Read The Rings Fighter for Free Online Page B

mind that there was more to that story than he was pretending. Moreover, he hadn’t meant to tell her that––about him being trained to use his mind in such a way. That had been a mistake.
    He slid out from under her while she was still watching his face. She continued to stroke his arms and hands until he moved far enough away from her that she couldn’t.
    As soon as he broke physical contact with her, those murmurings of his mind faded.
    He watched her warily now, near the door on the other side of the trolley.
    “Are you ready, Chloe?” he asked, his eyes still studying her face.
    Thinking about his question, she nodded.
    Then, thinking again, she met his gaze before he could open the door.
    “I want you,” she told him.
    His jaw tightened. He didn’t look away but she saw a muscle twitch on his forehead.
    “I’ve just stung you,” he said, his voice gruff. “You must know that’s manipulating what you feel right now, Chloe.”
    She shook her head. “Only in that I’m telling you,” she explained. “I wanted you before. I wanted you at breakfast... last night, even. Well...” Pain rose in her chest, somehow worse under the liquid heat of his venom. “I did before Agnon killed my sister. Before that.” That pain worsened briefly. “After... I was sad. Remembering Kiji.”
    She saw his eyes flinch at her words.
    He nodded then, his face unreadable. “Kiji is your sister’s name?”
    “It was, yes.”
    That tension in his face grew into a nearly visible indecision, as if he were searching for what to say to her. Then, all at once, his expression smoothed.
    “We’ll talk about it later,’ he said. “And whatever else you want. But right now, we need to do this. I need this favor from you. All right?”
    “All right.”
    Averting his dark eyes, he held out a hand to her, his other hand now on the latch of the trolley’s sliding door.
    “Come then,” he said, his voice still gruff.
    She didn’t hesitate, sliding her fingers into his as soon as they were close enough.

    THEY HAD BEEN there for at least an hour... although time was fuzzy inside Nirreth venom.
    Chloe drifted around the room with Trazen, clutching his arm and watching his face without paying much attention to who he spoke to or even whether they tried to speak with her.
    Part of her fascination, she supposed, was how different he acted here.
    She was so caught up in the incongruities of him––between what she felt on him, that quietness of his mind and the arrogant, even brutish-sounding words coming from his mouth as he spoke to other powerful Nirreth––that she jumped in surprise when she suddenly found herself looking at the girl from the Rings.
    She hadn’t noticed where he was taking her.
    Chloe hadn’t known the Rings fighter was there at all. Now she found herself standing in front of a low table where the girl sat with another human and a muscular Nirreth who wore a stone pendant around his neck.
    All three of them stared back at her, their faces tense.
    Well really, they stared at Trazen. They looked only at Trazen... not at her.
    They seemed afraid of him almost.
    Then again, given how much his demeanor changed once he got inside the building, Chloe didn’t find that particularly surprising.
    The change was so dramatic she’d gotten whiplash at first. It felt like she was with someone else entirely, not the person she’d just been speaking to inside that trolley, or the one who’d preferred to pet a deer that morning to eating his breakfast.
    That is, until she touched him. Then she could feel the person she recognized.
    Now she watched in a kind of awe as he transformed back into the Ringmaster again.
    He smiled a cold-eyed smile, arrogant and borderline predatory, folding his muscular arms over his broad chest. He loomed over that table, his whole demeanor vaguely threatening.
    “Come to check out our girl, Trazen?” a voice jeered in human English.
    Chloe’s eyes swiveled to the source, right before the