Neil had done no more than glance at her once before Jesse had cut him off, but by the way he'd said nothing meant that Vice or Talamayas had already talked to him. It gave her shivers, feeling his red eyes run down her, but she'd done her best to brush off Neil's nervousness as fear and not anticipation for what he might do or say when he realized she'd messed up in the battlegrounds. Watching him leave had been painful for her, seeing his white hair threading through the wind as Ares gave her a concerned backwards glance.

"I apologize that you had to be here for that," Jesse said, pulling her close to him. "That man wanted something, I'm sure of it, but I can't fathom what."

"You are fighting him?" Silvia asked tentatively, knowing being silent was better to keep her feelings for Neil hidden, bust she had to know.

"Yes, we are the fourth fight in the first round. It's nothing you need worry about. The Arcs aren't a match for the Zehirs, and though he may be a house head, just a few years ago he was nothing but an heir. Heirs are pompous, pampered, and needn't the same skills as their generals. My position requires I be a warrior, where his is looking nice and speaking diplomatically."

Silvia's stomach hurt, and she clutched it as she thought about Jesse hurting Neil.

"You needn't worry, Silvia." Jesse lifted her chin, and she couldn't keep the tears tucked into her eyes. "These matches are for display. We scuffle a bit, yes, but not many are close enough in power to draw it out. We mostly push back our opponents and position for a blow that would end them but stop short of casting it. It's really quite tame."

"If you say so." She rubbed the tears away, and Jesse frowned.

"I'm not going to lose," Jess insisted, and she groaned.

Not what she was worried about.

They advanced to the arena, and Jesse left her in the rooms below that were set aside for blood slaves. It was where the entrants both entered for their rounds and retreated to after the fights to drink and rejuvenate. While the blood slaves waited, their masters sat up above them to watch the other matches, and it left Silvia alone with a few humans she didn't know nor care to know. Some of the blood slaves were talking even though they didn't share houses, but she didn't want to interact with anyone who might be gleaning information for their masters. She plopped on the bench against the wall and relaxed while the vampires had some opening ceremonies speech by one of the high council members and then the first challenger on her side entered. Silvia's eyes popped as Talamayas stood before her and neared with an interested smile.

"Patiently awaiting your master, Silvia Copse?" Talamayas asked, and she frowned, but it lessened as someone sat next to her and brushed a whole half of her body with his presence. Vice.

A vampire called out Talamayas' name, and he gave her a small wave as he headed to the arena. Silvia couldn't help but stand to see the fight, though the rest of the blood slaves seemed not to care if it was not their master. No one in here looked like a tan-skinned Sol, and she wondered if Talamayas had even bothered with bringing a blood slave. He wouldn't need one if he intended to win every fight without effort.

That was what happened with Darius Shade. The man fell to Talamayas in such a calculated strike that Silvia cringed as cheers went up in the crowd. The vampire house heads and company favored him, it seemed. Talamayas passed by her just briefly on his way out but said nothing as he shuffled by and the next vampire came in. It was someone she didn't know, so she retreated back to her bench where Vice joined her again. She jumped, having expected him to follow Talamayas, but there were two of him, so she imagined only one had remained here.

Did he think she needed the comfort? Or had Talamayas ordered him to protect her?

A hand brushed against her hair, and she tried not to blush as he slipped an arm around her shoulders and relaxed against the wall. Half of Vice was very sweet, and she imagined that was the half sitting with her now.

The vampire who'd fought came back into the room after the match with a snarl on his face, and Silvia stiffened as he yanked the girl on the right of the room to his fangs without so much as a word. Wide-eyed and trembling, the girl let out only a small breath as the man buried his teeth in her flesh and took her blood in gruesome gulps. Vice pressed her head to his shoulder as she watched the loser of the last scuffle drain the girl until her eyes rolled back and she passed out.

She'd thought the blood slaves brought here were favored, but this one had been terrified when he'd dropped his fangs on her throat. Perhaps they brought extras to feed from and one to live on their arm, which was reasonable. One trophy slave, and the other's cage raised chickens. Vice stood and touched her face, retreating just as Jesse came in the room. Of course, he came to stand in front of her and smiled, that way he always did.

