“I thought you hated that nickname.”
“Everyone seems inclined to use it, so it might as well be my choice for you to do so.”
“Was that your thinking when you abandoned my friends right before a deathstalker attacked them?” He couldn’t keep the bite from his voice, antagonizing her be damned. “Everyone expected the worst of you, so why not just be the worst?”
She snorted. “Your friends … you mean the witch and the redhead?”
“Yes. Real honorable of you to ditch them.”
“They seemed capable of looking after themselves.”
“They are. But you bailed all the same.”
“If you’re so invested in their safety, perhaps you should have been there.” Ari tossed the wipe in the trash and grabbed another one. “Who taught you to fight, anyway?”
He let the argument drop—it’d get them nowhere. He couldn’t even have said why he’d felt inclined to bring it up now, of all times. “Here I was, thinking you didn’t care to know anything about me.”
“Call it curiosity. You don’t seem … serious enough to be the River Queen’s Captain of Intelligence.”
“Such a flatterer.”
But embers sparked in her eyes, so Tharion shrugged. “I learned how to fight the usual way: I enrolled in the Blue Court Military Academy after school, and have spent the years since honing those skills. Nothing cool. You?”
“Survival.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the dragon turned on a booted heel. “Ari—” he called before she could reach the door. “We didn’t, you know.”
She turned, eyebrows rising. “Didn’t what?”
“Expect the worst of you.”
Her face twisted—rage and sorrow and a drop of shame. Or maybe he was imagining that last bit. She didn’t answer before stalking out.
The dripping of his blood again filled the bathroom.
Tharion waited until the potion patched most of the holes in his skin, and didn’t bother tugging the upper half of the black bodysuit on before following the dragon back to the heat and smells and light of the fighting ring.
Ari was just getting started. With impressive calm, she squared off against three male lion shifters, the enormous cats circling her with deadly precision. She turned with them, not letting the lions get behind her, her skin beginning to glow with molten scales, her black eyes flickering red.
Across the pit, the one-way window that peered over the ring reflected the glaring spotlights. But Tharion knew who stood on the other side of it, amid the plush finery of her private quarters. Who watched the dragon fight, assessing the intensity of the crowd’s roar.
“Traitor,” someone hissed to his left.
Tharion found two young mer males glaring at him from the risers above. Both clutched beers and had the glazed look of guys who’d already downed a few.
Tharion gave them a bland nod and faced the ring again.
“Fucking loser,” the other male spat.
Tharion kept his eyes on Ari. Steam rippled from the dragon’s mouth. One of the lions lunged, swiping with fingers that ended in curved claws, but she ducked away. The concrete floor singed where her feet had been. Preliminary blast marks.
“Some fucking captain,” the first male taunted.
Tharion ground his teeth. This wasn’t the first time in the past few days that one of his people had recognized him and told him precisely how they felt. Everyone knew Tharion had defected from the Blue Court. Everyone knew he’d defected and come here to serve the Meat Market’s depraved ruler. The River Queen and her daughter had made sure of it.
Captain Whatever, Ithan Holstrom had once called him. It seemed he truly embodied it now.
You gave that up, he reminded himself. He could never again so much as set foot in the Istros. The moment he did, his former queen would kill him. Or order her sobeks to rip him to shreds. Something twisted in his gut.
He was aware that his parents lived only because he’d gotten messages from them expressing their outrage and disappointment. We already lost one child, his mother had written. Now we lose another. Defecting, Tharion? What in Ogenas’s depths were you thinking?
He didn’t write back. Didn’t apologize for being so reckless and selfish that he hadn’t thought of their safety before committing this act of insanity. He’d not only sworn himself to the Viper Queen, he’d bound himself to her, too. After all the shit that had gone down in Pangera … no place else was safe for him, anyway. Only here, where the Viper Queen was allowed to rule.