better days, DaSilva had been a glorious bronze godling of the Cage, always dressed to show off his sleek muscles, dapple-bleached short hair, and the leopard-spot tattoos covering his shoulders and spine. Out of the ring for a year, DaSilva looked thinner than in his prime. Smoky cosmetics only partially hid dark shadows around his eyes. His hair had grown out to plebian brown curls. His knee-length kilt was simple grayish-brown poly-silk, without his previous Garibey Shemua theme colors or concentric teardrop pattern.

Now DaSilva looked up angrily, shrugging off the lackluster attentions of his own single hired attendant and the man’s low-budget medical kit. In place of DaSilva’s legendary anthem, a rights-free generic martial score rumbled in the background from expensive speaker systems.

In the first tier of seats behind the three red-clad referees, a bald man in Garibey Shemua’s purple and silver robes tapped studiously at the keyboard manifesting across his left sleeve. He glanced at DaSilva, as if just now noticing the fighter’s thunderous expression.

DaSilva glared at the Shemua official and then pointed toward the nearest speaker. I paid, damn you. I wrote my anthem years ago! he shouted, stepping aside to let the medics work on the other fighter.

While you were under contract, Sero DaSilva. We’re happy to lease the rights back to you for single-use or month-to-month, the bald man said with a mild tone, pitched to carry perfectly past the low music. The hovering audio drones made certain his words were broadcast over the whole arena.

"I paid yesterday."

The Shemua official’s polite, calm expression never wavered. Which was applied to last month’s fees. Which were in arrears, I’m afraid. It’s a new month. Your employment liaison should have told you to pay today, too.

My liaison went on a convenient fishing trip to Lariden Lake last night and couldn’t be reached. What the hell do you people even want?

The Shemua official lifted a red metal collar from his right sleeve and waggled it in the air. The collar clasp glittered with purple enamel and white diamonds in Shemua’s concentric teardrop emblem. A concerted gasp came from the spectators who knew what it was: the Leopard’s Red-Band bonder’s collar he’d worn while being owned by Garibey Shemua.

This can all work out for the best, Sero DaSilva, if you’d just see reason and come back. Until the previous year, the Leopard of Saba had been one of Shemua’s feted, pampered bondslave fighters. Their star.

DaSilva stepped a pace backward.

The crown moaned as one. Another onlooker began slowly, derisively clapping: a huge old man clad in a brilliant white suit, sprawled a dozen seats down from the referees. The camera drones focused on him, then longer on the silent, nearly naked man kneeling in front of him.

A buzz ran through the crowd.

The Diamond. A whisper from a few hundred hushed voices, as everyone was reminded of who else had watched every moment of DaSilva’s three comeback fights. The silent man’s black collar indicated a murderer or traitor under arena sentence. His odd black-and-white coloring marked him as a legend equal to the Leopard. Heavy cosmetics rimmed the man’s eyes, exaggerated his refined cheekbones, and shaped his lips into a courtesan’s scarlet smile.

Flinching at the sight of himself on the giant screens, the painted man lowered his head in a spill of long black curls and huddled against his master’s legs.

Everyone in the vast room saw how long the Leopard looked at the Diamond.

The Shemua official cleared his throat. Sero DaSilva, I’m cleared to hold this offer open as long as you remain a valuable investment. That window could be closing sooner than anyone expects. He nodded toward the Diamond, tucked the red collar away again, and went back to writing.

Take it while you can, DaSilva, snickered the man in white, still clapping.

DaSilva allowed the strained look on his face to remain for a moment longer. The crowd loved these dramas and paid well to follow them. Then he yelled at the man in white, Stop bringing your sixth-rank trash for me to fight and fuck, Bondmaster Kott! Send out your best!

DaSilva stalked within six feet of the bulky Kott, before taking heed of the two burly, squat bodyguards sitting on either side of their employer.

Kott waved down their brandished pulserifles with one meaty, ruddy-brown hand. Long ago, he’d been an arena legend himself. Now he was Shemua’s main offworld rival. I’ll be a sport, since you asked so nicely, and send out one of my second-ranks, eh?