"Wish me luck?" Jesse asked, a small blush coloring his face.

What the hell was she supposed to say to that? She couldn't very well wish him luck if he was about to beat the crap out of her mate, but she didn't know if Neil was worried about this fight either. By the way he'd talked to Jesse, he wasn't concerned, but Neil had been hiding a lot in that conversation, so how was she to know?

"Good luck," Silvia gave up with a sigh, and she smiled back to him genuinely. Go easy on my mate, would be a bad thing to add, so she stood up to hug Jesse, and he purred as he held her to him. "Don't get hurt, okay?" That desire was sincere. Neither here, in play fighting, nor on the battlefield, did she want Neil or Jesse to get hurt.

"I'm not concerned," Jesse said with a gentle smile as they called his name, and he departed with a wave.

Silvia crept to the smaller doors to watch the fight from the corner of it, and Jesse walked out to face Neil. The hairs rose on the back of her neck as she saw Neil trail over to the center of the arena with his entire form hunched timidly. Something wasn't right. Neil was overconfident by nature, so what he was showing was a façade, like earlier when he'd chatted with Jesse. Across the rolling dust of the arena, his red eyes met hers for an instant, and confidence flashed in them for just a second that made her realize she'd been worried about the wrong person.

The fight started with a chittering tone that wasn't at all like the gong they'd used for Talamayas' fight, and she wondered why they differed but had little time to think about it. Blood splattered into the air, whipping up behind Jesse as Neil moved between them and ripped out the muscles in the back of his legs and arms. Silvia brought her hand to her mouth as Neil shifted and put himself firmly between Jesse and her.

"Piece of shit," Jesse Zehir rasped.

"It will be rather hard to move with one leg and your dominant arm incapacitated." Neil's cackle sent a shiver down her spine, but from where she was, she could only see his back and the wisps of his white hair flowing through the air. "Feel free to surrender."

"Over my dead body, you Arc shit," Jesse growled, and by the way he struggled to move, she knew that the slashes in his limbs were not allowing it. Cuts healed quickly for vampires, but not those laced with dark magic. Those needed blood to heal, so this fight was over.

It had been over before it had started, but Jesse wouldn't surrender, not to Neil.

"Remember I gave you a chance." Neil's tone rang with every ounce of his rage as he moved on Jesse.

It was hard to watch, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. This wasn't a fight, and each and every blow or cut to Jesse tore through her heart as Neil fought for her. No matter how they tussled or spun, Neil always landed with his back to her, cutting Jesse off from her. It happened too often to be anything else but his way of protecting her even though he couldn't do anything else. Jesse wouldn't even notice because he had no idea Neil was her pissed off mate, slashing ever day she'd been forced to stay with Jesse into the man's body.

Jesse screamed, and Silvia couldn't stand to watch any more. "Vice, make them stop," Silvia whispered, desperate for this slow torture to end.

By the time Vice touched the top of her head to comfort her, Talamayas was in the middle of the fight. It was instant, her speaking to this Vice and the other knowing and communicating it to Talamayas. If she'd said something sooner, could she have spared Jesse pain? Right now, her eyes were on Talamayas as he held Neil well off the ground and constricted his claws around his throat. Their alliance was not known among the vampires, so this was a show for the people.

At least she hoped it was.

It didn't look like one when Talamayas flung Neil with dark magic into the wall, and it fell in on him. Ares was there in an instant, keeping the rocks from crushing him, but Neil was out cold from the force of Talamayas' power. After, Talamayas moved to offer Jesse a hand up, but he refused him, dragging his damaged limbs in shame all the way across the arena until he stumbled into the door right next to her. The arena was silent as the doors closed behind Jesse, and she dropped to her knees next to him as he fell to his own.

Dark energy sparked off of him, and he was dripping blood from almost everywhere, but nothing repelled her more than the vicious look in his eyes as he met hers, promising retribution. It frightened her, the way his once light eyes had dipped to near her natural navy, and how his gentle smile was all but smothered by a scowl of rolled back lips, bared fangs, all of it covered in a black slick of blood.

