Alphas of Black Fortune Complete Series (19 page)

Running with Raiders

(Alphas of Black Fortune: Part 5)

By Scarlett Rhone

The tribal village was humming with tension as Cressida, Kelly and Reza were marched through the jungle and back across its perimeter, Chaiya triumphant at the lead. The chieftain’s son had his chest puffed up, his shoulders thrown back, and Cressida was having a hard time not thinking of him as a strutting cockatoo instead of a tiger. He led them to the center of the village where the chieftain’s large hut sat and there, as Sajja’s figure filled the hut’s doorway, Chaiya grabbed Reza by the arm and shoved him to his knees before the chieftain.

Cressida had not realized before that the other huts were arranged around the chieftain’s hut in rings moving outward, and that the center of the village itself was an open space between the chieftain’s hut and the waterfall. People were filling the little alleys and avenues between the huts now, murmuring to each other, and the tribe’s warriors stood like a living fence between them and their prisoners. Cressida started towards Reza, but a hand landed on her shoulder, holding her back. Kelly. He stood behind her, his presence a warm buzz at her back, and when he touched her something thrilled through her, electric. She looked up at him.

“Let it happen, love,” Kelly murmured. “If you get in the way, you might make it worse.”

“I don’t see how
that’s
possible,” she hissed.

Sajja emerged from the hut, a hulking figure, broad shoulders layered with wreaths of dried flowers and small animal bones. He wore a headpiece that Cressida thought was constructed first of scales, and thin braids of jungle vine were woven into the long, dark lengths of his hair. His tanned face was an inscrutable mask, but Cressida caught a look he shot at Chaiya and thought she saw satisfaction there, which tanked her heart right down into her heels.

Reza’s sister Kamala stepped out of the chieftain’s hut along with the chieftain’s daughter Prija, who Reza had been meant to marry. The two women stuck close together, and Cressida could see that Kamala’s cheeks were damp. She’d been crying. That did not bode well for Reza’s chances of escaping this preposterous ritual alive.

Sajja stopped just in front of Reza, who kept his head bowed respectfully low, his eyes on the grass.

“It has been a generation since a blood fight was called for,” Sajja announced, his voice lifting so that all the gathered tribe could hear. “And though we have all long believed that such a violent rite is beneath us, the betrayal that brings us here today is nothing short of just as violent. This is not a return to darker times. This rite shall cleanse the island and the tribe itself of the taint brought upon us by Reza, son of Ruang Sak.”

“What’s he saying?” Kelly asked Cressida softly. She realized that though the Jewel of So Sur was translating for her, it was not translating for him.

“Nonsense about cleansing the island with Reza’s blood,” she whispered.

Kelly nodded and Cressida saw his jaw clench angrily.

“I accept this rite,” Reza said, eyes still low.

Sajja nodded. “Then, as is customary, you shall be housed until dawn, when—”

“Great chieftain,” Chaiya interrupted, which brought Reza’s head snapping sharply up. He looked at Chaiya and Cressida felt the same dread fill her heart as she saw creeping into her tiger’s eyes. Chaiya flashed his teeth. “I respectfully request that the blood rite happen
now
.”

“That’s not how it’s done!” Kamala cried, coming forward, though Prija tried to hold her back. “That’s not right! Dawn! He gets a night!”

Sajja held up a hand, and Kamala quieted, but she burst into tears again as Prija hugged her close. The chieftain narrowed his eyes a little, looking from his son to Reza and back. “Why?”

Chaiya pointed at Cressida and Kelly. “He has friends and they have a boat. He’ll try to flee in the night.”

Reza hissed at him. “I’m no coward.”

Chaiya hissed right back. “Then prove it. Fight now.”

“Fine.” Reza got to his feet.

“No!” Kamala cried. “Reza, please!”

Cressida felt Kelly’s hand on her shoulder tighten. She agreed with Kamala. This was happening too quickly. If they’d had the night to plan, to come up with
a plan
, she thought that she could convince Reza to run with them, to flee back to the
Oso Armonia
and get the hell off this island for good. But now…

“I will fight for my honor,” Reza said sharply to his sister. “And for our family’s honor. This is a farce, and I offer my blood as proof of it.”