Not them, said DaSilva and then pointed at the painted man at Kott’s feet. Him.

Michol Kott leaned back and petted his slave’s wavy blue-black hair. Got a taste for rare game now, Leopard?

Sensing new mayhem, the audience jeered. The arena audio technicians had already oriented on the drama. Drone cameras hovered around the tableau, feeding images into the ceiling screens. Every sound was beautifully, brutally clear.

Give me...the Diamond, said DaSilva, stumbling over the other man’s stage name.

Kott gave an ugly laugh. "Sorry, my treasure is meant for the best opponents with the best sponsors. More credits to me that way. You, Freeborn DaSilva? You’re a washed-up solo act taking the hard way down. And you know what’s really funny? The Diamond did this to you. Made you weak. Made you fall in love. I warned you, and you let it happen anyway."

He deserves better! DaSilva snapped. Set him free! He should have earned more than enough already...

This pretty monster? Kott gripped the black collar around his slave’s throat and pulled back, forcing the man to show his face. The painted operatic mask accented the man’s large, dark irises. Maybe the shimmer in them was tears, or rage...or maybe just the witnesses’ fantasies. He wore only a short black kilt. Over the rest of his exposed pale skin, elusive green, purple, pink, and blue opaline highlights shone out bright enough for the cameras to detect.

DaSilva had never seen human skin shine like that. Until this man.

Starlight, DaSilva whispered as if the sound techs wouldn’t broadcast that, too.

Kott snorted. Don’t be fooled by his looks. The Diamond is a mutant freak, and a Black-Band murderer sent to the arena for justice. This is his rehabilitation...and my considerable investment. Don’t tell yourself lies about freedom. If you owned him, Leopard, you’d keep him chained, too.

DaSilva shuddered, looking down at the now-impassive fighter. He reached out abortively with his right hand.

Kott jerked the collar back, bending his fighting-slave backward over his thigh. Kott stared warningly down into the silent man’s eyes and then looked up at DaSilva with a trace of sympathy. I know what he’s like. He’s addictive. It’s why we put him in the Cage in the first place, to snare fools like you. You want him that badly, to share another tender stolen night? the older man mocked.

Lady Mara save my soul, yes, DaSilva groaned.

The Diamond made a tiny wordless noise of protest and shut his dazzling black eyes.

Sero Freeborn DaSilva, I’ll let you fight him for credits, since you need all the money you can get. If you win, I’ll even cut you a limited sponsorship deal. You keep your freedom. Fight for me, and I’ll bring you back from whatever east Saba back alley you’ve been detoxing in. You’ll get to see my Diamond every single day. Maybe even fight him during training.

A wince from DaSilva. Another round of knowing laughter from the audience.

But you won’t get to fuck him again. Ever. He doesn’t get to fuck you. Not even in the arena. I think you’ve had enough of that drug. And first you have to win.

Kott stood, rising like a craggy glacier in his sleek white suit. He dragged the Diamond upright with him. When the bondmaster doffed his wide-brimmed white hat at DaSilva, it revealed his gray, buzz-cut hair. The Diamond looked slender and fragile beside him. He leaned against the old giant and tried to hide his painted face against Kott’s jacket lapels.

None of that now, sweetling, Kott murmured, pulling the young fighter away from him. He forced the Diamond to look at DaSilva. This idiot thinks he’s in love with you. Let’s give him some harsh medicine. I’ll pay the death fines out of my own pocket. Kill him.

The Diamond glared back at his owner. Nn...nn...no, he forced out in a harsh stammer.

No, you’ll pay? No, you don’t think you can take him now? Or no, you don’t want to? Kott growled.

"W-wo-won’t."

Kott gave him an oddly approving glare made of narrowed eyes and too many exposed teeth. And here I thought this evening would be boring. Kill him, don’t kill him, I don’t care. If he lives, he crawls away sixty thousand credits poorer tonight. Break him. Or I’ll break you.