Claws reached for her, and she closed her eyes and braced herself when Jesse leaned into her neck, fangs extending as he moved. Inhaling against her neck, Jesse let out a low growl of desire, pressed his lips to her throat, and slid his hands under her arms to clutch her to him. Like that, she gasped in fearful breaths as she waited from him to bite her, her heart pounding against his chest. When he moved his mouth to the side on her neck, she squeaked, but he only nuzzled her closer and let out a slow breath before he inhaled her in again.

"Silvia," Jesse murmured against her skin, and heat crept into her face from the warmth of his breath on her skin and the soft groan at the end of his words. "Please calm down. I won't hurt you," he whispered the words into her ear. "I just wanted to hold you. I didn't mean to frighten you."

Jesse's fingers tailed down though her hair and lingered on the back of her neck where he flipped them and rubbed her skin with the backs of his knuckles. It took a few deep breaths, but she managed to get her heart rate in check as she sat in his arms, and by the time her breathing was back to an even rhythm, she was ready for his fangs as they sank into her flesh.

The initial pinch always hurt for just a moment, and then it was reduced to a dull throb around where his fangs buried into her neck. With how injured he was, he held nothing back, and she gripped his sides as he drank deeply, pulling so much blood at once that she was dizzy not a second after he'd started. That damn concoction they fed her meant he could drink more from her, but it didn't feel any better, only meant she wouldn't die.

Her arms trembled as cold washed over her, and even then, he hadn't stopped. It had never gone this far before, and her heart sped up a bit but then plummeted as it threw her into a dizziness that she couldn't handle. There wasn't enough blood in her body to keep up with an elevated pumping of blood and her vision blackened as she fell limp in his arms, all expect for her head, which was held by his firm hand to his fangs.

#

She awoke with a start and sat up, quite expecting this to be the afterlife. Instead, she found herself under a blanket and next to Jesse who was asleep on top of it and curled around her. Lights flickered outside in the dark, and she could hear the people from the celebration mingling, so she knew they hadn't left the venue. This was just an open room, likely near the arena in case anyone was truly wiped out like Jesse. That had been way too much blood to lose if she wasn't hopped up on that rejuvenation juice, and she wondered often if it might not have strange side effects when she went off of it.

"You're awake," Jesse said, and she dropped her gaze to his open eyes, once again a light gentle blue. His black hair splayed loosely out around his head, and he moved some of it out of his face so that he could better see her.

"I am," she said carefully.

"I'm sorry I frightened you," Jesse said, his expression dropping into a regretful downward curvature.

"It's not your fault. You were pretty banged up," Silvia said, unable to stop herself from giving him a good look over. Sometime while she'd slept, he'd gotten new clothes and he looked okay now. That made her feel better, but she could still remember the sounds of his gasps of pain and couldn't shake the last screech of agony that had escaped his lips.

"It is my fault. I should have surrendered, but I didn't realize that Neil Arc would take it that far. The man in known to be a bit rabid, but that wasn't a lapse in judgement nor him losing control of an urge. It was calculated and deliberate, aimed at me, not my house. I did something to piss him off, but I'd never met him prior to today, so I haven't the faintest what I could have done. I suppose I insulted him a few times in our banter, but nothing deserving of that." Jesse sat up with a twinge of pain, and he groaned as he looked over to her.

"I'm sorry," she said in a whisper, and she shouldn't have.

"Why are you apologizing?" Jesse asked, and she couldn't stop the tears that lined her eyes.

Dammit, why did they just plop out at the worst times? She wasn't cut out to be an emotionless infiltrator assassin because she cared about Jesse and Neil, and this was her fault and no one else's.

"You know why he's angry at me," Jesse said with surprise, and she couldn't meet his eyes. A finger yanked her chin up, and she cringed as he held her face in place in front of his. "Silvia, I won't harm you for knowledge you withheld from me. You're not loyal to me, and I understand that. Would you at least tell me what you know?"

"I can't," Silvia answered. The knowledge he wouldn't harm her for, but being the mate of his enemy put her in a situation to be bait or leverage. Jesse held her face in place until her eyes wandered back to his, and she found his expression concerned more than frustrated.