“He brought his outsiders to the island and they’ve stolen the jewel!” Chaiya shouted, jabbing a finger right at Cressida.

Instinctively, she lifted a hand to the stone hanging heavily on the chain around her neck, nestled between her breasts.

“She stole nothing,” Reza growled. “The Keeper of the Jewel deemed her worthy. And the island will deem me worthy as well in this fight, Chaiya.”

“And if it doesn’t,” Sajja said, his voice a deep rumble, “and you are judged and executed here, on this field of battle, you will sacrifice your life.”

“Yes.” Reza nodded.

Sajja’s mouth curved sharply. “And your
mate’s
life.”

When Cressida gasped softly at that, Kelly ducked his lips to her ear. “What is he saying?”

She hesitated. “That my life is forfeited too if he loses…”

She felt Kelly’s hand leave her shoulder and he surged forward with a furious growl aimed right at Sajja. “No. Unacceptable. She’s not just his mate, you decorated prick.”

“Kelly,” Reza snapped. “Stop. I won’t lose.”

“And you’ll stake Cressida’s life on that?” Kelly scowled at him. “Really?”

“Yes.” Reza stared back at him, immovable. “I will.”

“I’ll kill you myself, Reza.”

“Get in line.”

“I’ll kill
all of you
,” Kelly shouted. “Before I let a single one of you lay hands on her.”

Cressida grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back, shaking her head. “Stop, stop this,” she said. She could feel him seething, could feel the heavy pounding of his pulse beneath her fingers. “Calm down.”

Reza came over to them, voice low and tight, and he said, “I won’t let anything happen to her, Kelly. I can defeat him.”

“And if you
don’t
?” Kelly asked.

“What choice do we really have?” Cressida said to them. Before they could answer, she went on, “None. We have no choice. We can’t fight them all, the three of us.” She looked at Reza. He met her eyes, the gold-green swirl of his bright with determination. “I believe in you.”

Kelly huffed. “This is madness.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Cressida insisted. “I didn’t come all this way and survive all that I have to die here.”

Reza nodded his agreement, and as Cressida pulled Kelly back towards the warriors, he turned to Sajja. “I accept this rite.”

Sajja smiled viciously. “I declare this rite to the death.”

Those words seemed to ring right through the village, perhaps even across the entirety of the island itself, and certainly they shook Cressida down to her bones. Things happened quickly after Sajja’s declaration. The warriors brought forward long lengths of vines woven with the same dried flowers and small bones that their wreaths were crafted of, and using those vines they created a circle in the center of the village. This would be the place of battle. Reza was removed to one side, where he took his sister in his arms as she cried, and Cressida imagined he was promising her the same as he had promised them: that he would win, that he would save them all. Cressida wanted desperately to believe in him just like she’d said she did, but it was hard to watch this strange ritual happen and not feel doubt. No matter what the tribe said, no matter what magic haunted this island, it would come down to Reza and Chaiya and, it seemed, their bare hands. Cressida did not like even odds. She liked tipping the odds.

Reza hugged Kamala close as she cried, and over her head he watched Kelly pull Cressida back behind the vines, where they were circled by a half dozen of the tribe’s best warriors to keep them from interfering.

“Listen to me, salamander,” he murmured softly to his sister. “I’m going to defeat Chaiya and then I’m going to take you with me. You and Prija. We’ll leave here and we’ll start over somewhere else.”

He leaned back a little so that he could look into her face, and Kamala sniffled and wiped at her cheeks, her typically shining brown-gold eyes a ruin of misery. Reza felt a sudden spike of fear lance right through his heart.

“Kamala,” he said. “Do you…
love
…Chaiya?”

Kamala shook her head a little. “No, no,” she insisted. “It isn’t that. I…I don’t hate him, though, Reza. And he’s taken care of me. And I just…I hate that the two of you have to do this. I hate that he’s making you do this. I don’t…I don’t know how to live any other life than this one.”

“I’ll teach you,” Reza promised. He pressed a kiss to her brow. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I just got you back,” Kamala whimpered. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

Prija came forward, taking Kamala’s hands with a heavy look at Reza. “Come on, sister,” she said softly. “Come sit with me.”

Reza nodded to Prija, sympathy in his heart for her as well. “Thank you.”