The camera techs worked their magic and isolated the moment the Diamond gave Kott the most defiant look anyone had ever seen from him in a career of bloody insurrection and harnessed rage.

Kott shook his head. You stupid puppy, I’ve been protecting you all these years. Buying you time. Maybe tonight you get a life lesson along with the Leopard, eh?

The Diamond spat in Kott’s face.

Kott laughed.

DaSilva muttered a furious curse that fizzled out when the cameras focused on the Diamond’s face, as the silent man turned to stare at his newest challenger. The whole arena saw it. No malice. No regret. A flicker of pity, shunted into resolve that straightened the slave’s spine. Certainly not a lover’s look.

On the screens, the betting went wild.

Two

Valier Antonin ne’Cama had already spent half his Saturday afternoon flying through the continent-wide city of Cedar-Saba in a luxurious hover taxi with Mateo DaSilva. Mateo’s gorgeous cousin Jason was slightly favored over the challengers in today’s arena prizefight.

Mateo had tickets. That he had them at all was the subject of a debate lasting three hundred miles and fifty-seven minutes.

He’s your cousin, Val said finally. Isn’t it, well, weird?

Distant cousin, said Mateo, waving away the argument with the mild smoke of his second fume stick. Third, fifth, something. It’s a big family. I’m not saying I want to fuck him. I just like to watch him.

Displacement activity? Wish fulfillment? Val needled, not least because he very much wanted to fuck Mateo’s cousin. And that was never going to happen.

Jace is beautiful, and I get off thinking about his fights, said Mateo, looking away over the urban sprawl dimming into blue distance near the horizon. Doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

Val had known his friend long enough to be certain Jason DaSilva was never far from Mateo’s thoughts, for good or ill.

Val had money and a steadily eroding resolve to avoid watching Jason Kee-DaSilva fight in person. All eight hundred miles from the university into the tawdry districts of south Cedar-Saba, Val traded friendly insults with Mateo and debated silently with himself. Should he watch or not? Watch in person or discreetly in a nearby hotel via an expensive pay channel?

Did the moth tell itself I don’t have to do this! even as it circled the flame?

Val’s normally chatty symbiont remained silent in his thoughts. Was she sharing his adventure or ashamed of him?

BEFORE THE MATCH, MATEO found them a handy street-side cantina in the Vaclav Sector.

He and Val sat together at the steel and frosted-glass bar, lit by vivid colors slowly pulsing through milky panels in walls, floors, and ceiling.

Even with medics and fast-heal tech, there’s going to be a lot of blood, Mateo said after a considering silence. You’ve watched the holos I sent you, right? You’re ready?

Val thought fast for a moment, settling on resolve mixed with frosty embarrassment and guilty glee. I know what goes on in the cages.

Mateo looked down his magnificent nose, flaring his nostrils in a steadying breath. Knowing is different than seeing in person.

Are you warning me off after dragging me down here?

No, I’m giving you an honorable way out, Val. Are you doing this as some sort of research project on us defective morally bankrupt humans? Or because you want to see it for real?

Val let some truth flavor his blurted I want to see! Even if I have to run out before I heave, knowing you’ll laugh at me, and that I’ll probably get arrested for being, well, who I am.

You’ll be fine. I know you’re not as squeamish as most Camalians.

You know many of us, do you?

Mateo mimed an exaggerated bow. Since I started being the sole voice of reason in your immediate orbit, yes. There’s your Aunt Alys and all her political cronies, and that sweet girl in the embassy cafeteria...

‘Sole voice’? Val sputtered, laughing. Alys thinks you’re a terrible influence on me. She’d ban me from seeing you, if she wasn’t afraid of what I’d do without a human minder.

Sole voice, Mateo said amiably, settling back on his bar stool. And expendable, which I’m sure she values on a diplomatic level.

A recent and unwelcome heartache wrenched deep in Val’s chest. "Mati, don’t. You’re not expendable, you’re my best friend!"

