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“Yes,” I said, shocked at the calmness of my voice. “Don’t come in. We’re armed!”
“I have to come in,” the prisoner said.
I pulled my cudgel back and the other girls did the same. I admired their spirit and wondered if their hearts were thudding in their ears the same way mine was.
“Don’t you dare!” I snapped. “Or you’ll regret it!”
The prisoner didn’t say another word and instead lowered his claw to the door handle and pressed it.
I took a step closer, my muscles firm and hard, ready to bring the cudgel around at a moment’s notice.
The beast opened the door and it caught on the lock, but the creature just kept pushing and the lock tore free from the frame and came with the door.
Like it was tissue paper.
The prisoner was a fizzark, with green scales, a yellow chest, and a thick mane of dark hair that ran from his head and down his back. An impressive beast under normal circumstances… but this was no normal circumstance.
The figure raised his eyes and looked us over, his eyes dropping to our bare legs and the weapons clutched in our hands for a fraction of an instant. It was enough to peer behind his veil of obvious sexual attraction before he swallowed and cleared his throat.
“Get back,” he said.
I blinked at that.
“Get back?” I said, raising the business end of my snapped chair leg. “That was what I was going to say.”
“My name is Jeeth. We’ve been sent to protect you.”
Ghisak whined with relief.
I double-blinked at his statement. I wasn’t going to believe him so blindly as Ghisak. “What do you mean, you’ve been sent here to protect us? Sent by who?”
“Thillak,” Jeeth said simply. “Put down your weapons. They’re not going to protect you anyway.”
Other alien male prisoners filtered into the room and moved to remove the makeshift weapons from our shaking hands.
The females looked over at me with two parts hope, one part fear. The same question was posed on each of their lips, although none could bring themselves to ask it: Can we trust them?
I knew little of this Thillak figure, other than the fact he was the leader of a crime syndicate in some far-flung solar system. He was also meant to be one of the most ruthless criminal figures in the entire galaxy… but he was also, so some of the champions had told me, a creature of his word.
But there was a bigger, more pressing reason to let the beasts take our weapons from us. There were half a dozen of them, each wrapped with layers of muscle beyond counting. Even if we teamed up, we wouldn’t have stood a chance against even one of them.
The fact they were also working together, seemed to know each other, and appeared calm despite the riot taking place outside… it gave me pause for thought. A filament of hope wheedled into my consciousness.
I nodded at the females who handed their weapons over.
Next came the moment of truth…
“We’ll protect the outer room,” the prisoner said. “Are there any other entrances into this back room?”
“Only the showers and our bedrooms,” I said. “But there are other entrances into the outer room.”
Jeeth’s eyes slipped down once again. He might have been sent there to protect us, but he was still a male.
I didn’t care. He could look all he liked — just so long as he helped keep us safe.
“Good,” he said. “Then you watch over the Prizes while we guard the outer room. We’ll repel anyone who attempts to break in.”
“Why don’t you leave one guard with us?” I said. “He would make a lot of the females feel safer.”
