ALTHEA

Her temperature was still fluctuating wildly and it was proving very difficult to focus on evening it out to normal. Racing, hormone saturated thoughts, bounced all over her brain. She wasn’t smoothly coming down from the physical high: radiating heat, then shivering with cold, then shaking with uncontrollable tremors. Althea stood leaning, her back to a solid wall, eyes screwed tight, concentrated on her breathing – in and out, in and out – her hot breath blowing through the fingers in her mouth, as she bit down hard on them. The charge she felt from the fight, the physical, sexual charge, still strong, still palpable, still driving her heartbeat up and up and up.

Twice, when a Makani had passed her she had to suppress the urge to attack them.

It’s not you. It’s the hormones. You have to take control of them. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

The undercurrent of throbbing pain helped distract her from the violent compulsions. Above all the pains she felt, the throbbing of her hands from the battering they’d taken by the big man’s hide helped the most. Maybe his skin could have stopped bullets.

She opened her eyes at a sound, a creak, a shout, looked quickly left and right. There was no one, just the muffled sounds from the hall beyond.

The sounds of excitement, the rumbling of the crowd, still filled the air around her. The result of her cleaning the hall’s floor with their favorite bully and/or the offer of the trilium?

The hall keeper and his brother had gladly taken the tiny cylinder, agreed to a back room recruitment – no problem, no problem at all. She thought of the moment, standing above them, all those eyes on her, all the attention – all that dangerous attention. It was easy to second-guess the choice to fight, the trilium offer to the crowd. An offer of a hundred grams had been a guess and worry was gnawing at her. What would the offer inspire?– adventurous spirit or homicidal greed?– Or swift action by Panak’s ruler?

She needed deeper quiet, made her way around the collection of containers littering the hallway, to the back room the keepers had told her would be waiting. Opening the door revealed a dingy, musty chamber, a few dust covered tables, a collection of dusty chairs. Once the door was closed, it was blessedly quiet.

Finding a chair to curl up in, Althea continued with the breathing exercises to calm her heart, her body, her mind. She retrieved Dorian’s case, closed her eyes, concentrated on him, his beauty, the warmest thoughts. Time slipped by… until her eyes flew open, tensing with the sound of the door’s latch lifting. She quickly stowed him away, sat up straight – readying herself.

The door slowly creaked open, letting a low murmuring creep in. Kyso followed, nodded slightly to her, closed the door behind him. She started to smile, then saw the embarrassment on his face. Was he still hurting from her angry scolding earlier? Seeing her smile, he responded with a grin of his own.

“There’s a crowd gathering out there,” he told her, thumb pointing where he’d come from. She nodded, sat up straighter in the chair.

“You must have truly impressed the rabble,” he told her in unabashed admiration. “There’s a lot more than the six you wanted.”

She settled back in the hard chair, wondering how to balance off the envy of those who wouldn’t be chosen. Always something to deal with – and there wasn’t an endless supply of trilium in her pockets. She straightened. It was best to appear professional and in control, even to Kyso, although she was starting to wonder what she needed to do to shake his apparent hero worship of her.

“Then I’ll choose the best,” she assured him. She lifted hand to wave an instruction. “Try to keep them happy, have the hall keeper provide them food, drinks.”

She pointed a finger in warning.

“But not too many drinks,” she finished, satisfied with the command. He replied with a look of concern.

“Trae is concerned some of them aren’t actually greggas,” he told her.

“Have him point them out to me,” she requested.

Kyso nodded, loose hair and beard bobbing white.

“I’ll give him the word,” he agreed moved to return to hallway.

“Kyso–” she started.

He turned back to her, expectant.

“I’m sorry about how I was, earlier,” she told him. “Heat of the moment. It was a difficult fight.”

He nodded, hand still on the latch.

“I’m just very glad you won,” he answered, voice choked with barely concealed emotion. Then he lowered his eyes, disappeared behind the closing door.