English?
Very bad, broken English, but understandable when she’d pondered over the strange pronunciations for a few minutes.
Dismay filled her when she was certain she understood despite her best efforts to convince herself that it was the best possible conclusion she could hope for.
The key words, though, were ‘best possible conclusion she could hope for’.
Going home appealed to her way more, but although she hadn’t consciously acknowledged it before, she knew there was no point in even considering that possibility.
They wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to get her here and then simply turned around and sent her back.
She knew that.
The urge to cry created a knot the size of a football in her throat. It took an effort to swallow past it. She had to fight the impulse to burst out sobbing.
She couldn’t afford that, she told herself angrily.
She couldn’t afford to allow herself to eventhinkabout anything that would weaken her determination to survive or she wasn’t going to make it.
She had to think positively, had to use the only advantage she evenmighthave.
They weren’t human, she told herself, so it probably wasn’t likely they would be swayed by anything she could think of to do except to please them. She thought if they were willing to fight for her then she would have some value to them right off and she could make herselfmorevaluable by making them comfortable and or happy.
That was the only choice she actually had—being stupid and showing her ass until they got tired of listening and killed her or being useful.
She just had to adjust her attitude to suit whoever won her and work hard to act like whatever they did was just wonderful.
That might not work, she reminded herself. Theywerealiens. But what choice did she have but to consider the same things that worked with human men were likely to work with them?
She was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a ‘getting to know you’ period and it was their choice, not hers.
She tried not to think about the fact that she was the spoils of war. The strongest and best among them would get her.
Which meant there wasn’t much likelihood that she’d get the chance to be swapped if it transpired that she was won by an evil bastard that got his jollies torturing her.
* * * *
By the time the fighting was over and the dust had cleared, Eleanor had passed beyond caring who got her or what the plan was. She was in so much agony from hanging by her arms so long that she couldn’t pierce the haze of pain.
Until the dust settled and she heard the winner announced and then the pounding of running feet … in her direction.
The seven foot yellow warrior—long, black ponytail flying behind him—charged across the field toward her—a sword as long as she was tall raised threateningly.
Her heart leapt into her chest as he neared her and leapt into the air as if he’d been launched from a springboard, the arm wielding the sword poised to strike.
Good, she told herself. Good! She could get it over with and no more pain and suffering. In that moment in time, she welcomed surcease even if it took death to give it to her.
She thought he’d cut her arms off when she started to fall. She felt the jerk as he swung his sword above her head, but her arms were too numb, thankfully, to feel the pain.
She felt the lead weight of her arms falling.
Felt her body sucked down by gravity.
The landing jolted her painfully and she inhaled a hiss of a breath.
The ring of metal against something wooden drew her gaze like a homing laser. Her head swiveled in that direction of its own accord and she saw the sword he’d been carrying vibrating in a wall studded with dozens of other weapons—saw more slam into, or against it, forming a growing pile of shields, swords, hammers, axes and knives below as the warriors ‘returned’ the accoutrements of war.
“No harm liddle ting, k?”
