Page 19 of Enslak

My hand moved to my neck automatically, fingers finding the metal band that had been there so long I'd forgotten what it felt like without it.

DNA-coded.

I knew that somehow. Knew that only my flesh could touch it. Knew that if anything else did, if anyone tried to remove it, we'd both die.

In the arena, I'd learned to fight around it. Every opponent. Every creature. Every blade, they were all secondary threats.

The collar was the real danger. More lethal than any weapon they could put in my hands or turn against me.

I'd watched others die when their collars were struck. Watched them and their opponents disintegrate in a flash of light and heat that left nothing but scorched stone.

The crowd always roared louder for those deaths. The spectacular ones.

So I'd learned. Learned to keep my neck protected even when it meant taking a blade to the ribs. Learned to twist away from strikes that came too high. Learned that survival meant treating the collar like an exposed artery.

Because that's exactly what it was.

One wrong hit and everything ended.

The guards knew it too. They'd use it. Threaten it. Hold their hands near the metal just to watch me freeze. Just to watch the fear override every instinct to fight back.

Now this female, and I knew she was female, knew it with certainty even though she wore Zarlak's face, was telling me she'd remove it.

Fear spiked through me. Sharp and cold and more real than anything I'd felt in, well, how long?

If she failed, we'd both die.

But if she succeeded—

I didn't let myself finish that thought. Couldn't.

Hope was more dangerous than any creature in the arena.

She pulled something from her clothing. A tool. Long and metal. Thin as a claw but straight. Precise.

"Sit," she said in Vaktaire.

I understood that word. Knew it.

I sat.

The stone floor was cold and filthy beneath me. I didn't care. I kept my eyes on her. On the tool in her hand. On the careful way she moved closer.

"Very still," she said again. "One wrong move..."

She didn't finish.

Didn't need to.

I knew what one wrong move meant.

Death for both of us.

I went absolutely motionless. Every muscle locked. Every instinct that screamed at me to move, to fight, to never let anyone near my throat, I forced it all down and became stone.

She knelt beside me. Close enough that her scent filled my nose and cleared my head more than it had been in—

Maybe ever.