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“Why don’t they get in trouble for doing this?”
“Because the Games generate considerable profit.”
She sagged. “I guess that makes sense. I still want to get even.”
“They didn’t kidnap you. Another species did.”
“Doesn’t matter. They brought me to the Games, and we know the Universal Council refused to accept me.”
She was right. It was common to buy those who’d been taken from other worlds.
“But we’re getting away from the immediate issue here,” she said, her gaze narrowed on my face.
What did she hope to see?
I lifted my brow ridge.
“You flew,” she said.
“Not any farther than I have before.”
“I think you could fly us to the bottom of the cliff.”
“Oh, no,” I said abruptly, curling my wings against my spine as if that would hide them. “I’ve tried many times, but I can never travel more than a short distance.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? They don’t work, that’s why.”
“Maybe.” She traced her finger across one of my scales. “And I’m not saying this to push you or make you feel something you don’t, but . . . Do you think, maybe, you didn’t want them to work because that would mean a success for Lord Vunne?”
“You’re suggesting I don’t know my own body or mind.” I wasn’t hurt by her assumption. My brothers had stated the same thing more than once.
“I believe you resisted where you could. You were tortured. No person has the right to do to what he did to your body. It would be natural for you to not want anything to work. I imagine you and your brothers sometimes pretended something didn’t work solely to hand Vunne a defeat.”
“We did.” I pondered what she was saying. My wings had never functioned the way Vunne intended, and I had taken pleasure in watching his face when I failed yet again. “You could be right.”
“I’m sorry.” She hugged me. “I don’t like pushing you like this.”
“You make me think, and that isn’t a bad thing.”
“It’s not a big deal, but if you want to try to fail, go for it. Nothing and no one should hold you back.”
“If we crash, you could be hurt,” I said, standing. I braced my body against a rock and surveyed the distance we still had to travel. Far below, the land flattened. The open area continued for a long distance after that. If I was seeing it correctly, the cavern eventually ended at another cliff that rose as high as the one we’d stood on.
“I trust you not to hurt me,” she said.
“I can’t control the fall. I’ll bang into things.” It would crush me to see her bleeding. Speaking of which. I glanced at my leg, noting the blood trickling down my shin. After lowering Summer to her feet and making sure she could brace herself against the rock, I examined the wound.
She gasped. “You’re hurt.”
Tumbles came near and cooed, studying my wound as intently as Summer. One of the pesky monitors flew close so the viewers could take in the blood trickling down my leg.
“It isn’t bad,” I said, flicking my hand toward the monitor. Touching it could be dangerous, but I didn’t want it near me.
“Not bad?” Summer said. “You’re bleeding.”
“It is slowing.”