The look Mateo gave him was equal parts exasperation, grief, and humor. I’m human, I’m from a poor family, and no one outside the DaSilva Taverna is going to raise much fuss if you accidentally burn me to ash with a kiss someday.

If I could kiss a human... Val whispered, looking away. He didn’t know whether to snarl or cry. He’d known about Mateo’s other infatuation for years. Val adored him, but not that way. Not when the Leopard stalked across Val’s memory.

Val avoided blood sports in general, though not for the reason most of his university cronies assumed.

Oh, yes. Mateo whacked Val on the shoulder. I know you. You’d fuck your way through the whole school. You’re no chaste little sweetheart, Val. You’re a wicked evil drunk and you start fights other people have to finish. We’ve only your symbiont to thank for any vestige of self-control you have. It’s terrifying being your friend but too much fun to give up. At least you don’t shrink at the sight of violence, like the rest of your folk. Why else would I drag you along tonight?

Val swigged the last of his beer before the next friendly whack spilled it on his gray coat.

Because you love me? Because I have money? Who paid for the taxi? And the beer?

"Oh, the money. Pffft on the money." Mateo flipped his ultramarine-dyed hair out of his eyes. He’d tinted it to coordinate with the blue damask greatcoat, black trousers, and ruffled cream poet’s shirt he’d borrowed from an older brother. Neither the dye, nor the hand-me-down clothes, nor his indigo eyeliner made him any less gawky or beak-nosed. Mateo, despite his efforts, wasn’t even the most garish creature in the crowded cantina.

And because I’m very decorative without my safety mask, Val said in a lower tone, guessing he and the Leopard probably starred in a few of Mateo’s private fantasies. For all his pride in his lineage, Val often regretted his family’s eye-catching dark-amber-and-electrum coloring.

Mateo blew a regretful kiss. "Alas, hermano, you are lovely. Of the ‘look but don’t touch’ variety, thanks to that symbiont of yours. Jace sent me two tickets for the second round of fights. They should be starting soon, up on the hundredth floor. Will you join me or hide?"

Because he was rapidly falling into a grim mood, Val played a bit more of his self-assigned part. I’m still deciding. Who names an arena ‘the Golden Cage,’ anyway?

Truth in advertising. It’s a steel cage, it’s plated in gold, and it locks. Two men inside fight for blood, money, and sex. What could be simpler?

Unknown to Mateo, Val already knew very well the dynamics of the Golden Cage, the oldest and most infamous of the city’s ten such arenas. Though he’d never met any of the celebrated gladiators, Val’s private holo collection was stocked with passcoded recordings of at least thirty fights...and their intoxicating aftermaths.

Live a little, beautiful, said Mateo, bending as close as he dared to Val’s unshielded face. It would do you good, some distance from all your computers and nanobots.

Val hitched away a few more inches. Says the liberal arts major.

Extremely liberal, judging by the company I keep. Mateo lifted his beer in a mock salute. I’ve seen a certain look in your eyes sometimes. It’s why I think you’d enjoy the arena.

Val looked down to keep Mateo from seeing it again. The polished steel bar reflected slow tides of cobalt, pale rose, and yellow-green light. You know the scandal if I’m found in such a place, Val muttered at his wavering image.

Scandal? You? Not an answer, Mateo said. You could wear another mask to attend. Plenty do.

Mati!

Mateo only whacked Val in the shoulder again. Suit yourself. Be here when it’s over? I’ll tell you stories! Mateo called back as he left the bar.

Val watched his friend vanish into the mixed crowd of thrill seekers at the gates of Vaclav 17’s towering casino.

Old Earth historical costumes were the party trend now: people in ancient Terran Sung and Eura-Renaissance outfits brushed shoulders with others dressed as Romans in white togas or Athabaski in beaded polymer leathers.

Val’s own clothing was merely contemporary, a subdued gray raw-silk coat over amber tunic and trousers. His black ankle boots and complicated black toolbelt were unglamorous but useful.