"You're still frightened of me. I won't harm you. Why don't you believe me?" Jesse was asking himself more than her, and she didn't like the way his mind seemed to be connecting dots without any of her help. "Unless you're... someone." Jesse's eyes darkened, and she flinched, but he let her chin go.

She rubbed it and sat up, but moved back from him.

"It was you, wasn't it," Jesse said in a hushed breath. "Neil Arc didn't show up near me, he showed up by you, and I cut him off." Jesse's eyes were much too pointedly focused on her, and she had nowhere to go. "Neil Arc was angry at me because I have you."

Silvia looked around to the side and wondered how far she could get before Jesse threw her to the ground. Not far, she imagined.

"Your mate isn't a mage, is he?" Jesse leaned back into the headboard. "But you're an infiltrator, so he had no way of protecting you in the north, and no way of claiming you because that would mean you would be ostracized by your people. Fuck."

Silvia jumped on the word.

Gritting his teeth, Jesse turned to her with his eyebrows crunched lower. "That is why his general let him beat the shit out of me. There is nothing more important to a vampire than their mate. Why didn't you tell me before the fight?" Jesse said with an agonized whine and a lot less anger than she'd expected. "Silvia, I could have avoided that entirely if I'd known. I would have known he'd be coming for me with no restraint... But that meant I'd have been prepared, and you wouldn't do anything to jeopardize your mate."

"I'm sorry," Silvia whispered. "You don't have to believe me, but I didn't want that to happen to you." Silvia couldn't deny anything at this point. Neil had made it too obvious by targeting Jesse when they barely knew each other. There was no other reason to explain that.

"I know that," Jesse said with a long slow sigh. "You're either a really good actor, or you're too kind for this plane of existence, Silvia. You must have been terrified listening to Tanya and me discussing your mate's demise."

"Can you please not say that aloud with so many wandering ears," Silvia asked, her shoulders dipping because she knew she had no right to ask for his secrecy.

"These rooms are magic lined, Silvia. It keeps people from hearing past the walls what we say within. As little as you might think of me, I would not jeopardize your safety by saying things that could make you a target in public."

"I don't think... little of you," Silvia said, lifting her eyes to him. "You're kind, but you're also loyal to your shit house head."

Jesse laughed, and she jumped again. Any loud or quick movements from him had her frightened that he'd take it all back and turn into a monster. "You certainly take no time in speaking your mind once you know no one can eavesdrop."

"What will you do with me?" Silvia asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer. Now Jesse knew her value as well as that someone would be coming for her after this.

"I'm not the type of person who leverages another's mate, Silvia. You have nothing to fear from me. Knowing who you are does change how I will treat you, but not in a negative manner. I would have given you more respect had I known you were mated to a vampire. We have laws, and if Neil chooses to enforce them, he can take you from me at any time. You both seem to be keeping it to yourselves, and I will honor your wishes.

"For now, we must head to the council meeting. You slept through the remainder of the fights, and I must admit, to your dismay I suppose, I did gain some enjoyment from watching Talamayas backhand your mate. It wasn't even a contest."

"No, it's really not," Silvia said with a sigh. "Did I miss Neil fighting anyone else?"

Jesse arched an eyebrow, and she sealed her lips. Perhaps she shouldn't test how far she could get with him, when his not killing her or giving her over to Tanya was already a grand gesture.

"There was one more fight of interest., Jesse said coolly. "Remus Shade fought your mate after me, and it was quite the spectacle. Your mate knows how to command a crowd for better or for worse."

"That he does." Silvia met Jesse's hard expression, but it only took him a moment before his kind smile returned.

"You're a shitty infiltrator," Jesse said with a laugh as he stood and offered her a hand up.

"I know," she said as she accepted it with a tepid smile of her own, unsure if everything was still okay. There were many ways Jesse could have responded to this revelation, and so far, he seemed more apologetic than anything. "You're a shitty captor," she decided to respond, and Jesse gave her one final chuckle before he pulled her out the door and back into the night.

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Word Count: 3632