“First blood,” she announced with a smug smile. The comment was automatic. She had said it to him hundreds of times before when they sparred.
Both of them were panting, but she wasn’t exhausted. She felt alive for the first time in years. Realization dawned on her, bitter and alarming—she missed this. Even though they were actively trying to kill each other, she missed fighting with this level of intensity and passion.
He ran two fingers across the cut, smearing the blood. “You always were good at that, Ves.” It sounded like he was smiling, remembering their matches with the same fondness she had seconds before.
A familiar pride washed over her. But that was a weakness, that desire for his approval, and so she replaced it with the onlything she knew—rage. “You don’t get to call me that anymore. Like we’re still comrades. Like we’re stillfriends,” she hissed as she lunged.
He blocked the first three strikes of her barrage and landed a jab to her side that was so powerful the pain of it radiated outward. But she was in his space now, and he was forced to give ground as her blade cut across his arm next.
“I am aware we are not friends,” he threw back. He feinted, and when she brought her blade down to meet him, his was already slicing into her. The sharp edge of his plasma dirk ripped through her suit and bit into her hip, leaving a gash in its wake. Not fatal, but more cuts like that and she could certainly bleed out.
They broke apart, chests heaving.
“You made that choice. The Xaal attacked us. Itrustedyou. And that trust endangered my faction. You had no regard forme,didn’t even think of what it would do to me. You broke my—” She stopped herself. The words that were climbing up her throat were too much. Too honest. Tooraw.
They traded blows, came away with matching shallow slashes on their ribs.
“Everything I did that night was with you in mind. I was trying to stop an all-out war. If I wasn’t there, it would have been a massacre.”
“But itwasa massacre,” she growled. “You slaughtered them. How was that for me? How was any of it for me?” They circled each other like predators with nowhere else to go but through. “And then you forced my hand, just like you did when you came here and trapped me in this fucking cave with you.”
“Because we are unfinished. That night seven cycles ago,” he ground out, lunging for her.
His speed surprised her. He’d kept that hidden, showing her only what she expected to find—a slower, bigger opponent. Forseven years he’d harbored the idea of coming to kill her, and the full weight of it was in his body as he swung his blade toward her neck. Her evasion was sloppy; she would pay for her mistake.
But instead of punching her or dealing a fatal blow, he grabbed her. He gripped the front of her suit, pulling her into him. “Youchallengedme,” he snarled.
Every time she tried to put space between them, he merely crushed her to him harder. Her sword was angled in such a way that she couldn’t gain any force behind a strike for it to matter. He was half hauling, half pushing her back as he strode purposely forward.
She couldn’t get her feet under her. Gods damn it. She landed punishing hits to his solar plexus and ribs, but he was relentless. Back and back until her spine hit the wall. He lifted her up by her suit until his hips could press in against hers, effectively trapping her. She was forced to wrap her legs around his broad waist to keep herself from being completely pinned.
Vessa retracted her blade and brought it between them. But before she could position it to expand into his neck, he grabbed her wrist. She bared her teeth and punched the side of his mask hard. The impact of it knocked his head to the side. Her knuckles split open, but as she struck him a second time, he twisted her captured wrist. Her bones screamed. He was going to break it.
With nothing but heartache, she let go of the hilt of her raze sword.
It clattered against the cold stone. Condemned her.
“A challenge only ends in death,” he snarled. “Either you or me or both. Instead, you damned me to a half life. I can’t find joy in a hunt, haven’t collected a trophy since—fuck—since the last one we collected together. I don’t sleep, I don’t eat. I can barely fuckingbreathe.”
“Good,” she spat—and freed the small pin blade from her braid and raked it across his chest.
The first time, it caught in his light armor; the second drew blood. The thin blade was no longer than her pinky, it would do nothing but scratch him, but damn her if she wouldn’t make him bleed before he killed her.
“The best thing I ever did was let you live that night then. You deserve nothing but misery after everything you did. Everything you stole from me!”
He snapped his jaws hard as a clicking growl rolled through him. Dread washed over her—a primal reaction to a primal noise. She’d never heard something so terrible come from him, but it could mean only one thing. He brought his plasma dirk to her neck.
Kedar was about to kill her.
Vessa felt every inch of his blade against her skin. She spared a thought for her parents, her home, and even Liv. But she was ready. Rolling her shoulders back, she stretched out her neck, and looked him straight in the eyes. Tethered as they were, this was personal, and she’d make damn sure he witnessed every bloody second of it.
“Do it.”
Vessa watched with sick satisfaction as he raised his other fist. She’d expected an execution—a respectful death. That Kedar harbored such hatred for her that he was willing to smash her face in first shouldn’t surprise her. She wanted to rip him apart, too. Tear him open. Gritting her teeth, she still held his gaze.
His fist flew, and a thousand memories flitted through her mind in the second it took to land.
But not in her face. His knuckles slammed into the cavern wall, so close to her head that her hair was caught.