He considered following, paying for a seat safely far from Mateo, and watching anyway.

It would be a rare opportunity. Brutal battles and brutal sex were both anathema to Val’s people. Not forbidden but regarded with squeamish distaste. He hated his darker urges even more for rising to torment him on a hostile planet so far from home. Worse, some of his self-indulgent fantasies had starred many of the arena fighters, about whom Valier knew far more than Mateo guessed.

Take the Leopard, for example. Before a mysterious illness sidelined the man last year, Jason Kee-DaSilva had nearly been lust incarnate inside the arena. Val’s second-favorite daydream was of that straight back, the man’s muscles bunching and knotting under his legendary leopard-spot tattoos. A spectacular fighter, DaSilva was known to battle, claim, or yield with the same laughing, manic abandon. Mateo swore the man was ready to rejoin the championships this year. The chance to see the Leopard fight in person was almost too much for Val to deny.

Plus, Val felt remorse. One or two of his misadventures had contributed to the Leopard’s fall from grace, and Mateo’s frayed nerves over the last year.

Only one other gladiator surpassed the Leopard in Val’s violent dreams.

DaSilva’s rival was known only as the Diamond, for his beauty and lethal edge. No one had ever seen him without a veil or the mocking face-paint of his stage persona.

From the fight last year, Val remembered how the man’s black, gemlike eyes gleamed behind face-paint. The Diamond’s long blue-black hair had been pulled back in a severe club, freed only in rare defeats or advertising appearances. Val could imagine every inch of the pale, hard-muscled, almost hairless body, elegant as a prince out of a legend. He dreamed of a mouth made to snarl in defiance or moan in submission.

A secret part of Val wanted his lovers bloody, sobbing, and overcome. That part looked at Michol Kott’s Diamond and howled mine.

Last year, the Leopard had won a stunning, nearly bloodless match against the mysterious, alluring, and always reluctant bondslave gladiator.

All the arena holos had lingered over the startled look on the Diamond’s painted face, as the Leopard bowed courteously, whispered something unheard in the audience’s roar, and offered his hand to his prize.

Money or flesh. The Diamond always took his opponent’s credits when he won. In defeat, he fought until beaten down and forced, one way or another. But that night, the Leopard had asked, not taken, and whisked him away to privacy. And because the Leopard had just earned his own freeborn status in the arena, no one could deny him.

Val thought of the pale Diamond and the honey-skinned Leopard twined together in secluded passion.

Val thought of how he and Mateo had made that encounter possible, through trickery that later nearly killed both fighters.

Every action has unexpected consequences, asked a rich, warm feminine voice directly into his mind.

A hot trickle of need made Val’s groin tighten, even through the guilt he felt. If he saw the Leopard fight tonight, Val knew he’d come in his pants. Not just embarrassing, but insanely dangerous. He’d risk catching his clothing on fire or being arrested for endangering the humans around him.

He had a little dignity to maintain.

Enough. Time to escape from Vaclav 17. Mateo could find his own damned way home.

That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? the voice added. That you feel guilty is a good thing.

Val slouched. Damned symbiont. Cama could be as fussy as a third mother.

I heard that.

Mateo wasn’t to blame for Val’s faults. Not even for encouraging them. This moth could say no and mean it.

Let me guess, Cama. You meant me to come here and test myself. To be a good boy and not go to the match, he grumbled silently back at her.

We could still have an interesting evening alone in a hotel. The Leopard is lovely.

You don’t even have a body, you shouldn’t care.

Mmmm. I’m riding yours, and you seem to care very much.

Val sighed and detached a secure com-scroll from his belt. Unclipping the rigid sides, he unrolled the flexible dark plastic until it became a flat keyboard and monitor screen. His mail system flashed several urgent messages from the Camalian Embassy. Val ignored them.

He sent a time-delayed message to Mateo’s own com, along with enough credits to get the idiot back in time for classes on Monday. Not in style, but at least Val hadn’t abandoned him in south Saba. Then Val frowned, thinking back on some of their more expensive escapades, and tripled the amount.