Prija smiled at him, something sad in it. “Fight well.”

As the women removed themselves, returning to sit on chairs produced for them, alongside those for Sajja and the other elders of the tribe, Reza looked at the circle drawn by the vines. Chaiya was already inside it, removing the wreaths from his neck that marked his station. Reza had no wreaths to remove and wore nothing but the borrowed trousers Kelly had carried with them into the jungle. He didn’t resent any of it, though. Facing down Chaiya and the fight of his life, he finally felt something like freedom, or the hope of it. Like the first rays of dawn that touch the skin. A fragile promise of the warmth to come.

His heart was calm, and when he looked over at Cressida again, he realized why. It was the mark. His heart was bound to hers and bound to Kelly’s, and he felt bolstered by their closeness, by their belief in him. The mark strengthened him. He could feel the power of it flooding through him, and he inhaled deeply as he stepped across the vines and onto the field of battle. Chaiya had stripped down to nothing but his skin and now Reza did the same, and he felt the tiger in his heart roar with anticipation. This fight was long in coming, and though Reza could not blame Chaiya or Sajja for his capture, his enslavement or all the wounds and misery to follow, he did hold them responsible for this ruin of a homecoming. They had taken his home from him, and now that his heart had found another, he felt righteous in his anger instead of scared and weak. He would win this fight for himself and his own honor, but also for Cressida and Kelly, for Kamala and Prija.

Sajja rose from his chair and lifted a hand as Chaiya sank into a crouch across from Reza, and Reza assumed the same position. His muscles burned, strength singing through his limbs as he summoned the animal power deep in his soul and felt it twine with the bright heat of the mark. When Sajja’s hand fell, Reza launched himself at Chaiya. They slammed together and went crashing to the ground in a fury of limbs and snarling. Reza felt Chaiya’s grappling hands turn to claws, and he howled as they dug into his flesh, and gave his heart and body over to the tiger.

He shifted and as he snapped his jaws at Chaiya, Chaiya shifted as well, the black-and-gold fur sprouting over his skin as he twisted and slashed at Reza. The fight was a blur for Reza then, a red-tinged whirl of blood and flesh, stripes and claws and pain. Fury poured through him as he fought, stronger than the pain of each bite or the rake of Chaiya’s claws and fangs. Though the tiger cared only for the kill, Reza kept his mind full of the people and the home he longed for. He thought of Kamala’s sunshine smiles and Prija’s compassion, Cressida’s fierce determination and Kelly’s cleverness. He let the tiger fight but his heart was full of love and the things he was fighting for.

He dug his claws into Chaiya and pinned the other tiger to the ground, clamping his jaws down on his throat. His fangs sank into flesh, and at the taste of blood, Reza managed to regain control of himself, to rein the tiger in enough to know that he was close to killing Chaiya. He remembered Kamala’s tears and the sad smile Prija had given him, and loosed his hold on Chaiya with a furious roar, backing up from the other tiger. Chaiya lay prone on the ground, his massive figure moving with breath, but he did not get up. Reza turned towards Sajja’s chair and shook his head, sitting back on his haunches as he shifted back into his man skin, blood-smeared and aching, but triumphant.

He got unsteadily to his feet, his heart pounding in his ears, and looked at Sajja. The chieftain’s expression was a wreck of dismay and disappointment, his eyes moving from Reza to his prone son and back.

“I offer mercy,” Reza said, exhausted. “I refuse to kill him.”

“But,” Sajja said, “the blood rite demands death.”

“The blood rite is antiquated and we are above it,” Reza hissed. He put a hand to his heart. “
I
am above it. And I choose to spare your son, on the condition that you allow me, my mate, my friends and family to leave this island unharmed.”

Sajja got to his feet, frowning. Reza actually held his breath a moment, watching the chieftain deliberate. But as Reza suspected, even Sajja was not willing to sacrifice his own son for power.

“I accept these terms,” he said slowly, after a moment.

Reza exhaled, relaxing, and nodded. “Good.”

He felt a weight lift from his heart, and those first warm lights of hope filled his spirit, soothing the murderous tiger inside him.

But even as he felt a smile touch his lips, he heard Cressida scream, “Reza, look out!”