I’m proud of you, said Cama.

Be proud when I figure out how to expense that as an embassy cost. Val reached for the vivid orange gloves and fabric half mask hidden in his coat pocket. He shouldn’t be in public without his lower face and hands covered at all times.

But Mateo had convinced him otherwise earlier in the cab: Will anyone die if you sneeze on them? No? Probably not? Then hide this crap. It doesn’t match your outfit, anyway. Why’d you think I wanted an automated cab? Nobody’s gonna care if you’re Camalian because they won’t know!

Donning protective gear now might lead to a diplomatic incident, or worse. He hadn’t been thrown out of a bar or been arrested in months. No wonder Mateo was trying to cheer him up.

I’m rather fond of your bar fights. They’re epic. How a mostly incorporeal colonial symbiont got that tone of ‘smug’ in her mindvoice, Val never knew.

Besides, Val knew Cama enjoyed the new anonymity as much as he did. People didn’t depart when he walked into a room, refuse to sit near him, or give him angry looks. Now, the glances he got were friendly and admiring. He spent enough energy at physical training to keep his compact body trim. Nature and genetic engineering had given him a handsome rounded face, rich gold-brown skin, pale golden eyes, and a mane of pale yellow hair almost as curly as his mother Lia’s. Back on Camonde, his family’s looks were a promise and a warning: Here is an Antonin Royal. Run if you can. Linger if you dare!

In Val’s case the warning was even stronger.

He couldn’t be trusted around civilized people.

He’d left Camonde without seeing even a holo of any of his Potential mates, the six or seven young women who might be his proper genetic and mental match. Who would risk a Potential around an unstable little monster? Poor woman would be doomed the moment Val heard her voice and smelled her scent!

Sure, it was fun teasing his mother about her own reckless and unsuitable courtships of Aunt Alys and Val’s father, Maitland. The Camalian empress had never used mindforce against any lover, accidentally or not.

That’s not what happened, said Cama. And nothing actually did happen.

Three

Both fighters had been quickly outfitted in Kott’s favorite gear for the Diamond: tall boots, elbow-length gloves studded with three-inch blackened steel spikes, and nothing else but their kilts.

Once upon a time the two legends had been evenly matched, bronze and white, fighting to a standstill. Now the spectators watched a ludicrous parody of that earlier fight, as DaSilva and the Diamond chased each other inside the lacy golden dome.

Just outside the cage, in his customary chair, Kott aimed scornful commentary to a hovering camera drone:

Are we fighting or dancing?

Have some pride, Leopard. You’d think you were the slave here.

Since fucking’s off the menu, that leaves blood. So when can we see some?

You call him ‘Starlight’ one more time, Leopard, I’ll skin the tattoos off your back myself!

Of course, that was the moment DaSilva darted under the Diamond’s spinning kick and crowded chest-to-chest with the other fighter. DaSilva was a scant inch taller. Starlight, wait! You don’t have to fight me!

"St-st-stop, J-Jace," the slave warned.

Kott groaned, faking heartache with an over-dramatic hand press to his chest. Oh, we’re both up to pet names, now? Diamond, you at least should know better. This boy is like all the rest of them. They get a taste and they want more. They get more and they get stupid for it.

The Diamond half turned and slammed into the Leopard with just his bare shoulder.

DaSilva reeled back, narrowly avoiding the next punch that would have lacerated his throat, if the Diamond hadn’t pulled back by a scant inch. Still, the skin contact left its toll.

You won’t hurt me, DaSilva exulted. I knew it! He stood slack-armed and panting, his face sallow and his eyes dilated almost black. Starlight, kneel. Cede the fight. Come away with me again!

The Diamond growled and glanced toward the nearest of the cameras.

DaSilva stepped forward, moving his sweat-drenched arms as if to embrace him. I don’t care anymore what they all think! I don’t care what you did to earn your sentence! You’re mine. I have to keep you with me and safe. Cedar-Saba laws say I can petition to transfer even a Black-Band bond criminal to another master. Let me take care of you!

Leopard, son, you can’t even take care of yourself, said Kott.

The Diamond shook his head and ducked away from DaSilva’s arms.

I’m not like the others. I’d never hurt you! DaSilva begged.

Kott’s ugly laugh was so loud it distorted for a moment in the drone feed. "Oh, you are a fool, Leopard. He likes being hurt. Don’t you, my Diamond? You sing for it."

The Diamond sent his master another look of instantly shown, instantly veiled hate.

Kott crossed his big arms over his chest and leaned back in his seat. "You sing...but the poor Leopard here never got that far with you, did he? Bet he couldn’t make you come at all, for all his romance."

Most of the audience laughed.

Starlight, DaSilva pleaded and in pure madness, knelt in front of the Diamond.

On the holo screen keeping a tally, each fighter’s match-price suddenly enlarged on the Leopard’s and the Diamond’s battle statistics.

The sound techs cut all music and extraneous sound, focusing their drone sensors so tightly the whole arena heard the rasping, wet sound of DaSilva’s labored breaths. Somewhere far up in the cheaper seats, someone shrieked, Jace, Mara damn you, no!

Kott said, "This isn’t funny anymore. Diamond, kill."

The Diamond canted his body slightly off-balance, poised on his left boot-tip spike. The holo screens lingered over the image of his taut opaline flesh. He kicked out three times with his free leg. Three awful snap-cracks broke the arena’s vast silence, as he carefully and precisely broke Jason Kee-DaSilva’s right arm, left arm, and right thigh.

The Leopard folded sideways and fell over. Even as the Diamond turned to face his now-standing master, DaSilva tried to crawl after the other fighter.

"I said kill," Kott repeated as he strode forward. At his impatient wave, the fifteen-meter-wide filigree steel Cage lifted on its gold-washed chains, high enough for the nearest audience rings to see more clearly.

The three referees in bright red stood up from their own bench. Bondmaster Kott, this match is over. The Leopard is down.

On the prize screen, DaSilva’s sixty-thousand-credit match-price disappeared, then added to the Diamond’s tally. Judging by the jeers and shouts from the crowd, a few too many people had gambled in the Leopard’s favor and lost as badly.

Another screen showed the Shemua representative, his face impassive as stone.

I don’t give a wet crap about DaSilva anymore, Kott said. "I care why my best investment has suddenly lost his mind over a sick, broken freeman not even worth betting on. Diamond, do you love this idiot?"

N-n-no, the Diamond said and knelt with his wrists held up in the trained obedience of an arena slave.

Then why defy me?

The Diamond jerked his sharp chin sideways. S-s someone d-does.

A lanky young man in a flapping, oversized blue coat skidded down the last of the stairs toward the arena, his wrist-com aimed toward the referees. You’ve got to let me through, I’m approved kin! Mateo DaSilva. One of his freeborn cousins. We may be poor, but we’re still an original Cedar Buyout Family!

Confirmed, said one referee, after checking him against the wearable computers wrapped around her left forearm. We’ve seen you at his earlier matches, Sero DaSilva. You’ve been helping his rehab? He obviously needs more medical attention than he claimed on his entry forms.

The Leopard groaned on the floor and went still.

Jace! yelped the young man, crouching to check the Leopard’s pulse. He got a good sniff of the fighter’s scent and looked ready to cry until he took three deep breaths. He’s breathing but shocky. I need to get him to the nearest hospital. Where are his attendants? His dressers and medics?

One of the male referees shrugged. He posted a waiver fee, saying he wouldn’t need them. He paid for only one attendant, up through his first matches of the day.

Huh, said Kott. Likely, he couldn’t afford them after leaving Shemua last year.

Lend me your crew, Sero Kott, said the younger DaSilva. You liked Jace earlier, when he was mopping the arena with your trainees!

"I would have liked him more